Ethics

New Leader of Afghan War Likes Torture

By Ed Brayton

Esquire has an article, first printed in 2006, about Camp Nama, a detention facility in Iraq that made Abu Ghraib look like a church social. It contains testimony from two military officers who worked at the facility until their consciences could take it no more and then blew the whistle. How bad was it?

It was a point of pride that the Red Cross would never be allowed in the door, Jeff says. This is important because it defied the Geneva Conventions, which require that the Red Cross have access to military prisons. "Once, somebody brought it up with the colonel. 'Will they ever be allowed in here?' And he said absolutely not. He had this directly from General McChrystal and the Pentagon that there's no way that the Red Cross could get in -- they won't have access and they never will. This facility was completely closed off to anybody investigating, even Army investigators."

Full post as published by Dispatches from the Culture Wars on May 15, 2009 (boomark / email).