The Wrong Place at the Wrong Time

July 28, 2008
by Cliff Carson

A Letter to Dave Lindorff concerning his Article "Torture for the Torturers"

Thank you Dave for your excellent article. And also for printing one of the responses that you received. There is something however that bothers me in all this discussion I see from all kinds of sources concerning torture. There is seldom a mention of torture other than sleep deprivation, water boarding, or humiliation.

None of these assaults on the human body cause death, and yet there are over 100 documented cases of detainees being tortured to death. And these are just the documented, i. e. Eye witnessed. My guess is that there are many hundreds of undocumented detainees tortured to death (also there are over a hundred detainees who once were in the record as a detainee who have just disappeared with no explanation why and cannot now be accounted for ).

Since the humiliation, sleep deprivation, and waterboarding are inhuman treatment, but not fatal, why do I not see many, other than me, questioning what happened to the people who were tortured to death? By what means were they killed? And if they were giving up sought for information, why were they tortured to death?

One case I have written about several times, trying to get the message to caring people, is the case of Manadel Al Jamadi. He was tortured to death at Abu Gahrib on November 4, 2003 during a night of "questioning" by Navy Seals and members of one of the Mercenary outfits, possibly CACI. Witnesses say that Manadel was subjected to "Palestinian Hanging" a torture developed by Israel to use on Palestinians.

The arms are secured at the wrists behind the back, then a rope is tied to the wrist bindings and the body is lifted off the floor with the arms tied behind the back. This places great stress on the shoulder sockets and ribs. Witnesses say that after being subjected to this procedure for a lengthy period of time Al Jamidi's weight was released allowing the pressure to his shoulders and ribs to be ended.

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Those same witnesses say that at that moment blood gushed out of Manadel Al Jamadi's mouth like a torrent of water. He had died; speculation was that he had drowned in his own blood. Those same people state that he had never uttered a word during this torture.

Manadel Al Jamadi was not the only detainee to be tortured to death at Abu Gahrib that November night by the same "Interrogators".

Of the documented deaths from torture, none died from humiliation, sleep deprivation, or waterboarding, but just as was Jamadi's death, they died from something cruel and inhuman being done to them until they were no longer alive.

How many of these dead and tortured were innocent beings caught up by being in the wrong place at the wrong time? We don't know. But Manadel Al Jamadi was at Abu Gahrib because he happened to be rounded up in a sweep by the U S Forces where every male between 14 and 65 were brought in for questioning. Their questioning looked like torture, and the torture could be ended by fingering some detainee as a terrorist.

I would have fingered the first soul I saw; I am not a brave man. But just possibly Al Jamadi didn't want to place an innocent man in jeopardy of torture just to end his own pain and suffering. He never spoke a word. One of the pictures shown so much around the world is the woman soldier standing over him giving a "Thumbs-up".

Most likely you have seen this picture. Where you saw the picture was it revealed who the man was or even that he was dead? I haven't seen such. But I did see a myriad of pictures by doing some investigation on this case. I also found out that the torturers packed his body on ice and finally placed his body on a Gurney and hooked up IV to his body to make it look like he was still alive.

At the trial of the woman (for humiliation) it wasn't revealed that the man in the picture had just been tortured to death, nor was there a mention that a cover-up of his death was attempted. I think this type activity is a war crime of the most gruesome kind.