Thursday, April 23, 2009

Former Brigadier General Janis Karpinski: We Do Not Torture (At the Top)

As a followup to today's UAE torture video:

An indignant Former Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, who was in charge of Abu Gharib, says those convicted and jailed in the Abu Gharib torture scandal were merely obeying orders and were scapegoated.

"This is one of the most shameful aspects of these memos and the knowledge that the people at the highest level of our government had about these memos to actually sat together and wrote them and rewrote them and crafted them to meet the requirements of these techniques that they wanted to use. They were well aware, these people, Rumsfeld, Sanchez, all of them, were well aware of these policies and these memorandums while these soldiers were being accused 5 years ago. And if it was okay mister former vice president, if you are saying that this was necessary today, and it produced good intelligence, WHERE WERE YOU 5 years ago stepping up to the plate and saying hold on we can't discuss this because this is classified information? But these soldiers did not design these techniques. WHERE WERE ALL OF THOSE HEROES THEN to step up to the plate and defend these soldiers and to defend me? These were soldiers that were serving in a combat zone that were good American and remain good Americans that were so unfairly blamed. Five years, this month, to get these memos released, declassified and released, and people still trying to say that what happened at Abu Ghirab was different than what these memorandums were directing? NO! It was not."

People did hold the United States of America to a higher standard and we exemplified a hgiher standard and were the standard bearer. And all of a sudden, 9-11 happened, and there was an easy excuse, unofrtunately, to abandon all of things that we stood for. And it makes it very, very difficult for us to regain our footing as a nation of people who care.

If this becomes a politican issue, shame on the administration, shame on the Senate and House for allowing it to happen, because this needs to be.. certainly an investigation or inquiry INDEPENDANT of any political affiliation at all. And because the coalition forces in Iraq was an international coalition, there should be members from each one of those member nations sitting on that independant council representing the international perspective on these violations.


[Youtube] Fmr Brig Gen Janis Karpinski: Orders came from the top but the soldiers went to jail

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