POWs Tortured; No One Outraged
The prisoners of war endured severe beatings, starvation, electric shock, threats of amputation and dismemberment and continual death threats, but don't expect cries of outrage from the mainstream media, International Red Cross, United Nations or European and U.S. "intellectuals." Why? Because the victims were American servicemen, not Muslim terrorists.
Seventeen U.S. troops held prisoner during the Gulf War are suing Iraq and dictator Saddam Hussein for the horrendous abuses they suffered.
"The individuals involved have suffered enormous injuries and enduring injuries. These are not things that went away several months after leaving captivity," said lead attorney Stephen Fennell, of the Washington law firm Steptoe & Johnson.
The plaintiffs, nine of them still in active service, seek $25 million each in compensatory damages, plus $5 million each for 37 family members. The suit, filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Washington, also asks for $300 million in punitive damages, with plans to fund a foundation to support future U.S. and allied soldiers taken captive or reported missing in action, and their families.
"After the Gulf War, Congress authorized legal action against countries that commit torture and appear on the State Department's list of nations sponsoring terror," the Washington Post noted today.
"It's a case that rather clearly fits the statute," said Harvard Law School professor Detlev Vagts. Iraq is already paying reparations to Kuwait and damaged oil companies. He said U.S. citizens were permitted to file claims with the United Nations Compensation Commission after the Gulf War.
Prisoners in World War II were compensated under a war claims statute for each day they were captive or mistreated, Vagts said.
"The POWs suffered not only unspeakable and prolonged physical pain, but also intense and prolonged mental anguish and harm," Fennell and fellow attorney John Norton Moore say in the lawsuit. "They lived constantly in terror. Even the sound of the jailers' keys filled them with fear."
Nearly 125 pages of the complaint chronicle the servicemen's stories, the Associated Press reported today, including:
Marine Maj. Michael Craig Berryman, whose legs were beaten with a metal pipe and a wooden ax handle.
'Body Consuming Itself'
Marine Col. Clifford Acree, who was so near starvation he could "feel his body consuming itself."
The Post reported today, in the inside pages:
Navy Cmdr. Lawrence Randolph Slade feared for his life "every single second" of his six-week captivity. "Guards broke his teeth and his nose, ruptured his eardrums, fractured vertebrae and knocked him unconscious. On four occasions, they put a gun to his head and pulled the trigger." He lost 45 of his 180 pounds.
"Slade was battered so severely that 'his body was completely blue, as if he had been dipped in indigo dye.' At one point, guards stuffed toilet paper into his flight suit and ignited it. Guards inspected his genitals for circumcision to see if he was Jewish, an experience also endured by other prisoners."
An Iraqi soldier held a pistol to the head of Army Staff Sgt. Troy Dunlap and pulled the pulled the trigger. The gun did not fire.
Interrogators "pounded Dunlap's head with a pistol when he gave answers they did not like." Guards put scorching hot spoons against his neck. He lost 18 pounds in seven days. Twice a week he has nightmares featuring gunfire, bright lights and people shouting in Arabic.
No mention of these atrocities could be found in today's New York Times, which had room for yet another article on Page One about the Catholic Church's sex abuse scandals. A search of the Times' Web site this evening found an eight-paragraph version of the article by the Associated Press.
Meanwhile, at Guantanamo Bay, the terrorist detainees enjoy hot showers, hot meals and spitting at the U.S. servicemen who guard and care for them. |
