Living Behind the Iron Curtain, America
America is abusing its own more and more and is exporting this abuse, worldwide.
Abuses at Abu Ghraib were blamed on a few rogue US soldiers
Iraq prisoner abuse 'was routine' (from the BBC)
The torture of prisoners in US custody in Iraq was authorised and routine even after the Abu Ghraib scandal came to light, a US-based rights group says.
Soldiers' accounts show that detainees routinely faced severe beatings, sleep deprivation and other abuses for much of 2003-2005, Human Rights Watch says.
Soldiers who tried to complain about the abuse were rebuffed or ignored.
But a Pentagon spokesman said 12 reviews had found there was no policy condoning or encouraging abuse.
"The standard of treatment is and always has been humane treatment of detainees in [Department of Defence] custody," Lt Col Mark Ballesteros told Reuters news agency.
John Sifton, author of the Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, said the accounts given to the group by former US soldiers revealed the opposite.
"These accounts rebut US government claims that torture and abuse in Iraq was unauthorised and exceptional - on the contrary, it was condoned and commonly used," he said.
Photos showing US soldiers abusing and sexually humiliating Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad in 2004 shocked the world.
Eleven US soldiers have now been convicted in connection with the abuse. No senior officers have so far been convicted.
Stress positions
The HRW report gives first-hand accounts of abuses at a detention centre at Baghdad airport called Camp Nama, as well as a facility near Mosul airport and a base near al-Qaim on the Syrian border.
An interrogator posted at Mosul in 2004 told HRW that he and his fellow interrogators had been told by the officer in charge of their unit to use abuse techniques on some detainees.
He described how they used dogs to intimidate the detainees, had them walking on their knees in the gravel and standing for extended periods with arms outstretched holding water bottles.
An interrogator at Camp Nama said the use of abuse techniques was commonplace - authorisation forms could be easily prepared for commanding officers to sign.
"I never saw a sheet that wasn't signed," the soldier said.
HRW gives accounts of instances where soldiers who were concerned by the abuses were thwarted from reporting it.
One military police guard at the facility near Qaim, who took his concerns to an officer, was reportedly told: "You need to go ahead and drop this, sergeant."
Geneva Conventions
HRW says its findings show that criminal investigations of abuses need to follow the military chain of command, rather than focusing on lower-ranked soldiers.
The New York-based organisation calls on the US Congress to appoint an independent commission to investigate the extent of the problem, and urges US President George W Bush to appoint an independent prosecutor to investigate and prosecute perpetrators of the abuse.
"It is now clear that leaders were responsible for abuses in Iraq," Mr Sifton said. "It's time for them to be held accountable".
The Bush administration has faced intense and sustained international criticism for its treatment of prisoners - in Iraq, Afghanistan and at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Earlier this month, the White House announced that all US military detainees would be treated in line with the minimum standards of the Geneva Conventions.
The shift in policy came almost two weeks after the US Supreme Court ruled that the conventions applied to detainees.
The Geneva Conventions, which were passed in the wake of World War II, are meant to guarantee minimum standards of protection for non-combatants and former combatants in war.
* * * * If this is the FBI trying to blend in, God Help Us
(Click for post)
posted by The_SRV at 10:11 PM
2 Comments:
http://groups.google.com/group/sci.med.diseases.lyme/browse_frm/thread/49fea9dc2cd68ec5/277acb03f34a840e?hl=en#277acb03f34a840e
Subject: Holding CDC Accountable for Scientific Fraud.
Date: Monday, July 24, 2006 20:32:40 [View Source]
This is good, but you have to be specific about who
did what, when, instead of making lame, whiney-ass
complaints. No one believes these complaints. We
have to show that Yale et al committed scientific
fraud and that they *know* we are very sick.
Reiterating the issue of fungal infections and immune
suppression,
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=PureSearch&db=pubme...
You have to go to MedLine and query JG Tully and
mycoplasmas, as I instructed the Department of
Homeland Stupidity:
http://www.actionlyme.org/LYME_CORRUPTICUT.htm
Tully and Shope were Yalie bioweaponeers since the end
of WWII. Also involved was the Rockefeller
Foundation.
Verify independently.
August is the worst month for MS-Lyme victims,
presumably because of the heat shock protein
antibodies, although it is not resolved how antibodies
to flagellin targets intracellular heat shock proteins
for this alleged autoimmunity effect:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=PureSearch&db=pubme...
You can see that on my Western Blot, I have almost all
antibodies to heat shock proteins:
http://www.actionlyme.org/Schoen.htm
You can't just bitch about being sick- you have to
prove that they KNOW we are very sick. That is, the
very same guys who say we are hypochondriacs, are the
same guys who discovered and reported the valid
markers of disease.
http://v3.espacenet.com/family?DB=EPODOC&IDX=WO9324145&F=8&OREQ=0&tex...
'Including the CDC staff, who demonstrate their
knowledge, here, that the "CDC Dearborn Steere" kind
of Lyme is bogus.
Good job, though. But we already did this a 1000
times with the CDC. CDC also knows that the childhood
vaccines cause subacute sclerosis panencephalitis
(SSPE), and that it is not the thimerosal that causes
the brain damage we refer to as regressive autism.
CDC's response when confronted on this was that this
brain damage was a "calculated risk."
'Let the parents calculate the risk because "doctors"
are total idiots, as previously demonstrated with the
facts:
http://www.actionlyme.org/Psychiatric_MumboJumbo.wmv
Also, the embassies of foreign nations have to be
given this data, so no countries will ever again let
any US scientists (especially the CDC or NIH)
experiment on their populations:
http://www.actionlyme.org/UCONN_ABUSE_CZECH_CHILDREN.wmv
There are the links to the evidence that UCONN knew
this Yale Lyme vaccine did not work.
Verify.
And everyone should stay updated on the Klempner-Lyme
haplotype that is still a secret. All Borreliosis
(Lyme) victims and *potential* Borreliosis victims are
on their own because doctors are idiots, and these
Yalie bioweaponeers are frauds:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=PureSearch&db=pubme...
http://www.actionlyme.org/Klempner-0602.wmv
Want to guess that Israel is privileged to this secret
HLA data? What explains Mortimer Zuckerman (former
candidate for US Ambassador to Israel) being invited
to the http://www.ALDF.com 's "GALA" in New York after
Klempner found this (secret) genetic susceptibility to
the immune-suppressed kind of Lyme - that is also
associated with worse cases of Leprosy, Narcolepsy,
Lupus and Multiple Sclerosis?
The entire State of Connecticut; DCF, DPH, DMHAS,
*all* of our CT "elected representatives," and of
course UCONN and Yale are complicit in these
international crimes. I don't see a way out of the
State of CT and all involved in this perjury, false
allegations, false arrests, denying children medical
care, etc, being prosecuted. There's nothing vague
about what they did.
http://www.actionlyme.org/LYME_IS_A_PERMANENT_BRAIN_INFECTION.htm
"The death of the newborn was probably due to
respiratory failure as a consequence of perinatal
brain damage."-- Yale Department of Pathology.
Kathleen
From: "M
To: SpinL...@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [SpinLyme] CDC Meets Patient Group Reps, US
Reps
Date: Sunday, July 23, 2006 12:31:43 [View Source]
Don't know if this was posted where everyone could see
it. The
personal statements sent were used for this.
Hope you all are getting through the summer OK, too
many heat herxes down 'Jersey.
---------------------------
Contact:
For Immediate Release
Pat Smith
888 366 6611
Lymeli...@aol.com
www.LymeDiseaseAssociation.org
Chronic Lyme Patients Can't Get Treated,
CDC Director Told by National Patient Group
Lack of treating physicians, inadequate testing, and
under diagnosis
are leading to more chronic Lyme disease with
surveillance problems
contributing to lack of focus & funding
JACKSON, New Jersey (July 19, 2006) Lyme patients have
fought for
years to have their public voice heard by the Centers
for Disease
Control and Prevention, CDC. They finally got their
opportunity when
the Lyme Disease Association, a national non-profit
consisting of
patients and families of patients, met with the
nation's leading
public health officer, CDC Director, Dr. Julie
Gerberding. She and
other CDC officials listened as the Lyme Disease
Association and four
Congressmen addressed rising Lyme cases, chronic
disease and causes,
inability to get treatment, and lack of funding.
The government only expends ~$33M each year on Lyme
disease despite
about 220,000 new cases of Lyme disease nationally
that meet CDC
surveillance criteria. That does not even include
cases, usually
chronic, which fall outside that non-diagnostic
criteria.
Dr. Brian Fallon from Columbia University College of
Physicians and
Surgeons presented long-term Lyme disease treatment
studies and their
significance, including his recently completed
NIH-funded chronic
Lyme disease study showing improvement in patients.
LDA president Pat
Smith discussed the need for direct communication
between patient
groups and the CDC and between treating physicians and
the CDC.
Congressman Christopher Smith (no relation) offered to
host a forum
for those issues in New Jersey.
Ms. Smith presented the need for mandatory lab
reporting in each
state, uniform surveillance, and a dual CDC reporting
system allowing
for clinical cases to be accepted in a separate tier
of reporting.
She also recommended removing the ELISA as a screening
test due to
its insensitivity and allowing the Western Blot to be
used alone for
diagnosis, after re-adding two bands removed by CDC in
the mid 90's.
New technology also needs to be looked at in the
testing arena,
Smith added, referring to a recently published CDC
article on chronic
diseases and the use of cutting edge technology to
diagnose.
Researcher Dr. Steven Schutzer, New Jersey Medical
School, who also
attended, affirmed that need.
Ms. Smith asked the CDC to write every state health
department
informing them that the CDC criteria are not meant for
diagnostic
purposes, only for surveillance. Health departments
can then notify
physicians in their states.
Too many people, she said, are being refused
diagnosis, treatment,
and insurance reimbursement based on surveillance
criteria. This is
leading to a huge increase in chronic disease, costing
people their
health, homes, jobs, education, and childhood.
LDA presented a comprehensive notebook including
statements from
dozens of Lyme patients attesting to their diagnostic
and treatment
problems often related to CDC surveillance criteria.
Lorraine Johnson, JD, MBA, Executive Director of CALDA
and Member of
the LDA Professional Advisory Board, spoke about peer
review and
guideline issues. Her main thrust was explaining how
unsettled
science and two sets of treatment guidelines have led
to two
standards of care, and all physicians need to be aware
that there is
a standard which allows for long-term treatment of
chronic
patients. "What we would like to see is for the CDC
to treat Lyme
disease the same way it treats prostate cancer
providing patients
with information regarding treatment options until the
science is
more settled," she said.
The LDA-initiated meeting was hosted by Congressman
Christopher Smith
(R-NJ). Other US Representatives who personally
attended were
Congressman Tim Bishop (D-NY), Congresswoman Sue Kelly
(R-NY) and
Congressman Wayne Gilchrest (R-MD). Each spoke about
rising Lyme
disease cases in his/her state and personal
experiences through
family and friends with the disease. Staff from the
offices of
Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) and Senator Chuck
Schumer (D-NY) also
attended the meeting.
Dr. Gerberding agreed that tick-borne diseases are
very complicated
diseases that are poorly understood. There is a lack
of awareness and
early primary care is critical.
Her concern that there is little government funding
for tick-borne
diseases dovetails with the purpose of the bills
currently in
Congress, HR 3427 (Smith-Kelly) and S 1479
(Dodd-Santorum) which will
provide $100 million for Lyme disease research,
prevention, physician
education, and surveillance issues. 73 congressmen
currently co-
sponsor the House version and over 100 Lyme groups
support it.
In closing, the LDA mentioned the unchecked spread of
the deer tick
populations nationwide over the past 20 years and how
we need to
learn from history and try to stop the spread of the
more aggressive
lone star tick now invading the Northeast.
The CDC is now reviewing the recommendations made by
the Lyme Disease
Association.
Now! Register for the LDA/Columbia University "Lyme &
Other Tick-Borne
Diseases: Seeking Answers Through Science" fully
accredited medical
conference
on
October 20 in Philadelphia. See
http://www.lymediseaseassociation.org/ for
registration and details.
Pat Smith, President
Lyme Disease Association, Inc.
PO Box 1438
Jackson, NJ 08527
888-366-6611 information line
732 938-7215 fax
www.LymeDiseaseAssociation.org
The above the author of actionlyme.org asked me to post the above comment for her.
Post a Comment
<< Home