U.S. Navy documents, attained via the Freedom of Information Act by the ACLU, have revealed more grotesque abuses of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of our military forces, according to the AP.
U.S. Marines forced Iraqi juveniles to kneel while troops discharged a weapon in a mock execution, used electric shock on one prisoner and set fire to a puddle of solvent that burned a prisoner.
The children weren't prisoners, but simply "looters". Not enemy combatants. Not terrorists. Not insurgents. But it's a safe bet that they are now.
What else? There's a document detailing an investigation of a Marine who strangled a prisoner to death. The AP breaking news story says, "Investigators ruled that the death was accidental." Accidental death while strangling is kind of like accidental digestion while eating.
Another case involves a Marine who "[shocked] an Iraqi detainee with an electric transformer, [holding] wires against the shoulder area of the detainee [who] danced as he was shocked."
10,000 pages of investigatory documents from the U.S. Navy regarding abuses -- all of which took place away from Abu Ghraib. Huzzah! America (or as Bush insists, God) has given the gift of freedom and democracy to Iraq!
Here's an interesting quote: "This vile display shows a contempt for all the rules of warfare, and all the bounds of civilized behavior."
That was Bush talking about a beheading last May. Interesting how the same condemnation could be used for our "contempt for all the rules of warfare". Of course, the same words don't apply to Bush who gives out promotions to men who show contempt for those rules.