U.S. Troops Aiding Torture of Afghans?

Bagram sunrise (Photo credit: 401st_AFSB)

An even bigger problem is U.S. complicity in the abusive methods used by its Afghan allies. As one military intelligence soldier told me in Kandahar in 2011, they would often take a “smoke break” when interrogating recalcitrant detainees, stepping outside and leaving the prisoner alone with Afghan police or soldiers. And despite over a decade and billions of dollars spent training the Afghan security forces, torture and abuse remain endemic in Afghan prisons. As I reported in the investigation, ISAF has halted transferring detainees to some of the worst locations, but the CIA has not — a discrepancy that led to a temporary breakdown in joint military operations under the OMEGA program last year.

The UN has repeatedly found there to be rampant torture in Afghan prisons, but U.S. complicity in the abuse is pretty well known too. An Afghan commission last year accused the U.S. military of abuse of Afghan prisoners, including holding them in freezing cold cells, forced nudity, extended isolation, and other physical abuse, in addition to being held without due process. See here for a round-up of recent torture issues in Afghanistan.

http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/11/07/us-soldiers-participate-in-torture-of-afghan-detainees/

 

Torture & Human Rights: Americans vs. Afghans

John Glaser, January 10, 2012

When Afghan President Hamid Karzai demanded last week that the U.S. cede control of the detention facilities at Bagram airbase, it was ironic, in a cynical way. Came forth the opportunity to pit Nobel Peace Prize winner Barack Obama against the leader of one of the most corrupt and abusive governments in the world; the latter was teaching the former about human rights, the narrative went. A few days later, an Afghan investigative commission accused the American military of abusing detainees in the Bagram prison facilities and reiterated President Hamid Karzai’s demand that the U.S. turn the detainees over to Afghan custody.

http://antiwar.com/blog/2012/01/10/torture-human-rights-americans-vs-afghans/

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• Watch Highly Disturbing Footage of Detainee Abuses in Afghanistan (fromthetrenchesworldreport.com)
• Watch Highly Disturbing Footage of Detainee Abuses in Afghanistan (rollingstone.com)
• US Soldiers Participate in Torture of Afghan Detainees (blacklistednews.com)
• Torture on Tape: Disturbing Video Shows U.S. Special Forces Observing Brutal Afghan Interrogation (dissidentvoice.org)
• Pentagon Report Shows Spike in Afghan Troop Deaths (abcnews.go.com)
• Torture on Tape: Disturbing Video Shows U.S. Special Forces Observing Brutal Afghan Interrogation (democracynow.org)