The Pentagon is facing a flurry of inquiries from high-ranking senators from both parties following an Associated Press story that revealed that US soldiers were involved in the interrogation of detainees at sites in Yemen where torture of detainees was widespread.
The AP article quoted Pentagon officials confirming that this was the case, but claiming that the US soldiers weren’t directly involved in the torture, or even necessarily personally aware of the fact that the detainees were tortured by UAE forces ahead of their interrogation by Americans.
Senators were quick to point out that doesn’t make the US involvement any more legal, with Sens. John McCain (R – AZ) and Jack Reed (D – RI) both calling the report “deeply disturbing” and urging Defense Secretary James Mattis to investigate the matter and provide more details.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D – VT) noted that beyond the legal question of the Pentagon’s involvement, the fact that the torturers were from the United Arab Emirates could mean that the continued provision of US support for them would violate a law forbidding funding to known human rights violators.
Sen. Ron Wyden (D – OR) said he was particularly troubled by the Pentagon’s “legalistic responses” to the incident, saying that the bar for the United States is higher than “torture is OK if we don’t see it.”
“…or even necessarily personally aware of the fact that the detainees were
tortured by UAE forces ahead of their interrogation by Americans.”
Not even with lowered standards (to reach recruitment numbers) would the US interrogators be dumb enough to not know the people they’re “interrogating” had been tortured before handing off to the US. The US troops are as complicit as the UAE troops. If the US can claim “collective self-defense” when they go off the reservation, so to say, then they absolutely can be accused of “collective responsibility” in this case.
“…urging Defense Secretary James Mattis to investigate the matter and provide more details.”
the pentagon and all those soldiers and commanders over there are in deep doodoo now.
not only are the attacks on Yemen clearly war crimes in themselves but now there’s the torture. From the AP article itself, some 2000 yemeni men have been arrested and held in these prisons, an astonishing # compared to their small population.
Everywhere our soldiers go to terrorize the peasant populations there’s always brutal sex torture, as moths are drawn to a flame, so our demonic soldiers are drawn to psychotic sex torture. I blame Hollywood for training our people to be so soul sick and the Churches for engaging in jingo “patriotism” for our annihilation of the Moslem mission field.