A shocking new report by The Guardian and BBC Arabic details how the United States armed and trained Iraqi death squads that ran torture centers. It is a story that stretches from the U.S.-backed death squads in Central America during the 1980s to the imprisoned Army whistleblower Bradley Manning. We play extended excerpts of "James Steele: America’s Mystery Man in Iraq," which exposes the role the retired U.S. colonel James Steele, a veteran of American proxy wars in El Salvador and Nicaragua, played in training Iraqi police commando units. "We spent maybe six months trying to track down young American soldiers who served in Samarra," says the film’s executive producer, Maggie O’Kane, who notes the investigation was sparked by memos found in the Iraq War Logs released by WikiLeaks. "But many were too frightened because of what happened to Bradley Manning." A Pentagon spokesman told The Guardian it had seen the reports and is looking into the situation. "As you know, the issue surrounding accusation of abuse and torture of Iraqi detainees is a complex one that is full of history and emotion," said Col. Jack Miller. "It will take time to work a thorough response."
Related documentary:
Bill Moyer's 1987 scathing critique of the Executive Branch of the US Gov & The GOP Civil War http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/bill-moyers-1987-scathing-critique-of.html
Related News Reports
1. Lt. Col. Daniel Davis: Commanders Sending False Impressions of Afghan War: - Army Lt. Col. Daniel Davis recently criticized top military brass, including retired Gen. David Petraeus, saying they have misled Congress and the American people about progress in the war in Afghanistan. Margaret Warner speaks with Davis about his whistleblowing, why he went public and what his future may hold in the military.
2. Confessions of an Iraq War Whistleblower: The State Department fired me for telling the truth about US failures in Iraq. Here's why I don't regret it. What I saw while serving the State Department at a forward operating base in Iraq was, however, different. There, the space between what we were doing (the eye-watering waste and mismanagement) and what we were saying (the endless claims of success and progress) was filled with numb soldiers and devastated Iraqis, not scaredy-cat bureaucrats. That was too much for even a well-seasoned cubicle warrior like me to ignore, and so I wrote a book about it, We Meant Well: How I Helped Lose the War for the Hearts and Minds of the Iraqi People. I was on the spot to see it all happen, leading two Provincial Reconstruction Teams in rural Iraq while taking part up close and personal in what the US government was doing to, not for, Iraqis. Originally, I imagined that my book's subtitle would be "Lessons for Afghanistan," since I was hoping the same mistakes would not be endlessly repeated there. Sometimes being right doesn't solve a damn thing.
3. Petraeus and the signature of U.S. terror: The CIA pressures Obama to step up indiscriminate attacks in Yemen
Introducing The Death Planes (The Drone War)
4. From PBS: Timeline | The Decade-Long Covert War Against Iran
5. DRUG FALLOUT: The CIA's forty-year complicity in the narcotics trade (i.e. there's opium in Afghanistan!)
The Drug War Debate: An Introductory Overview
Related Blog Posts:
Bush's Legacy: New Iraq Oil Law To Open Iraq’s Oil Reserves to Western Companies http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/bushs-legacy-new-iraq-oil-law-to-open.html
Bush's Legacy: Dahr Jamail Returns to Iraq to Find Rampant Torture and a Failed State Living in "Utter Devastation" http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/bushs-legacy-dahr-jamail-returns-to.html
Bush's Legacy: Ten Years Later, U.S. Has Left Iraq With Mass Displacement & Epidemic of Birth Defects, Cancers http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/bushs-legacy-en-years-later-us-has-left.html
Breaking: Iraq Spies Lies Exposed! & Tony Blair Ignores His Own Spy Agencies! http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/breaking-iraq-spies-lies-exposed-tony.html
Amanpour On Iraq: Where were the journalists? http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/amanpour-on-iraq-where-were-journalists.html
Democracy Now! Iraq War Timeline Recaps a Decade of Independent Reporting on Occupation and Protest http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/democracy-now-iraq-war-timeline-recaps.html
CNN: Drones killing innocent Pakistanis, U.N. official says http://www.culturesocietyblog.com/2013/03/cnn-drones-killing-innocent-pakistanis.html
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