New Abu Ghraib Reports

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Hard to say which is worse in this Sacramento Bee story about Abu Ghraib. Is it the fact that military officers were harassed and demoted for speaking out to their superiors?

Spc. Samuel Provance, also dressed in Army green, said he was demoted and humiliated after telling a general investigating the Abu Ghraib scandal that senior officers had covered up the full extent of abuse during interrogations of detainees at the U.S. military prison in Iraq.

Or is it reports that children were allegedly being kidnapped and used as “leverage” in interrogations?

Provance made a new allegation about the Abu Ghraib controversy, saying that U.S. forces had captured the 16-year-old son of an Iraqi general under Saddam Hussein, Hamid Zabar, to pressure the general into providing information.

Meanwhile, Salon has obtained thousands of new documents and several new photos related to Abu Ghraib. One early observation: As Jeanne of Body and Soul notes, at first glance, it certainly doesn’t appear that a lot of the more horrific allegations by, for instance, Seymour Hersh in his public speaking engagements (notably, of “boys being sodomized”) are backed up here at all. Either that means there’s still more evidence to come or else Hersh was simply wrong. I would hope the latter, but it’s hard to know what to think, really.

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DEFEND THE TRUTH. DEFEND JOURNALISM.

“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things it doesn’t like—which is most things that are true.

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