8/6/2019 Factsheet: Top ten truths government officials hoped youd never know

1/2

Innocence is no excuse

The government knew that mostGuantanamo prisoners were eitherinnocent or just low-level operatives.The U.S. also pressured Spanish courtsto drop investigations o torture atGitmo. Shoddy CIA evidence collection

at Guantanamo has cost millions and bred anti-Americansentiment abroad. The Guantanamo Files describe howdetainees were captured based on highly subjectiveevidence. How quickly they were released was heavilydependent on their country o origin (1). According to a U.S.diplomatic cable written on April 17, 2009, the Associationor the Dignity o Spanish Prisoners requested that theNational Court indict six ormer U.S. ofcials or creating alegal ramework that allegedly permitted torture against fveSpanish prisoners. However, Senator Mel Martinez metActing FM [Foreign Minister] Angel Lossada on April 15.Martinez underscored that the prosecutions would notbe understood or accepted in the U.S. and would have anenormous impact on the bilateral relationship (2).

We dont do Body Counts.

At least not publicly

Gen. Tommy Franks amously told reporters in 2002,We dont do body counts. Yet the Iraq War Logs andAghan War Diary reveal that the military does trackcasualties. In most cases the military did not conducta thorough investigation into Aghani civilian deaths.Instead, they oered victims amilies up to US$2400. TheIraq War Logs, which span the period rom January 1, 2004to December 31, 2009, show 109,000 total deaths. O those,a staggering 66,081 two-thirds were civilians 15,000o whom were not acknowledged or reported anywhere

previously (3). In a leaked cable rom the U.S. delegation toNATO, it is stated that, Norways ambassador emphasizedthe need to avoid a public debate about the reporting o thenumber o [Aghani] civilians killed, and the cable went on tostate that U.N. employees themselves in Kabul doubt themethod [o tracking casualties] that is used (4).

Common enemies make

great friends of despots

The U.S. government had documentedTunisian government human rightsviolations against its own people, butcontinued providing aid to Tunisia on

the basis o being an ally in the waragainst terrorism.About Tunisia, theU.S. Ambassador wrote, Tunisia is a police state, with littlereedom o expression or association, and serious human rightsproblems. Nevertheless, he recommended the U.S. continuedunding Tunisias military (5).

Torture is better

when others do it for you

The U.S. Military violated the U.N.Convention Against Torture by turningprisoners over to the new Iraqi SecurityForces, an organization which, according

to the State Departments own reports, hasrequently perpetrated prisoner torture.The Convention, which was ratifed by the

U.S. in 1994, orbids signatories rom transerring a detaineeto other countries where there are substantial grounds orbelieving that he would be in danger o being subjected totorture. The Iraq War Logs describe thousands o reportso prisoner torture fled against the Iraqi Security Forces,hundreds o which include medical evidence. Methods otorture described include prisoners whipped with heavycables across the eet, hung rom ceiling hooks, having holesbored into their legs with electric drills, urinated upon, andsexually assaulted. A military order issued in 2004 directedU.S. troops not to investigate these allegations (6).

US Tax dollars spent on

child trafficking?!

U.S. taxpayer dollars helped support childtrafcking when government contractorDynCorp threw a party or Aghan securityrecruits eaturing boys purchased rom pimpsor entertainment. Bacha bazi, or boy play, isa practice in which young boys are dressed up in womensclothing, orced to dance or powerul men, and then sold orsex to the highest bidder. DynCorp was linked to child sextrafcking charges beore this incident occurred (8.)

Top Ten TruthsGovernment Officials Hoped Youd Never Know

2.5 million people had access to the classifed inormationreleased by Wikileaks. Thats not a very good secret, but

Bradley Manning now aces lie in prison or the deathpenalty or releasing it. Here are some o the possiblereasons they didnt want the rest o us in the know.

8/6/2019 Factsheet: Top ten truths government officials hoped youd never know

2/2

Botched Covert-Ops

are never our fault

The U.S. State Department endorsed an occasion whenthe Yemeni government lied to its people about U.S.participation in air strikes in December 2009 that resultedin civilian casualties. Well continue saying the bombs areours, not yours, Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh toldGeneral David Petraeus in January, 2010. Saleh also said,

mistakes had been made in the earlier strikes, lamentedthe use o U.S. cruise missiles that were not very accurate,and welcomed the use o precision-guided bombs instead.Yemens prime minister also joked about how his presidenthad lied to the parliament about the strikes (7).

Freedom of Information.

An Act, or just a suggestion?

The U.S. Military attempted to thwart theFreedom o Inormation Act (FOIA) byneglecting to release the video (now titled asCollateral Murder) depicting the killing o twoReuters reporters and ten other people. On July

12, 2007, U.S. soldiers manning an Apache helicopter shotand killed 12 individuals in Baghdad, Iraq. Two were Reutersreporters and two were civilians who stopped their van tohelp the wounded. Reuters news sta were shown thevideo two weeks ater the incident, and then told that i theywanted to receive a copy o the video and other materials,they would have to make a FOIA request. Although Reutersfled the request shortly thereater, it remained unulflled (9).

Climate Diplomacy is a scam

The U.S. Government oered handoutsto third-world countries in order to buysignatories or the adopted version o the

Copenhagen Climate Accords, which holdsthe U.S. to lower standards than everyother industrialized nation, including India, China andSouth Arica. U.S. diplomatic cables show the U.S. oeredaid unrelated to climate issues to individual countries,persuading developing countries to break with regionalbargaining groups and agree to the Accord (10).

Human rights abuses as usual

Leaked U.S. cables contain inormation about humanrights abuses around the world, including many cases inwhich corrupt governments were trying to hide the truthrom their own people. In specifc cases, American- andBritish-based international corporations were implicated.These violations are well-documented and include countriesthe U.S. has publicly supported, including Tunisia, Columbia,Eritrea, India, Pakistan, Si Lanka, Botswana, Egypt, and

Papua New Guinea.

Protecting torturers

is required

U.S. ofcials put strong, continued pressure on Germanynot to pursue charges against CIA ofcers involvedin the extraordinary rendition o a German citizen.In January 2007, a German court issued arrest warrantsor 13 CIA agents related to their rendition o a Germancitizen o Lebanese descent to Aghanistan, where he wastortured. The case against the agents was later dropped.Diplomatic cables written in the interim period shed somelight on the reasons why. According to one German Justice

Ministry (BMJ) ofcial addressing concerns rom the U.S.Ambassador, international arrest warrants could only beissued once the ministry had evaluated their legal soundnessand oreign policy implications on a case-by-case basis.Another BMJ ofcial assured the embassy that the caseswould not be handled as routine and that any investigationwould require a green light rom Berlin (11).

ENDNOTES:

(1) Scott Shane and BenjaminWeiser, The Guatanamo Files:Judging Detainees Risk, OtenWith Flawed Evidence, New York

Times, April 24, 2011, http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/25/world/guantanamo-les-fawed-evidence-or-assessing-risk.html

(2) US embassy cables: Dontpursue Guantnamo criminal case,says Spanish attorney general,guardian.co.uk, December 1,2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/202776.

(3) Iraq War Logs Reveal 15,000Previously Unlisted Civilian Deaths,guardian.co.uk, October 22, 2010,

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/oct/22/true-civilian-body-count-iraq

(4) Aled-Dilwyn Fisher, Norwayjoined NATO in suppressing reports

o civilian Aghan deaths, uruknet.ino, February 21, 2011, http://www.uruknet.ino/?new=75223.

(5) US embassy cables: Tunisia - aUS oreign policy conundrum,guardian.co.uk, December 7,2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/us-embassy-cables-documents/217138.

(6) Alex Spillius, Wikileaks: IraqWar Logs show US ignored tortureallegations, Telegraph, October22, 2010. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/

iraq/8082223/Wikileaks-Iraq-War-Logs-show-US-ignored-torture-allegations.html.

(7) Cable reveals US behindairstrike that killed 21 children in

Yemen, The Raw Story, December2, 2010, http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2010/12/02/cable-reveals-airstrike-killed-21-children-yemen.

(8) Foreign contractors hired Aghandancing boys, WikiLeaks cablereveals, guardian.co.uk, December2, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2010/dec/02/oreign-contractors-hired-dancing-boys.

(9) Steven Clarke and Joseph Bamat,Leaked video shows US militarykilling o civilians, Reuters sta,France 24, July 27, 2010, http://

www.rance24.com/en/20100406-leaked-video-shows-us-military-killing-civilians-reuters-sta.

(10) WikiLeaks cables revealhow US manipulated climate

accord, guardian.co.uk, December3, 2010, http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/dec/03/wikileaks-us-manipulated-climate-accord

(11) Matthias Gebauer andJohn Goetz, The CIAs El-Masri Abduction: Cables ShowGermany Caved to Pressurerom Washington, Der Spiegel,December 9, 2010, http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,733860,00.html

Join the international

campaign to support Bradley.

Visit www.bradleymanning.org