Former Abu Ghraib Interogator Reads Play at Abbey Theatre

by redjade Mon Dec 08, 2008 12:29

A conscientious objector’s journey
From Iowa to Abu Ghraib and back
Growing up in a military and evangelical Christian family in Cedar Rapids, little did Joshua Casteel know that two powerful forces would be battling for his soul in a notorious Iraqi prison known as Abu Ghraib.

In the wake of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal in 2004, Casteel, 24, who served with the Army's 202nd Military Intelligence Battalion as an Arabic translator and U.S. Army interrogator inside the prison, faced an internal struggle between his sense of duty as a soldier and his moral and religious obligations.

[....]

Iowa Independent: Given your religious upbringing, did you have any reservations about going over to Iraq, especially knowing what had happened at the Abu Ghraib prison?

Casteel: Yes. While I was attending the language institute, where most of the instructors were Iraqi Catholics, I watched the morning news with one of my instructors, whose family lives there, and watched Baghdad get pulverized. That personal connection really shook me up. I would go back and forth between 'I'm in this. Let's go the whole nine yards' to 'What the hell is going on? I don't believe in violence, and I should file for CO status.'

So before deployment I decided I wanted to be a noncombatant and help soldiers, so I applied and was accepted to seminary. Unfortunately I got accepted two weeks before deployment, so I would have to wait until I returned. I left all of my pacifist literature at home and went to Iraq, thinking to myself that I should know what it is like to be a soldier before I administer to them.

read the rest of the interview at...
http://iowaindependent.com/4757/a-cos-journey-from-iowa...-back

joshua casteel

by redjade Mon Dec 08, 2008 12:35

The Abu Ghraib Missive
In June 2004, the Cedar Rapids native was sent as an interrogator to Abu Ghraib as part of the team intended to "clean up" the operation and the scandal that had engulfed it. Casteel's unit split day and night shifts doing interrogations, but with few soldiers trained in Arabic, they also had to act as their own prisoner screeners.

"There was supposed to be a screening process before we even got to the interrogation process, but we were the only ones who spoke the language," Casteel said. "The majority of people we talked to were cab drivers and farmers. I did around 130 interrogations, and I can count on one hand the number of people who would be considered 'bad guys.' "

[....]

When a prisoner reached Abu Ghraib, Casteel was required to "exploit the greatest amount of information in the least amount of time." Even after the torture scandal at the prison had become common knowledge, his superiors never discouraged its use.

"You have to reduce a person to exploitation and reduce yourself to the exploiter," Casteel said. "You use torture. You induce hypothermia by stripping a man naked during winter, pour buckets of water on him while he's in front of an air conditioner, and then take his temperature rectally to make sure he isn't actually too cold. These are common tactics."

read more at
http://media.www.dailyiowan.com/media/storage/paper599/...shtml

click image for full size of poster

by redjade Mon Dec 08, 2008 12:40

''After eight months in Abu Ghraib and a series of interrogations with a 22-year-old jihadist prisoner, Casteel had had enough.

"We began to discuss war and violence," Casteel said. "I asked him why he came to kill, and he asked me why I did? At that point, I knew I could go no further, unless I wanted to get into a debate about which one of us had the more just cause."

Casteel filed for conscientious objector status in February 2005 and received an honorable discharge three months later.''

more at
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2007/0...table

by Michael Gallagher - Photojournalist Sun Dec 14, 2008 12:33

This is where we get taken back to the North of our country again and many others.
How many Irish, Vietnamese, Tibetans, Palestinians etc etc etc men, woman and children are walking around with physical and untold psychological damage?

I look forward to the day when Bush and his ilk are in the dock for war crimes against humanity, and the rest of the so called 'peace' fucking makers!!! Justice on earth is looming...

Jade...will you send me your email address, I need to contact you about something. Great work.

[email protected]

LINKS:

www.zoriah.com

www.flickr.com/photos/libertypix