When the gay Iraqi refugee and advocate known by the pseudonym Hussam claimed members of the U.S. military were responsible for the torture and murder of gays in Iraq, alarm bells went off. And rightly so. Except Hussam claimed he had photo evidence of the atrocities — but refused to hand it over to investigators. So after looking into Hussam’s claims (which would amount to Geneva Convention violations), the U.S. Army Criminal Investigative Command says it’s found “no credible evidence that the allegations have merit.” Perhaps that’s because Hussam now says his words were “taken out of context”?
In an email to activist Michael Petrelis, the USACIDC Chief of Public Affairs Chris Grey writes:
The U.S. Army Criminal Investigation Command’s (USACIDC) Special Agents have looked into allegations that U.S. service members were involved in committing atrocities against gays in Iraq and have found no credible evidence that the allegations have merit.
In a sworn statement to Special Agents, the individual giving the presentation at the 24 July fundraiser said his words were taken out of context, he was misunderstood due to language barriers, and he was misquoted.
He stated that although he did show disturbing photographs at the event, the photographs of sectarian violence were in no way linked to U.S. service members.
He also said he never witnessed any actions of U.S. Soldiers that he would classify as criminal or any evidence of U.S. service members targeting Iraqi men or women because of their sexual orientation.
Based on the description of one photograph allegedly shown depicting what appeared to be an American Soldier guarding several naked Iraqi men, it was determined that in 2004, when the picture was allegedly taken, removing detainee’s clothing was a force protection measure authorized within the Rules of Engagement due to suicide vests being worn by insurgents.
As always with USACIDC investigations, if new credible information is discovered, we will investigate.
It’s not just that USACIDC found the allegations to be essentially untrue — but it took the military investigating the claims for Hussam to even acknowledge that reports coming out of the fundraiser where he spoke were inaccurate. Perhaps the language barrier kept news reports from reaching him. Maybe. But, as Petrelis says, Hussam has a “highly-developed command of the English language” and “in emails and phone conversations with me, threw out every excuse he could think of to absolve himself of any real responsibility to prove his outlandish allegations.”
That’s too bad, because it’s folks like Hussam who are doing great work bring attention and aid to the persecuted gays of the Middle East. Lies — or “miscommunications” — like the one spread last month are horribly damaging to the cause. Petrelis is calling on fundraiser’s sponsors — the LGBT Bar Association and the Human Rights Campaign, whose headquarters were used to host the event — to issue an apology. At the very least, an explanation.
How about we take this to the next level?
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As for Hussam? Perhaps he should remain quiet in the weeks and months to come, while groups like Iraqi LGBT take the plight of queers there more seriously.
Cam
I was really hoping that this story was bogus.
galefan2004
Apparently, even repressed homosexuals in Iraq still hate Americans. Lets be honest, this was nothing more than propaganda used by these despicable people to try to make the United States look bad once again. They had no problem hijacking our planes and flying them into buildings (yes I know no Iraqis actually hijacked our planes and flew them into buildings) or harboring weapons of mass destruction (yes I know we never found any weapons of mass destruction), and they have no problems attacking the United States in any other matter either.
Throwing up the Geneva Convention when it comes to the United States is absurd. We have proven time and time again that we have no intention of ever adhering to that document. Hell, that document even states that a country can not occupy a sovereign nation. Yet, we have occupied Vietnam, Korea and Iraq since the time that written. It also says that a nation can not torture, yet we know damn well that we have tortured. In short, the USA only thinks of the Geneva Convention as a way of wiping Texas.
Brian
I’m glad the story has proven to be false. Someone should figure out how to make a meaningful apology to the US Military.
Cam
@Brian: You said “I’m glad the story has proven to be false. Someone should figure out how to make a meaningful apology to the US Military.”
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I say somebody can figure that out, once the military apologizes to all the people they have fired from their jobs, not for what they’ve done but for who they were.
Brian
@Cam: Cam – they were doing their jobs. It is up to us to change the laws and up to them to follow them.
Dennis
If it turns out these claims were false, this is beyond disgusting…I have to believe this bullshit was coming from desperation about various conditions in Iraq. Ultimately, all this grossly misguided person did was do additional harm to the plight of Iraqi gays who truly are being harmed and/or tortured at the hands of religious militias.
God, get us the F out of that crazy, screwed up part of the world. Sorry, but we cannot solve, and should not be held responsible for solving all the world’s problems.
Thank you, once again, former president dumbfuck from Texas for getting us into this clusterfuck in the first place.
Merv
@Dennis: “God, get us the F out of that crazy, screwed up part of the world.”
It won’t do any good. Even if we do leave, we’re still stuck with 85% of the people here following the crazy, screwed up religions from that part of the world.
ousslander
It was to get attention and bash the US military which Europeans and the press eat up like candy. He will be excused and forgiven by the high and mighties because all he did was denigrate America and the army.
dontblamemeivotedforhillary
I smell yellow cake…
Bill Perdue
On March 16, 1968, in the hamlets of My Lai and My Khe of Son My village in US occupied Vietnam, roughly 500 unarmed civilians, almost of them all women, children, and elderly people were gunned down while cowering in front of US soldiers. Many of the victims were sexually abused, beaten, tortured, and mutilated. It was one of several massacres. It was a rampage of mass murder.
At first the Army vehemently denied all knowledge, etc. The usual bullshit. Then three heroic GIs came forward to tell the truth. They we denounced in congress by loyal Democrats, received hate mail, death threats and mutilated animals on their doors. General William C. Westmoreland, commander of US occupation forces in Vietnam congratulated the unit on the “outstanding job”. Stars and Stripes claimed that “U.S. infantrymen had killed 128 Communists in a bloody day-long battle.”
Among those denouncing the whistle blowing GIs was a young Major named Colin Powell who denounced the GI’s saying: “In direct refutation of this portrayal is the fact that relations between American soldiers and the Vietnamese people are excellent.” Later he would order the killing of about 100,000 Iraqi soldiers fleeing from Kuwait, mostly conscripts, in the Kill Box.
No one has a clue about these charges because, as far as I know, no facts have been presented one way of the other, although the recanting is persuasive.
What we do know it that charges of murders by the US military are far from being extreme. There are plenty of precedents, especially in Iraq. And that galefan2004’s paytriotism is as repugnant as his racism.
M Shane
No. 9 · dontblamemeivotedforhillary :
If I had to put money on who lied , my guess is easily that it’s the Military. Yellowcake was just that “little lie” at the beginning. How long did it take them to come out with the truth that weall but 5% of the ” enemy combatants” we put in jail were innocent cab drivers etc bought from warlords. That’s Gitmo, Abu Garib, Beren(Sp?) Of all of the people we had arrested and tortured only 5% were captured by us!
You can compile a whole book of lies told about that mess.
In fact, about the only time they tellthe truth is if someone is forced, and then they blame the wrong people.
Ali
This guy is a Shiite and it’s his very own Shiite militias who were killing gay men and women in Shiite areas only, maybe he is affiliated with the Iraqi Shiite regime and they paid him off to start such a false misleading story, to blame the americans for it. He oughtta be investigated.