A 10 minute home movie taken by an SS officer has been discovered in an English church. It shows SS officers and secretaries relaxing in the summer of 1942 in southern Russia. The last couple of minutes shows footage from a slave labor camp in that area. The footage was taken at the height of the German success in Russia, a few months before the turning point in the Russian campaign - and probably the turning point in the Second World War.
posted by bobbyelliott on Oct 26, 2006 - 51 comments

While the proverbial road to hell is paved with good intentions, the internal government memos collected in this publication demonstrate that the path to the purgatory that is Guantanamo Bay, or Abu Ghraib, has been paved with decidedly bad intentions. The policies that resulted in rampant abuse of detainees first in Afghanistan, then at Guantanamo Bay, and later in Iraq, were product of three pernicious purposes designed to facilitate the unilateral and unfettered detention, interrogation, abuse, judgment, and punishment of prisoners: (1) the desire to place the detainees beyond the reach of any court or law; (2) the desire to abrogate the Geneva Convention with respect to the treatment of persons seized in the context of armed hostilities; and (3) the desire to absolve those implementing the policies of any liability for war crimes under U.S. and international law.

Regarding the Torture Papers, which detail Torture's Paper Trail, and, then there's Hungry for Air: Learning The Language Of Torture, and, of course, there's ( more inside)
posted by y2karl on Mar 14, 2005 - 97 comments

Physically and sexually mistreating detainees at Abu Ghraib under orders... 10 years.
Abusing prisoners, raping a young Iraqi boy, and lying under oath(allegedly) because you're a "go-getter"... $164 million, $16 to $85 million.

Knowing the President and members of congress on both sides of the aisle have your back so long as you're not enlisted(wouldn't have covered corporate types, but what the hey, thought I'd toss it in)... Priceless!
posted by rocket_skates on Jan 15, 2005 - 76 comments

fate of detainees hangs on U.S. wording Articoe discusses why the U.S. refuses to call prisoners sent to Cuba POWs instead of detainees...what a difference a word makes.
posted by Postroad on Jan 17, 2002 - 6 comments

Al Quaeda prisoners arrive at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. With all the war talk, why are these men not being classified as POWs? Simply because they didn't wear uniforms?
posted by Ty Webb on Jan 12, 2002 - 15 comments

Bombing the Taleban prisoners
"There are hundreds of bodies in there - bodies and bits of bodies, all over the place."

The crush of the Taleban prisoner revolt at the Qala-e-Jhangi fort has Amnesty International asking what happened there... I'd like to know, too. (More here and here and here.)
posted by blackholebrain on Nov 28, 2001 - 69 comments

Japan's turn for reparations? Rosen vs. the people of Japan filed in Chicago is asking for 1 trillion! in reparations. Its headed by POW Melvin H Rosen, a Bataan death march survivor.
posted by skallas on Sep 7, 2001 - 44 comments