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War, War, War See other War, War, War Articles Title: U.S. Soldier Who Killed Herself--After Refusing to Take Part in Torture U.S. Soldier Who Killed Herself--After Refusing to Take Part in Torture With each new revelation on U.S. torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gitmo, I am reminded of the chilling story of Alyssa Peterson. (April 23, 2009) -- With each new revelation on U.S. torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Gitmo (and who, knows, probably elsewhere), I am reminded of the chilling story of Alyssa Peterson, who I have written about numerous times in the past three years but now with especially sad relevance. Appalled when ordered to take part in interrogations that, no doubt, involved what we would call torture, she refused, then killed herself a few days later, in September 2003. Of course, we now know from the torture memos and the U.S. Senate committee probe and various new press reports, that the "Gitmo-izing" of Iraq was happening just at the time Alyssa got swept up in it. Alyssa Peterson was one of the first female soldiers killed in Iraq. A cover-up, naturally, followed. Peterson, 27, a Flagstaff, Ariz., native, served with C Company, 311th Military Intelligence BN, 101st Airborne. Peterson was an Arabic-speaking interrogator assigned to the prison at our air base in troubled Tal Afar in northwestern Iraq. According to official records, she died on Sept. 15, 2003, from a "non-hostile weapons discharge." A "non-hostile weapons discharge" leading to death is not unusual in Iraq, often quite accidental, so this one apparently raised few eyebrows. The Arizona Republic, three days after her death, reported that Army officials "said that a number of possible scenarios are being considered, including Peterson's own weapon discharging, the weapon of another soldier discharging, or the accidental shooting of Peterson by an Iraqi civilian." And that might have ended it right there. But in this case, a longtime radio and newspaper reporter named Kevin Elston, not satisfied with the public story, decided to probe deeper in 2005, "just on a hunch," he told me in late 2006 (there's a chapter about it in my book on Iraq and the media, "So Wrong for So Long"). He made "hundreds of phone calls" to the military and couldn't get anywhere, so he filed a Freedom of Information Act [FOIA] request. When the documents of the official investigation of her death arrived, they contained bombshell revelations. Here's what the Flagstaff public radio station, KNAU, where Elston then worked, reported: "Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed." According to the official report on her death released the following year, she had earlier been "reprimanded" for showing "empathy" for the prisoners. One of the most moving parts of that report is: "She said that she did not know how to be two people; she ... could not be one person in the cage and another outside the wire." Peterson was then assigned to the base gate, where she monitored Iraqi guards, and sent to suicide prevention training. "But on the night of September 15th, 2003, Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle," the documents disclose. A notebook she had been writing was found next to her body. Its contents were redacted in the official report. The Army talked to some of Peterson's colleagues. Asked to summarize their comments, Elston told me: "The reactions to the suicide were that she was having a difficult time separating her personal feelings from her professional duties. That was the consistent point in the testimonies, that she objected to the interrogation techniques, without describing what those techniques were." Elston said that the documents also refer to a suicide note found on her body, which suggested that she found it ironic that suicide prevention training had taught her how to commit suicide. He filed another FOIA request for a copy of the actual note. Peterson, a devout Mormon, had graduated from Flagstaff High School and earned a psychology degree from Northern Arizona University on a military scholarship. She was trained in interrogation techniques at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, and was sent to the Middle East in 2003. A report in The Arizona Daily Sun of Flagstaff -- three years after Alyssa's death -- revealed that Spc. Peterson's mother, Bobbi Peterson, reached at her home in northern Arizona, said that neither she nor her husband Richard had received any official documents that contained information outlined in Elston's report. In other words: Like the press and the public, even the parents had been kept in the dark. Tomorrow I will write about Kayla Williams, a woman who served with Alyssa, and talked to her about her problems shortly before she killed herself, and also took part in torture interrogations. She observed the punching of detainees and was forced to take part in one particular tactic: prisoners were stripped naked, and when they took off their blindfolds the first thing they saw was Kayla. She opted out, but survived, and is haunted years later. Here's what Williams told Soledad O'Brien of CNN : "I was asked to assist. And what I saw was that individuals who were doing interrogations had slipped over a line and were really doing things that were inappropriate. There were prisoners that were burned with lit cigarettes." All of this only gains relevance in light of the current debate over whether those who were "just following orders" in torture routines should be held accountable today. * Greg Mitchell's latest book is "Why Obama Won." His previous book on Iraq and the media was "So Wrong for So Long." He is editor of Editor & Publisher.
Post Comment Private Reply Ignore Thread Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/Latest Begin Trace Mode for Comment # 4.
#4. To: Ada (#0)
This subject troubles me greatly. We all know torture is wrong and flies in the face of American values and the law regarding the waging of war. However, some of the lower ranking individuals involved in carrying out orders have witnessed the corruption at the highest levels of our government and probably couldn't imagine a prosecution aimed at those above them. I'm sure they knew they might be in trouble should they refuse to follow their orders from above. But here's something that I've noticed. The MSM pundits have fallen all over themselves to explain away the illegal torture by stating that these acts saved us from unknown (to us) terrorist acts. But I ask you to recall that even torturing the children of supposed terrorists was authorized by these vermin, to the point of squeezing the testicles of little children in front of their terrorist parents. Such thinking does not comport with my upbringing and its authors should be tried, convicted and incarcerated.
#55. To: noone222 (#4)
(Edited)
Such thinking does not comport with my upbringing and its authors should be tried, convicted and incarcerated for the remainder of their natural lives at hard labor. There, fixed it.
American values include waging war on a nation that did nothing to us and was no threat to us? I sure hope not.
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