Unqualified Offerings

So-Called “Torture”

5 Responses to “So-Called “Torture””

1. Comment by Nancy Lebovitz —
   June 27, 2006 @ 5:55 am

   There was no reason to think the Abu Graib pictures were anything more than a small sample.

2. Comment by Barry —
   June 27, 2006 @ 8:13 am

   Actually, there was – to pretend that the administration, and its supporters, were not doing what they were doing. Note that it’s not a *morally* good reason, just a politically good one.

3. Comment by Jennifer —
   June 27, 2006 @ 10:33 am

   The first time I ever saw the Abu Ghraib photos, I figured the fact that Graner, England and company posed for those photos–and smiled while they were doing it–showed that they thought they were doing things they could get away with. Even stupid people generally know better than to smile and make thumbs-up poses for photographs they think might one day be evidence against them in a criminal trial.

   The other day I was reading some World War Two stuff about how Germans went out of their way to avoid the Russians and surrender to Americans, because they knew we were the non-torturing good guys. I miss those days.

4. Comment by Noumenon —
   June 27, 2006 @ 11:00 am

   Sullivan wrote, ”Here’s a list of interrogation techniques reliably documented at U.S. detention centers in Guantanamo or Afghanistan,” but ”Afghanistan” has gotten left out in the post at Positive Liberty. I think that makes it inaccurate.

   My best understanding from the Post etc is that Guantanamo is the highest profile, least torture place. Possibly no torture, except for any ghost detainees. Stuff like the ”porn room” and draping people in Israeli flags. The CIA secret prisons are the next level, where it’s very controlled, very specific list of techniques. Waterboarding, ”attention slap.” Then in Iraq and Afghanistan, where you have just regular troops and fuzzy chains of command, the really bad stuff happens: dousing naked people with cold water till they die of hypothermia, dog bites, stress positions till they pass out. And finally there’s Syria and Egypt for extraordinary rendition.

   So I wouldn’t lump them all together, because then people can use Guantanamo Bay, which really is less than horrific, to defend the really un-American stuff. For example, Dick Durbin blew his wad on that detainee who was blared with loud music and very cold A/C and pulled out his own hair, when he could have been asking us to stop beating captured Iraqi generals with rubber hoses and accidentally suffocating them.

   OK, I just tried to look up the rubber hoses incident and Kevin Drum described that very loosely. Iraqis ”reportedly in the employ of the CIA” wielded the hoses, we don’t know. But look what else I found. I found a guy criticizing the United States on this case because we didn’t kill the general on purpose.

   The pictures from Abu Ghraib were embarrassing — not because they broke the Geneva Conventions, but because they showed teenagers screwing around rather than soldiers manhandling detainees. It was humiliation without purpose. It was spring break for vandals. I hoped that somewhere, someone was crossing the lines that needed to be crossed, not simply for sake of amusement but to achieve real strategic objectives. And it turns out that’s not the case. When they show up, they honestly do show up with rubber hoses.

   Let me tell you. The first thing you do, if you’re Special Forces, you close the door. Welshofer doesn’t get to stay. He doesn’t get to watch. He’s probably a nice guy and he’s probably a good soldier, but there’s a reason you have Special Forces and it isn’t because they look good on TV. They belong behind closed doors.

   Then you bring in another Iraqi, some prisoner who means nothing. You stand him in front of Mowhoush and you take your pistol and you shoot him in the head. Now you’ve established clarity. Mowhoush understands you’re not bluffing, that he’s either going to leave his life or he’s going to leave the information in that room. And if he doesn’t start talking, then you take out your knife and you start with his thumb.

   We’re capturing men who have lived under the yoke of Saddam Hussein, for Christ’s sake, and we think we can break these men with sleep deprivation and tricky questions. In Saddam’s army, if you didn’t cooperate, you bled. We’re crumbcake to these guys. We’re cheese Danish, and our prisoners are being blown up and decapitated. But we still want to believe in the myth of polite warfare. I had hoped that while the liberals ran the protocol in Congress, that overseas, a different story was taking shape — that hard men were protecting our troops at any cost. It turns out that’s not the case. And we’re losing.

   I had so hoped we were beating our prisoners with something worse than rubber hoses. And now I am so disappointed that I have nearly lost my faith in our troops’ willingness to protect America! This America with no ”hard men” willing to shoot random Iraqi prisoners in the head — this is not the America I wanted to grow up in.

5. Comment by Nell —
   June 27, 2006 @ 1:26 pm

   Noumenon: You are right to note Afghanistan. I agree with this recent post by Marty Lederman that simply closing down Guantanamo may allow the much worse regime in Afg to go unchecked.

   But Guantanamo has seen plenty of torture. One case is highly suggestive: Sean Baker, an Army soldier who took part in a training exercise playing the part of a prisoner — and was beaten so badly he has brain injuries and had to be given a medical discharge. Think somehow one of our own was the only one beaten?

   The new film Road to Guantanamo about three British prisoners now released, the ”Tipton Three”, contains much testimony about their torture at Guantanamo.

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