06 May 2004 | Jonny Roader said...

An interesting issue, but I don't remember this kind of explanation of why people torture others ever being offered when the wrongs of Hussein's regime were being discussed.

Attempting to apply the Stanford question ("What happens when you put good people in an evil place?") reads a little bit like an elision of the political issue here. Why is torture simply 'evil' when other nations use it - a reason to go to war, indeed - but something with a rational explanation when it is the US and British caught committing it? Why did Bush stop short of an explicit apology to the Arab community? Why is 'Rummy' (as JF fondly called him last month) insisting that there is a difference between 'abuse' and 'torture' in this instance? What is really happening at Guantanemo Bay, and other extra-legal prison facilities that the US military has set up?

06 May 2004 | Don Schenck said...

While I feel that Jonny's comments smack of "Blame America First" and that bugs me, I have to say: Excellent point.

Power corrupts. This just underscores the idea that foreign policy should be wholistic rather then piecemeal.

Frustrating beyond words.

06 May 2004 | mookie said...

Yet us on the right will flip the fuck out if someone were to splits hairs on the definition of the word "is". I have had it with these guys. Thanks a lot White House assholes for making an unbearable stay for a ground pounder a lot harder. I would chuck those "soldiers" into that very same prison and see if they last the night.

06 May 2004 | Jonny Roader said...

Believe me when I say this, Don: I don't blame America. I wholeheartedly believe Bush when he says that this kind of behaviour is not representative of your nation - a nation I believe to do alot of harm, but a hell of alot of good too. My brother was a squaddie in the British Army and he never had a bad word to say about Yank soldiers. This is, most definitely, a case of a few letting down the many.

But the point still stands: this is torture dished being out by the US and UK, and a direct result of bad culture and policy. The Red Cross, for example, has been asking the Bush administration about that particular prison since earlier this year. Was anything done, or were your leaders more concerned with covering this up?

Similarly, the UK citizens recently freed from Guantanemo Bay have all spoken of ill-treatment (beyond 'normal' interrogation) at the hands of US representatives. Their experiences have been largely ignored. God only knows what's going on in Afghanistan.

This is the kind of thing that is always bound to happen when you tear up the rulebooks regarding war, POW status ('unlawful combatants'!?), prisoner rights, openness, etc.

As an RAF chap who was captured by the Iraqis during Desert Storm said on the BBC, this war was supposed to liberate the Iraqi people from this kind of treatment. The damage from this is irreparable, and I can honestly say that I have never felt so ashamed of being 'Western' in my entire life. What is it that Churchill said about judging the civilisation of a country by the way it treats its prisoners?

06 May 2004 | Jonny Roader said...

Some credit to Bush for finally apologising:

Bush 'sorry' for prisoner abuse

06 May 2004 | mookie said...

I am sorry that took so long to come out of Bush's mouth.

06 May 2004 | Benjy said...

Bush 'sorry' for prisoner abuse

No, Bush is just sorry they were stupid enough to photograph it...

06 May 2004 | Lee said...

The thing is, and the point that is being missed here is that Sadam and his thugs were also in the minority - just like the US/UK bastards that tortured the Iraq men. So for bush/Blair to say sorry isn't good enough, they should go.

07 May 2004 | qwerty said...

After Vietnam the US adminstration was a lot more careful with what journalists could see and report about. That is why journalists were embedded into the troops during the war on Iraq. Does anybody see the irony that now the soldiers themselves provide the pictures that outrage the world? Next time, digital cameras might be banned.

07 May 2004 | F-Train said...

So, here's what I want to know. What is the likelihood that "Rummy" or any of the other "higher-ups" will be tried as war criminals?

People in those positions should have had access to the Taguba report and must have known about the abuses (hell I have no reservations in asserting that Rummy probably encouraged these kind of tactics).

Can we overthrow the US president, maybe put someone like Noam Chomsky or Mark Cuban in charge? Please? Pretty please, with sugar on top?

07 May 2004 | p8 said...

The photos make you wonder what these people found to shocking to take funny photos of...

The always excellent Billmon quoting the Guardian:

"Bush has created what is in effect a gulag. It stretches from prisons in Afghanistan to Iraq, from Guantnamo to secret CIA prisons around the world. There are perhaps 10,000 people being held in Iraq, 1,000 in Afghanistan and almost 700 in Guantnamo, but no one knows the exact numbers. The law as it applies to them is whatever the executive deems necessary. There has been nothing like this system since the fall of the Soviet Union."

..and quoting the Washington Post: "The foundation for the crimes at Abu Ghraib was laid more than two years ago, when Mr. Rumsfeld instituted a system of holding detainees from Afghanistan not only incommunicado, without charge, and without legal process, but without any meaningful oversight mechanism at all."

I find the "wir haben es nicht gewusst" reactions disgusting.
The US still has the School of Assassins torture and terrorist training center for christs sake! It's what the CIA has been doing since it's creation! (just ask the Bush family)

The torturers probably consist of racist sociopaths and people who do anything as long as they aren't being held responsible ( Milgram experiment). This mixed with hate for Arabs created by 'the media'.

As for the leaders I think I agree with William Blum: "But our leaders are perhaps not so much immoral as they are amoral. It's not that they take pleasure in causing so much death and suffering. It's that they just don't care ... if that's a distinction worth making. As long as the death and suffering advance the agenda of the Empire, as long as the right people and the right corporations gain wealth and power and privilege and prestige, as long as the death and suffering aren't happening to them or people close to them ... then they just don't care about it happening to other people, including the American soldiers ..."

George W. Bush and Rumsfeld should be tried for war crimes. Saying that they were't responsible for this is like saying Hitler wasn't responsible for Auschwitz.

And since torture by Saddam seems the only credible reason used for the war, these actions have legitimized the resistance.

07 May 2004 | Benjy said...

And since torture by Saddam seems the only credible reason used for the war, these actions have legitimized the resistance.

I argued this point the other day elsewhere. How ironic that we go in to save the people from abuse, torture, authoritarian rule, etc. and we simply do the same thing. Ans just as we were a foreign element coming into Iraq to "protect" its people, then so too aren't those "insurgents" coming in from Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, etc.?

It's really hard to paint this conflict as a battle between good and evil when our actions are the same as the "evil" ones. But then we know it's always really been about oil...

07 May 2004 | One of several Steves said...

It remains to be seen how much this was an incident reflecting a group of people taking matters into their own hands, or if it was something far more sinister.

If it is something more sinister, it's still not a black and white thing, because there are many possibilities. The worst would be that it was official policy. I personally doubt that. Other possibilities are that higher-ups took on a "don't ask, don't tell" perspective, that mid-level officers misinterpreted and misdirected the direction given to them from higher up to get information to mean by any means necessary. Or, this happened, it filtered up, and officials tried to bury it.

I personally believe the last option there is the most likely scenario. Which is reprehensible in itself. There is increasing evidence that DoD knew about this very early on and tried to supress it (asking CBS to delay the story, asking them not to show images, etc.). And now there are reports that the Int'l Red Cross raised this issue with the White House months ago.

How much of that goes up to Bush? Tough to say. The whole Rice/Clark thing showed that the administrative structure there is such that not much is brought to the president, and there are innumerable buffers between him and the people doing work on the ground. In that sitation, it's perfectly likely that he wasn't informed.

He's still responsible, however. The head of an organization is always responsible for what goes on underneath him or her. So far, Bush's biggest failing in my eyes is that he is not taking swift action against the people who hid information from him or lied to him. Rumsfeld first and foremost.

07 May 2004 | Benjy said...

How much of that goes up to Bush? Tough to say. The whole Rice/Clark thing showed that the administrative structure there is such that not much is brought to the president, and there are innumerable buffers between him and the people doing work on the ground. In that sitation, it's perfectly likely that he wasn't informed.

According to NPR this morning, it sounds like Rumsfeld has known about this since January but never informed Bush of what was going on. Whether he simply forgot, didn't think it was important, or chose to try and bury it. Actually sounds like Rummy got the report and simply dropped the ball in terms of following up on it because he seems to be almost as off-guard as Bush since the story broke.

07 May 2004 | John Dowdell said...

Old stuff... search "milgram electric shock" for more, or:
http://www.new-life.net/milgram.htm

Proves that lots of people (particularly the "well educated"?) just do and think what others expect of them. No surprise there, really... "the evening news" tends to shape conversation regardless of its sensibility or inclusiveness, as you can tell from many of the comments above. Blogs offer a way to examine many sides of many issues.

07 May 2004 | p8 said...

The worst would be that it was official policy. I personally doubt that.

I would too if it wasn't for the systematic use of torture by the US over the years.

Some examples:
Uruguay
"The US Office of Public Safety trained Uruguayan police and intelligence in policing and interrogration techniques. The Uruguayan Chief of Police intelligence, ... told ... that the OPS, especially the head of the OPS in Uruguay, Dan Mitrione, had instructed the Uruguayan police how to torture suspects, especially with electrical implements."

Vietnam
"A former US military-intelligence officer in Vietnam, K. Barton Osborn, testified before a house Committee that suspect caught by Phoenix were interrogated in helicopters and sometimes pushed out. He also spoke of the use of electric shock torture and insertion of the ear of a six-inch dowel which was tapped through the brain until the victim died." William Blum, Killing Hope, page 131.

El Salvador
"The CIA had advisors attached to the intelligence units which did the torturing and killing.
Likewise, some Salvadorian army officers with the worst records later turned out to be on the CIA payroll, and have subsequently become US citizens."

Do the Bush chickenhawk bureaucrats really know the consequences of their policy? I'm not sure.
Billmon: "It's said that Heinrich Himmler turned white as a sheet upon witnessing the business end of a gas chamber during one of his rare inspection tours of the camps, and had a difficult time eating his lunch afterwards. That's why creating the proper bureaucratic distance between the thought and the deed was a critical part of the Nazi method for convincing large numbers of otherwise law-abiding men and women to participate in mass murder."

07 May 2004 | Benjy said...

And lets not forget the fact that just yesterday, Congress approved John Negroponte as Ambassador to Iraq once sovreignty is retuned July1. Negroponte had a questionable track record in Honduras during his time as ambassador there.

Records also show that a special intelligence unit (i.e. a fascist death squad) of the Honduran armed forces, Battalion 3-16, trained by the CIA and Argentine military, kidnaped, tortured and killed hundreds of people, including US missionaries. Critics charge that Negroponte knew about these human rights violations and yet continued to collaborate with the Honduran military while lying to Congress.

While I'm sure that Negroponte was a vicitm of the circumstances to some degree, wrapped up in the whole Iran-Contra thing with Regan funding anti-Sandinistas, etc. and that was 20 years ago, his appointment on the heals of this abuse/torture scandal cannot look good to the rest of the world. Whether he's the best skilled person for the job, etc. it sends the wrong message at this time.

07 May 2004 | One of several Steves said...

P8, the fact that the US has used surrogates for torture, or that the CIA has used it as part of its arsenal, does not equate to an official policy. The CIA and the entire intelligence apparatus operate largely autonomously and with little control over oversight. And, as you pointed out, there is probably deliberate insulation between the people doing the dirty work and the officials responsible for the overall operation (even if the Nazi comparison - one of the most tiresome and ineffective rhetorical techniques used today - is over-the-top).

As I said, I doubt there's any official (spoken or unspoken) policy encouraging torture and abuse. Is there an institutional awareness to willfully put many people's heads in the sand? Most likely.

07 May 2004 | Jonny Roader said...

"As I said, I doubt there's any official (spoken or unspoken) policy encouraging torture and abuse. Is there an institutional awareness to willfully put many people's heads in the sand? Most likely."

So 'willfully' ignoring torture and abuse is acceptable? I can't see the distinction myself.

But then, as someone pointed out to me today, I supported a war fought for fuck knows what. What, really, is more acceptable about dropping a bomb that maims innocent kids and attaching a man's dick to an electrode? Psychological 'distance' from the act?

07 May 2004 | Jonny Roader said...

Anyone remember tips from Rumsfeld's Rules a while back? Here are some more!

• You and the White House staff must be and be seen to be above suspicion. Set the right example.
• If you foul up, tell the president and correct it fast. Delay only compounds mistakes.
• It is easier to get into something than to get out of it.
• Don't divide the world into them and us.
• Remember the public trust. Strive to preserve and enhance the integrity of the office of the presidency.
• Be able to resign. It will improve your value to the president and do wonders for your performance.
• If you are lost -- climb, conserve, and confess. -- U.S. Navy SNJ Flight Manual
• Public servants are paid to serve the American people. Do it well.
• The oil can is mightier than the sword. -- former Sen. Everett Dirksen (R., Ill.)
• The most important things in life you cannot see -- civility, justice, courage, peace. -- Unknown

Rumsfeld's Rules: Advice on government, business and life.

Nice to see a man with principles! I trust that the American right will go after him with the same vigour they hounded Clinton for a blowjob?

07 May 2004 | p8 said...

Steve, I don't want to start a discussion about when it's appropriate to make comparisons to Nazi's but..

With the quote I didn't intentionaly want to compare Bush to Himmler. I just thought it was a 'good' example (hyperboles usually work better) of how other officials try to distance themselves from the worst possible consequences of their policy. I wanted to write that I didn't want to compare Bush to the Nazi's, but after reading my first three quotes I thought "F-it, are some of the US presidents really that much better?". I'm not sure.

While the scale of death in Iraq (starting at 10.000 civilians) can't be compared to the nazi's, the 4 million civilians killed in the Vietnam War can be compared to the approx. 12 million civilians killed by the Nazi's. And no one in the US has really been held accountable for those past attrocities.

the fact that the US has used surrogates for torture, or that the CIA has used it as part of its arsenal, does not equate to an official policy. The CIA and the entire intelligence apparatus operate largely autonomously and with little control over oversight.

So letting the CIA operate autonomously after these atrocities is official policy?

08 May 2004 | Michel Galle said...

I'm really happy to see Jonny Roader and others comments.
it shows very mostly all americans people are decent people as they ever were.

the really main problems is what ANY people can do in "special situations", it's the same for ALL people in the world, you can find examples in mostly all crisis in History.

so , leaders and people should always do the best to AVOID similar situations, be never a guardian, be never an simple obedient soldier to an amoral orders, and whatever else, or maybe we will forget who we are in the "specials situations".

08 May 2004 | miles said...

anyone else seen, das experiment?

11 May 2004 | Don Schenck said...

If only it were so easy to analyze and solve.

Would you abuse a prisoner of war if it meant it would prevent, say, a bomb from killing all of your friends and loved ones (and left *you* alive)?

What a question.

11 May 2004 | p8 said...

Don, Terry Waite was asked this same question on dutch tv(in english with subtitles).

Waite: "Once the state descends into torturing people in order to extract information, it means that you are going to torture dozens of people, many of whom will be totally innocent. Absolutly innocent! And therefore the state is descending to the level of the terrorists. So I think it's out of order.
...
Torture is no guarantee that you will get the accurate information from the person. And in the long run it undermines the integrity of individuals and the state.
...
No I'm not willing to torture. Never as far as I can see myself".

Former hostage Terry Waite, was kept in total isolation for 4 years in Lebanon.
His experience was frighteningly similar to what the Iraqis and people in Guantanamo must have gone through:
- He was innocent. ( like 60% of the civilians at Abu Ghraib)
- He had been blindfolded and shackled.
- He had no access to family and no legal representation.
- He went through a mock execution.

Because he's a westener it's easier to relate to what the Iraqis must have gone through.

12 May 2004 | One of several Steves said...

So letting the CIA operate autonomously after these atrocities is official policy?

I never said it was official policy. It is de facto policy.

Also note that we don't know yet if the CIA was involved (I think it's highly likely, however, and consistent with their past patterns).

Personally, my impression is that the official, but unwritten, policy under this administration is one of plausible deniability.

13 May 2004 | Belen said...

Slate has a piece on the Stanford experiment's applicability to these abuses:

http://slate.msn.com/id/2100419/