Torture: It’s Happening
Mar 21st, 2007 | 6 responses
It’s amazing that some analysts are still insisting that there is not any torture going on at America’s foreign detention centers.
That is, despite the fact that the number of detainees who claim to have been tortured or abused while in US custody seems to grow every week. In the past, there have been allegations by Bangladeshis, Afghanis, and Brits. Last week, it was Khalid Sheikh Mohammad who insisted that he had been tortured while in American custody. This week, it’s David Hicks, a British citizen who has been in Guantanamo for over five years. Here’s a cut from a recent article about him in The New York Times:
He said [that he] was taken to the amphibious assault ship Peleliu, which he knew because of announcements over the public address system. Among the detainees was John Walker Lindh, the American who later pleaded guilty to serving with the Taliban and is now serving 20 years. Commander Gordon said the military would not discuss whether Mr. Hicks was held on ships, but noted that it was a matter of public record that Mr. Lindh was held on the Peleliu.
On board, Mr. Hicks said he could hear other detainees “screaming in pain� when being interrogated.
He said he was later transferred to the amphibious assault ship Bataan, where he said conditions became “drastically� worse. He was fed only a handful of rice or fruit three times a day, the affidavit asserts, and on several occasions, he and other detainees, blindfolded, hooded and handcuffed, were thrown onto helicopters and taken to hangar-like buildings in an unknown location.
They were forced to kneel for 10 hours, during which time “I was hit in the back of the head with the butt of a rifle several times (hard enough to knock me over), slapped in the back of the head, kicked, stepped on, and spat on,� he said. “I could hear the groans and cries of other detainees.�
He was flown back to the ship, and a few days later back to a hangar.
A week or so later, he was flown to Kandahar, where he and other detainees “were forced to lie face down in the mud while solders walked across our backs.�
He was stripped, his body hair shaved and a piece of “white plastic was forcibly inserted in my rectum for no apparent purpose,� he wrote. Soldiers made crude comments about the insertion, he said.
Are Hicks and other detainees lying about what they went through? I doubt it. The fact that there is a very large number of detainees who have alleged such treatment, that they all separately report experiencing similar interrogation procedures, and that these same methods of torture were revealed to have been used at Abu Ghraib suggests that there is systematic and regular abuse being carried out at these overseas detention facilities.
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6 Responses to “Torture: It’s Happening”
Of course, if it is indeed true (as allegedly documented by “Al Qaeda training manuals” that detainees are instructed to invent such stories and told how to do so), the fact that a number of detainees make such allegations is not in fact evidence of actual torture. Are so many soldiers really conspiring to cover this up? Surely it should be possible to unearth physical evidence or snitches if these activities are so widespread. A massive conspiracy of silence seems unlikely.
I think there is little doubt that horrible things are being done to detainees. If you recall, the President and McCain came to a deal that would allow torture and would protect government employees for being prosecuted for past abuses. Why would they do that if it wasn’t going on or if they didn’t plan on doing it in the future?
And then there’s the recent New Yorker article on the show “24″, which is drawing complaints from the military that it’s encouraging torture of prisoners in Iraq. Included is an interview with a military interrogator who says he used some of these techniques and saw worse ones used by others.
Between the strain from deployments, the physical and psychological injuries, and the moral decline stemming from the use of torture, I fear that the war in Iraq may well destroy our military.
Of course, one should define “torture,” “abuse,” and “ill-treatment” before one makes any claims. Not everyone has the same definition, particularly among different cultures.
I have not doubt some or possibly all these people were subjected to some kind of abuse. I also have no doubt that they are exaggerating their treatment, which is natural human tendency, and Russ is right about AQ knowing what to claim and what not to. So, the truth probably lies somewhere in the middle – there was abuse, but probably not to the extent that these detainees claim. I think those who regurgitate detainee claims as incontrovertible fact should work on their critical thinking skills.
And we also shouldn’t confuse past acts with what’s going on now. Policy has changed and most of the torture allegations I’ve read occurred over a year ago. It seems to me that detainees are finally being treated better. Whether that treatment constitutes torture largely depends on what one’s subjective definition is, biased by their politics.
What other purpose is there for the black hole overseas camps?
If everything was aboveboard, there would be no need for secrecy and deception.
Entropy, c’mon. Bush pulled us out of the geneva convention and redefined tortures use by our forces. There is one, and only one, reason for someone to do that. Because they plan to make torture part of the standard operating procedure. Believing anything other than that is ignorance at its most dangerous.