May 6, 2004
Torture, the US way
PV Vivekanand
NO AMERICAN expression of regret over the abuse of Iraqis held at US-run prisons in occupied Iraq will convince the world that the Washington leadership, both political and military, was unaware of what was going on until the tell-tale images of prisoners being mistreated, tortured and humiliated were hit the media last month. It defies logic that those who draw up strategies and make decisions and policies failed to take note that Washington had authorised torture and abuse of prisoners as warranted in its post-Sept.11 "war against terrorism." Few around the world would ever buy the argument that the top echelons in Washington represent the "American conscience" that abhors violations of human rights and are numbed into shock by the images of the abuses in Iraq, writes PV Vivekanand.
"We want to know the truth," says US President George Bush referring to the spiralling scandal over the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in American detention in occupied Iraq. US Defence Secretary Ronald Rumsfeld and National Security Adviser Condolleezza Rice say the US is sorry about the abuse but stop short of offering an apology for the abuse, humiliation and torture the Iraqis suffered in American hands.
Other senior Bush administration officials repeat the same thing — that no one in the corridors of political power in Washington was aware that Iraqi prisoners were mistreated — to put it mildly of course — until the telling images appeared on CBS Television.
The whole scenario of arguments is deceptive since it had been established that the US government had authorised the use of torture of detainees since Sept.11, 2001, and if any administration official dealing with the issue says he or she did not know it, then it could not be taken except with a large dose of salt and vinegar.
Bush does not have to look anywhere for the truth that he wants to know. It is there, simple and straight: The way top decision makers and strategists the US dealt with Iraq in the 13 years to the run-up to the invasion and occupation of that country last year and since then in the occupied country was characterised by contempt for Arabs and Muslims, as if they were sub-standard human beings. And that had set the ground for the gross abuse of Iraqi prisoners in occupied Iraq since the attitude in Washington had been seeping down through the ranks.
Those who engaged in abuses knew well that they could get away with it; they were given the order to do whatever it takes to extraact information; and in the bargain they engaged in sadistic practices perhaps for personal pleasure as much as for terrifying the victims into revealing information (which often they might not have had).
How is it possible that top administration officials did not know what was going on in US-administered Iraqi prisons in light of the revelations that the US Army had filed a report about abuses in November last year?
Are we to believe that the confidential report filed by Major General Antonio Taguba in February saying there was "sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuse" of prisoners to soften them up for interrogation did not reach the defence secretary and upwards?
According to Taguba, US army intelligence officers, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) operatives and private contractors "actively requested that military police guards set physical and mental conditions for favourable interrogation of witnesses."
It is not surprising at all since it fits in with the shift in the American approach to such issues since Sept.11, when "everything changed." It became a free-for-all when it came to countering the threat of terror against the US.
Obviously, the US does not consider itself be bound by any international law. The best example is Washington's allout campaign to exclude the US from the jurisdiction of the International Criminal Court and to sign bilateral deals that offer immunity to US soldiers against charges of war crimes or human rights violations.
Mainstream newspapers like the Washington Post and Briton's Guardian reported in 2002 that the administration had authorised the use of torture of prisoners held in the Afghan war.
It was only a matter of convenience for the administration not to bring in the prisoners to the US mainland and then take the chance of exposing itself to charges of abuse of prisoners that it decided to send them to Guantanamo Bay where no rule applies except those set to serve intelligence purposes.
It was also not strange that American security agents took suspects arrested outside the US to special centres set up in "friendly countries" where they were free to use any interrogation method they chose without any question being asked.
Roughly 3,000 suspects are held in detention outside mainland US but under direct or indirect American control since Sept.11 and the Afghanistan war. They are not given access to legal help and are not provided any status at all.
The Washington Post, in a March 11, 2002 article, cited unnamed American diplomats and Indonesian and Pakistani government officials who recounted how American security agents kidnapped individuals abroad and transferred them, without extradition procedures, to other countries, where they were often imprisoned, tortured, and, in some cases, put to death.
In a Dec.26, 2002 report, the Washington Post said that the US had also supervised interrogation under torture of prisoners in occupied Afghanistan. It said that Afghan and Arab prisoners at a top security facility inside the US military’s Bagram air base were “sometimes kept standing or kneeling for hours, in black hoods or spray-painted goggles.”
“At times they are held in awkward, painful positions or deprived of sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights—subject to what are known as ‘stress and duress’ techniques," said the report.
According to Amnesty International, the London-based international human rights watchdog, “Many detainees i(n Iraq) have alleged they were tortured and ill-treated by US and UK troops during interrogation. Methods reported often include beatings; prolonged sleep deprivation; prolonged restraint in painful positions, sometimes combined with exposure to loud music; prolonged hooding and exposure to bright light.”
Mind you, Amnesty said this in a 2003 report and not after the latest revelations. How come no one in Washington gave the report a second thought and did not order an inquiry? Fact is, they knew but could not care less.
In his state of the union address, Bush referred to the abuses that Iraqis suffered during the Saddam Hussein era. It definitely signalled that thoughts about the present situation of Iraqis in detention in post-war Iraq could not have escaped his mind and invalidates the argument that it never occurred to him that abuses could be continuing even today until the CBS images took him by surprise and shocked him.
It is now known that General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, had managed to convince CBS to delay the release of the images by two weeks. What happened during the two weeks? Did Myers try to handle the issue on his own without informing the president, the commander-in-chief of the armed forces of the United States? Did Myers keep it away from Rumsfeld knowing very well that he had not blocked the release of the images but had only delayed it?
No matter how one scrutinises the scenario, it is next to impossible to accept any explanation that the abuses were isolated incidents and unruly servicemen and women were behind it without their bosses being aware of what was going on.
Are we to believe that the top American officials now trying fantically to pin the crime on a few "rogue" soldiers and military police had no idea whatsover of what was going on in Iraq and that the treatment given to Iraqi prisoners was different than that given to detainees linked to the war in Afghanistan?
Against such a backdrop, it is not at all unfair for anyone to take it for granted that torture was rampant in US-held Iraqi prisoners as American strategists desperately sought every bit of intelligence information that they could possibly use in their fight against Iraqi resistance.
The ongoing effort in Washington to convince the world that the "civilised United States" does not approve of torture and abuse of of anyone anywhere in the world is a washed out bid as far as the Arabs and Muslims are concerned.
For the Arabs on the street, the near apologies and regrets and vows to punish those "guilty" of abusing Iraqi prisoners mean very little. They are convinced that everyone in power in Washington knew perfectly well what was going on in prisons in post-war Iraq and now all are trying to feign ignorance and pass the buck.
Interestingly, the only countries to try to suppress the images and keep them away from the broader media were the US and Iraq itself.
Almost all major American newspapers are deemed to have made a deliberate attempt not to allow the images influence the American public. Indeed, they carried reports about the abuses but it could be discerned that there was an effort by many to point the accusing fingers only at those who were actually engaged in the sadistic abuses in Iraq. Few papers ever bothered to ask the quessential question: Did the people at the top know about the abuses?
A telling editorial was carried by the New York Times early this week. Titled Abuses at Abu Ghraib," the May 1 editorial said “President Bush spoke for all Americans of conscience yesterday when he expressed disgust” over the images.
According to the editorial, the torture and abuse defied “the accepted conventions of war” and were the work merely of a “few soldiers” who would be “taken care of.”
Why did the paper overlook that no administration official had denied the 2002 and 2003 reports of rampant torture and abuse of Afghan war detainees? Wasn't it obvious that the standing order was to use whatever it took to extract intelligence information from the detainees? Did anyone need any emphatic reminder that the same was applied in Iraq?
The Washington Post also implictly sought to tone down the reality of the situation..
“Taken together, the photographs demonstrate some of the most demeaning, humiliating and shameful treatment of prisoners imaginable, short of actual physical torture,” said the paper.
Oh! oh! oh! How does the Post then define "physical torture?" Perhaps, it wants more human suffering than what was reported by General Taguba , who wrote of "breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape...sodomising a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.”
We witnessed in the US since Sept.11 a dedicated and non-compromising approach to waging war against Iraq no matter what. The UN was pushed aside and every conceivable ruse was used to make it appear that the US had no choice but to invade Iraq, topple Saddam Hussein and occupy the country until such time it is shaped to suit American interests.
In reality, the Arab and Muslim world clearly saw through the game orchestrated by the Washington war camp run by the pro-Israeli neoconsevatives at every stage but no Arab or Muslim was able to prevent them from realising their objective of gaining military control of Iraq. Indeed, a majority in the international community knew that the American justifications for the war — whether weapons of mass destruction, international terorrism, human rights or democracy — were cited whenever it suited Washington to do so.
And today, the US has gained military control of Iraq in a broader sense, but is slipping more and more into a quagmire with defies logical solutions in view of the strategic and political objectives of the Bush administration.
The images of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib have dealt one the biggest blows to the US designs in post-war Iraq. It has totally undermined American credibility in the world scene and there is no short-, medium-, or long-term solutions to repair the damage.
The images have exposed the American contention that the US wants the welfare of the people of Iraq and help them turn their country to a democracy where human rights would be most sacred.
The images — coupled by moumnting relevations that abuse by former detainees in post-war Iraq — have turned a massive majority of the people of Iraq against the US occupation.
The only logical turn that the course of events in Iraq is increased guerrilla attacks and resistance that would put to a severe test the American resolve to realising its strategic goals of the invasion and occupation of that country. However, we would not bet on Washington deciding to cut and run from Iraq since consolidating the foothold it has gained in the Middle East through its presence in Iraq is the central pillar of the US quest for global domination.
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