The Road To Abu Ghraib

[skanky]

From an American (http://prorev.com/abu.htm) perspective.

[gil]

Yeah, well, the message he conveyed there was:

o America, especially corporate and governmental America has a culture of impunity. I think he's right.
o It's all Margaret Thatcher's fault. Hardly.
o I warned you.

He's not carrying the argument forward much.

[skanky]

Well point one is something that a lot of people have trouble conceiving. So in one respect he's attempting to drag others to the point this point so it can be carried forward.

The Thatcherism reference is not quite right here, as countries have been torturing prisoners for years, but in my opinion it certainly has more responsibility for general anti-social behaviour than the so-called "PC" non-punishment system that most people seem to blame these days. That the Abu Ghraib abuses were government sanctioned tends to weaken the antisocial aspect, but there is some evidence to suggest that some of the behaviour that occurred (occurs) there is outside even the US government's instructions.

How much Thatcher affected Reagan or vice versa is open to debate, as people in the US seem to think that she had a huge impact on him, whereas many here think he pushed her excesses. Though she may have influenced him most, their policies were probably separate products of the same school of thought. Keith Joseph was one major UK devotee, whilst there were probably influential US counterparts.


A number of things that he's referring to in that article are elsewhere in the his journal/review and he has been covering this sort of stuff for years (should have mentioned that to put it into context). He's built up quite an archive on US prison abuse and torture (as reported by the media) over the years.

[amner]

o It's all Margaret Thatcher's fault. Hardly.

I thought it was always Thatcher's fault, whatever. From stubbing my toe to Global Warming...
.

[gil]

What really IS acceptable in the way of prisoner interrogation?

If you stick to the stiff upper lip, respect for enemies, school of thought, then it's asking name, rank and number, and that's it. If the prisoner chooses not to reply, you're stuffed. If he does, you're no further forward.

Well, there's nothing wrong with asking him other questions, and if he replies, so much the better, That's acceptable.

OK, so you make him a bit uncomfortable, without hurting him. Arguably, even something like hooding causes respiratory and psychological distress, and restraints - handcuffs and ankle cuffs - might pull a little, cause pins and needles. You might shout at him, keep his light on day and night, play The Smiths albums to depress him. Play recordings of people screaming in agony at night, and, at the end of the day, he wouldn't be able to say you'd actually hurt him more than he might be hurt if he was arrested and put in the drunk tank in London or New York.

You can see where this is tending, can't you? Make his cell a bit uncomfortable, make him sit on a narrow shelf. Frighten him a bit more, give him a mild electric shock, pretend to drown him, but don't keep him under for long. No marks or bruises on the body, so far. Stripping him naked and making a laughing stock of him? What's the harm? He'll survive that.

How much further is acceptable? Does it matter whether the guy was arrested for black-marketeering or for carrying an AK47 inside the UN compound? To what extent does the importance of the information he could give you govern how roughly you treat him?

You see, the point at which treatment becomes unacceptable as far as Civilised Man is concerned is probably anything beyond a polite interview. Once you've broken that limit, and the interrogators will, if the prisoner is not legally represented in the interview room, the sky's the limit.

In my opinion, the blame for this is at the highest level. Unless The Authority makes it quite clear what's acceptable, the interrogators and sadists and perverts will do ANYTHING in the name of garnering useful information from a hostile.

[NottyImp]

"In my opinion, the blame for this is at the highest level. Unless The Authority makes it quite clear what's acceptable, the interrogators and sadists and perverts will do ANYTHING in the name of garnering useful information from a hostile."

As they always have.

[skanky]

And what makes the people at the top think that torture becomes acceptable? It's very tempting to say "never getting caught".

[rick green]

Pretty much since the Second World War, or perhaps the Korean War, the US has preferred to let other people do its military dirty work, including torture and terrorism and intelligence gathering. The role of military advisors under the guise of humanitarian aid missions has been customary. And from what I understand, the abuse of human rights has been far worse in the past than the current case. All of the US trained and armed death squads, paramilitary groups and national guards in Latin America are examples, but there are many more around the world. This is a much more convenient set up for US military interests as they can wash their hands of any abuse by saying it simply wasn't their doing, the undisciplined natives (read savages) acted outside the bounds of their training, etc. And this is sufficient for most media types. In Iraq, of course, there is no such exit. In their courts martial, the accused are expected to say they were acting on orders. I just can't figure out why the photos were taken?

[John Self]

They were taken as souvenirs, which is why they are all mugging at the camera giving the thumbs-up. Stupid people doing criminal acts never think they will be caught. This is what set the British 'photos' apart as fakes: apart from the obvious posed compositions, the soldiers were faceless - whereas the only reason anyone would take photos if they were doing that sort of thing would be to prove they were there. Look at me!

[rick green]

They were taken as souvenirs
Must be, huh? God! but it's sickeneing.
On a side note, Notty Imp said that Chomsky was too dry for his taste, but in this (http://blog.zmag.org/ttt/archives/000361.html#more) little note, he shows his withering sense of irony at the end. Oh, what a world! :(

[skanky]

Can't argue with Rick's comments, there.

There is also the suggestion that the photos were part of the torture to some extent. There's been a suggestion that they were part of the humiliation of the prisoners, which is also why sex and females were involved. I would imagine that there was some of that, plus souvenirs. These things tend to have many aspects.

[NottyImp]

Taking "trophy" photgraphs was, I believe, pretty common in Vietnam.

[bakunin_the_cat]

Trophy photographs are pretty sick but you'd hope this whole affair would shake things up and stop supposedly civilised countries descending to such barbarity. Unfortunately this probably won't change anything at all. The US, the UK and others have all been happily torturing people for years on foreign soil, where they don't have to worry about inconveniences such as human rights. For the most part this happens far from the public spotlight and is never reported. Abu Ghraib will be minor glitch in this policy, and as soon as the media has got bored, and the inquiries and commissions have blamed a couple of low-level scapegoats, normal service will undoubtedly be resumed.

The only thing I find hard to believe is that everybody pretends to be so surprised. Oh, well it wasn't my department. I only read the bits of the document that I thought applied to me personally. But you see, I had no idea. It was just irresponsible people below me, taking matters into their
own hands. As soon as I became aware of the situation I was galvanised into action.

And to be sure, when the story broke they probably were galvanised into action. After all they had to make sure that someone wouldn't end up without a chair when the music stopped. And people accuse me of being a tad cynical!

[skanky]

They've been galvanised into action. They've banned cameras and camera phones from the prisons.

[gil]

So. No more EVIDENCE of excesses, then. That should improve the situation.

I'm surprised they've missed the opportunity to send in teams of image consultants, psychologists, fashion photographers and artistic designers to produce compelling images of prisoners being cossetted to within an inch of their lives, flattered and respected to a terrible extent and given legal assistance of an unprecedented severity.

And did anyone hear Dubya trying to pronounce Abu Grainob three different ways last night. What a buffoon he sounded.

[skanky]

I try to avoid listening to him. He has one the voice, and manner of speaking, that I've ever heard.

[gil]

I try to avoid listening to him. He has one the voice, and manner of speaking, that I've ever heard.

You're even beginning to sound like him. This is serious.

[skanky]

No, I read his statements, instead. That way there's no distractions, you can properly analyse the what he says and ignore that fact that he can't pronounce things very well.

Of course, what he says in speeches are a bit of a red herring. His speeches have been shown to be full of lies and half truths, as well as clichés and general panderings to populist sentiments. The main thing you can gain from his speeches are his born again, religious sentiments and the fact that he either has some very poor speech writers or has little grasp on what goes on in the world.

America is a religion to a sizeable proportion of its population (much like England is a religion to an increasing number of people in this country - there's something about real or perceived insecurity that turns people to religion).

[gil]

You missed my point, I was joshing you about your message that I quoted, which I couldn't parse.

In substance, I agree with you. And there is something extremely sinister about his eyes that makes you not believe a thing he says, even if you didn't know he was spokesman for the oil lobby and a backward religion.

[NottyImp]

The man comes across to me as a sociopath, frankly. It gives me the creeps just listening to him.

[amner]

John Sessions - getting very angry on Grumpy Old Men - called him a 'mental deficient'. Spot on there, John.

[skanky]

You missed my point, I was joshing you about your message that I quoted, which I couldn't parse.

In substance, I agree with you. And there is something extremely sinister about his eyes that makes you not believe a thing he says, even if you didn't know he was spokesman for the oil lobby and a backward religion.

You're right, sorry. I thought you were being patronising :oops:

That message you quoted was the product of editing it, and not re-reading it properly. The perils of writing about this sort of thing at work, where I might have to suddenly wrap my posts up slightly earlier than intended.

[gil]

The perils of writing about this sort of thing at work, where I might have to suddenly wrap my posts up slightly earlier than intended. Don't I know it. Just as I was doing my entry on Brit Art, my boss and his boss pulled up their chairs behind me to have a chat - not, thank heavens, about my mis-use of the Internet.

[NottyImp]

Was it about the merits of Brit-art? :D

[gil]

Again, thank heavens, no.

They had fingered me to talk to a high-ranking person in the company about what was wrong with the company's software development philosophy (a much less contentious subject than either net misuse or BritArt), and they'd become nervous because they hadn't asked me first!

[NottyImp]

Ah... safer territory than an apparently innocuous "What do think about Damien Hirst, Gil old chap?", then.

[skanky]

Nothing new about CIA torture here (http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/05/14/torture_at_abu_ghraib_followed_cias_manual/), but, even though it'is a pulled punch, it's a potentially useful summary (or starting point).

[gil]

"No touch" torture might appear to be a big improvement over the methods of the Spanish Inquisition, but I do not see, frankly, how you can inflict hooding, manacling, stress positions etc. without using force. If, as a suspect, you don't want to be handcuffed, or take your clothes off, or hold your body in some stress position, or wear a hood, then it can't be enforced without force, including yelling loudly in the victim's ear. So, attractive and humane as "no-touch" might at first appear, it requires physical coercion to implement.

[skanky]

That's a good point missed by the article. The point is though, that "no touch" may have been called "torture lite", but as the article points out, it causes deep and long-term psychological trauma. This alone makes it as bad - if not worse - than straight physical torture (when that takes the form of beatings, rather than mutilation). The tortured may not have the "assaulter" as someone to develop anger against, and so develop mental illness - indeed several men (and kids) released from Guantanamo Bay showed signs of mental illness after release.

[NottyImp]

Does not the Geneva Convention outlaw any form of torture for POWs? I know that the Us has absolutely no regard for international law, but are they signatories?

[skanky]

I believe so for both. I'm not sure (m)any countries care much for international law if they (think they) can get away with it. I'm not sure that was ever the case.

[bakunin_the_cat]

Also, according to the US government at least, the detainees are not POWs, neither are they on remand awaiting trial, as in that case, also under the Geneva Convention (yes Notty they are signatories), they couldn't be held without being charged for more than a few days as opposed to the 2 years plus that many of the people in Guantanamo Bay have already served. What these people are, according to Washington is left deliberately vague. I would have to check but I believe this in itself is in breach of international law.

Also, there is a reason why they are in Cuba. Even if the Americans can get away with blatantly disregarding international law and the Geneva Convention on Human Rights, the Government does not want to risk going against it's own laws which do give detainees the usual rights e.g right to be charged, right to have legal representation, the right not to be tortured etc. Even with allleged terrorists where the government is allowed to bend these rules 'in the interests of national security' there's no way that they could get away with what they have done in Cuba. Unfortunately for the detainees, these laws and rights only apply to US soil. A few foreign allies are important enough to get their nationals out, or at least the ones that the US consider to be least dangerous, while the rest are left to rot in prison without charge, largely forgotten by the world's media who have all moved on to the next big war.

[skanky]

Of course, the UK doesn't need to ship people off to a foreign country. There are prisoners kept at Belmarsh who are in pretty much the same state of limbo as those in Guantanamo Bay. I have seen no information on any levels of torture used there - though there was the recent case of one inmate being released on mental health grounds.

[bakunin_the_cat]

Yeah I know. If anyone thought that it was just our American cousins upto this kind of stuff, they should try reading the following
article (http://web.amnesty.org/library/Index/engEUR450192002?OpenDocument&of=COUNTRIES%5CUK)

EDIT: just to get you started,

Part 4 of the ATCSA empowers the Secretary of State to certify an individual as an "international terrorist" if the Secretary of State "reasonably": a) believes that the concerned individual's presence in the UK "is a risk to national security"; and b) "suspects that the person is a terrorist". ATCSA, Part 4, Section 21(1) reads as follows: "[t]he Secretary of State may issue a certificate under this section in respect of a person if the Secretary of State reasonably – (a) believes that the person's presence in the United Kingdom is a risk to national security, and (b) suspects that the person is a terrorist."

Upon certification as "a suspected international terrorist", a non-UK national can be detained without charge or trial, for an unspecified and potentially unlimited period of time, if the concerned individual's removal or deportation from the UK cannot be effected. ...

As such detention is inconsistent with the right to liberty and security as guaranteed under Article 5(1) of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR)

[amner]

Ok, so now we have

:roll: Donald Rumsfeld casting doubt on whether there was ever a relationship between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda. "To my knowledge, I have not seen any strong, hard evidence that links the two," he said recently.

:roll: DR also saying intelligence about weapons of mass destruction before the invasion had been faulty and that the US/UK had been unable to find any such weapons.

:roll: He also said that although most of al-Qaeda's senior leaders had sworn an oath to Osama Bin Laden, the man suspected to be the principal leader of the network in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, had not.

So, a question: why are we in Iraq, exactly? This sounds like straightforward regime change to me.

[Digger]

Anybody read Bob Woodward's Plan of Attack? Although I didn't enjoy it so much as All the President's Men, it didn't quite seem so immediate or engaging, although, as with ATPM it certainly read as slightly stranger than fiction. And this new about face from Rumsfeld simply comfirms the merry-go-round of the political machine that seems somehow oblivious to the fact that even slightly intelligent people out there are perfectly aware of how much rubbish they put out in the name of acceptable reasoning for such acts.

I still find the frequence with which events discussed above occur painfully hard to take, will they/we never learn? I am perhaps the least cynical person I know, and it dissapoints me every time I see these people betray everything democracy should be. :(

In a few years I will move on to anger, and then aquire a fully formed cynical outlook at the world in general.

[wshaw]

In a few years I will move on to anger, and then aquire a fully formed cynical outlook at the world in general.

I think I've just found my aphorism (http://palimpsest.org.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=762).

[Digger]

Thankyou wshaw, I am flattered! :)

Has a Palimper ever been quoted for a aphorism before?

[NottyImp]

The report out today will, of course, tell us that Saddam wanted to manufacture more WMD. Of course he did, he's a dictator. All dictators want WMDs. So let's invade every country with a despotic regime, right?

This will now become the fig-leaf behind which the US and the UK will attempt to conceal their manifest blunders and blatant ulterior motives.

We also have the spectacle of Michael Howard telling us he wants to re-build trust in politicians at the Tory conference. Yes, you heard that right, that's Michael Howard who wants us to trust him.

I'm afraid, Digger, it is in fact your much beloved democracy who has delivered us to these people.

[Digger]

I know, hence my 'should be' rather than 'is'.

Would you still agree that the ideal of a democracy is worth pursuing? No-body's life would improve if everyone decided not to bother.

[NottyImp]

Would you still agree that the ideal of a democracy is worth pursuing?

Depends what you mean by democracy. If you mean putting an "x" next to some careerist politician who is a member of a political party that will do exactly what it wants in power, every five years or so, then no. After all, that's what we have now.

We now have the means for a much more particpatory form of democracy, but you won't be suprised to find very few mainstream politicians advocating that.

[Digger]

Nope, no surprise at all. I suspect that a lot of it comes down simply to selfishness, no polititian is able to be truly altruistic.

But then the voting populous, further down the rungs, are almost never able to be unselfish either, leading us into constant disapointment that the polititian's decisions are never right for either us or our ideals.

[NottyImp]

I have a layperson's interest in ancient history, and you'd be amazed (or perhaps not) in how little things have changed in 2500 years. Blair, Brown et al could be be dropped into ancient Roman or Greek politics and do very well for themselves indeed.

Bush would struggle, however; I don't think his political rhetoric would be up to it. Cicero wouldn't need more than a couple of minutes to dispatch him, I fear.

[bakunin_the_cat]

Bush would struggle, however;

I don't know Notty. Didn't the Romans go from a democratic republic to an empire controlled by a family dynasty? Sound familiar?

[RC]

In today's Guardian there is an edited extract from Jon Ronson's book The Men Who Stare At Goats. As I was reading it I thought - this can't be true - but apparently it is. Fascinating, not to be missed.

[John Self]

Was just going to post that myself, R.C. Have just read it in the print version. It seems Ronson - like Geoff Dyer, someone I will always read, regardless of the subject matter - has a new book out next month called The Men Who Stare At Goats, of which the Guardian piece seems to be a titbit.

In 1979 a secret unit was established by the most gifted minds within the US Army. Defying all known accepted military practice - and indeed, the laws of physics - they believed that a soldier could adopt the cloak of invisibility, pass cleanly through walls and, perhaps most chillingly, kill goats just by staring at them. Entrusted with defending America from all known adversaries, they were the First Earth Battalion. And they really weren't joking. What's more, they're back and fighting the War on Terror. Ronson's highly acclaimed bestseller, THEM: ADVENTURES WITH EXTREMISTS, examined the paranoia at the fringes of Bill Clinton's America. THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS reveals extraordinary - and very nutty - national secrets at the core of George W Bush's War on Terror. With first-hand access to the leading players in the story, Ronson traces the evolution of these bizarre activities over the past three decades, and sees how it is alive today within US Homeland Security and post-war Iraq. Why are they blasting Iraqi prisoners-of-war with the theme tune to Barney the Purple Dinosaur? Why have 100 de-bleated goats been secretly placed inside the Special Forces command centre at Fort Bragg, North Carolina? How was the US Military associated with the mysterious mass-suicide of a strange cult from San Diego? THE MEN WHO STARE AT GOATS answers these, and many more, questions.

It will be interesting to see how Ronson does a sustained book-length report, as his last book Them was a series of vignettes (all but about two I think previously published in the Guardian). The piece today started out highly amusing and ended up quite scary. Here (http://books.guardian.co.uk/extracts/story/0,6761,1339464,00.html)it is.

[amner]

Holy crap.

Er, shifting away from that, the TV series for Them was excellent, by the way, one of those get-the-vid-out re-watch things that still make sme shake my head in wonder. Can there be anything more baffling than David Icke, after all?

[RC]

I sent Jon Ronson's article to a friend and he replied 'Do you believe this?' So then I googled Albert Stubblebine - try it, it's a gold mine. Or check out www.crvmanual.com/ or

www.geocities.com/Area51/Shadowlands/6583/project106.html

[ono no komachi]

For an exploration of alternative realities among US voters, try this:

http://www.pipa.org/OnlineReports/Pres_Election_04/Report10_21_04.pdf

[John Self]

Re the Ronson stuff. When I read the piece it struck me that these goons believed that the sort of thing Derren Brown (http://palimpsest.org.uk/phpBB2/viewtopic.php?t=510)does is real. In particular, there was a guy they featured on the BBC2 series Magic (the episode was a history of mentalism) a couple of weeks ago, called David Berglas, who in the 60s and 70s was doing exactly the sorts of things that Brown is doing now. They showed him driving and parking a car in a car park blindfolded ('seeing through walls' to Stubblebine) and stopping someone's heart, ie making someone feeling another person's pulse believe that it wasn't there any more. Precisely what Ronson's lot thought they could do to goats. Too much TV.

[RC]

John - if you made your 1446th post on Hallowe'en, that's uncanny - because 1446 pounds is precisely the weight of the world champion sized pumpkin which was carved in Richmond, Ontario yesterday. Like, WOW. How do you do it?

[John Self]

Heck, R.C., sometimes I surprise myself.

http://www.pumpkinfest.org/pics/IMG_1042.jpg

[amner]

I see Buster Gonad has grown up a bit.