quote:LONDON (Reuters) - The Red Cross saw U.S. troops keeping Iraqi prisoners naked for days in darkness at the Abu Ghraib jail in October, and was told by the intelligence officer in charge it was "part of the process," a leaked report said on Monday.
quote:GENEVA - The Red Cross saw American officers mistreating Abu Ghraib prisoners by keeping them naked in total darkness in empty cells, and up to 90 percent of Iraqi detainees were arrested by mistake, according to a report disclosed Monday.
quote:The report cites abuses — some "tantamount to torture" — including brutality, hooding, humiliation and threats of "imminent execution."
"These methods of physical and psychological coercion were used by the military intelligence in a systematic way to gain confessions and extract information and other forms of cooperation from person who had been arrested in connection with suspected security offenses or deemed to have an 'intelligence value.'"
The agency said arrests allegedly tended to follow a pattern.
"Arresting authorities entered houses usually after dark, breaking down doors, waking up residents roughly, yelling orders, forcing family members into one room under military guard while searching the rest of the house and further breaking doors, cabinets and other property," the report said.
"Sometimes they arrested all adult males present in a house, including elderly, handicapped or sick people," it said. "Treatment often included pushing people around, insulting, taking aim with rifles, punching and kicking and striking with rifles."
It said some coalition military intelligence officers estimated "between 70 percent and 90 percent of the persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq (news - web sites) had been arrested by mistake. They also attributed the brutality of some arrests to the lack of proper supervision of battle group units."
quote:Kraehenbuehl said the abuse of prisoners represented more than isolated acts, and that the problems were not limited to Abu Ghraib.
"We were dealing here with a broad pattern, not individual acts. There was a pattern and a system," he said, declining to give further details.
If this report is accurate then these problems in Iraq are clearly more than "isolated" incidents. If the pictures being published are merely the tip of an iceberg, something serious needs to be done to fix it. We cannot afford to been seen as (or become) the new Saddam in Iraq.
posted
Here's a question, though: is keeping someone naked and disoriented in the dark inherently abominable? Is there no form of "torture" which is acceptable?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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..these ARE people who tried to kill our people, you know..
I have a friend who was once held for two weeks in a psychiatric hospital here in U.S. for a mental evaluation and anger management. During that time, he was kept pretty much stripped down to either naked or next-to-naked and in insolation. I guess it is a common thing to keep patients from harming themselves and/or others. So this isn't too far a stretch from what we do to our own...
Farmgirl (however, of course, the news reports I have heard about there being rape and/or sodomy of prisoners -- that is WAY over the line of going too far. I'm just not surprised or shocked by the being-kept-naked part)
Posts: 9538 | Registered: Aug 2003
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posted
Did y'all see that article in the Atlantic Monthly about interrogation?
Basically, if someone doesn't want to tell you something, what can you do to get them to talk? If you have captured an enemy and they have information, is it really the act of a decent human being to make sure they are never uncomfortable for a second, because doing so may induce them to reveal the information that may save lives?
I almost hesitate to post this because I do think treating people crappily is a terrible thing, but think about it. Is making someone uncomfortable the same thing as torturing them?
And no, I wouldn't want it done to me, and I would never want to do it, and it's inherently barbaric, but come on. Did you think when the soldiers got to Iraq, everyone was going to hold hands and skip? (The above was directed not to Hatrackers, but to the media that overwhelmingly supported the war and then was Shocked! Shocked! when it turns out that war-like actions occurred.)
quote:..these ARE people who tried to kill our people, you know..
quote:...between 70 percent and 90 percent of the persons deprived of their liberty in Iraq (news - web sites) had been arrested by mistake.
Did anyone here have to study the Stanford Prison experiment in Psych 101? I'm not at all surprised that these unsupervised soldiers are reverting to such soulless animals when they find themselves with prisoners to control, but I am absolutely shocked that this is expected behavior, and no one did anything to forestall it! I mean, any 19 year old kid at my school could tell you that untrained humans react to prison systems like this; why the hell wasn't the army prepared for it? Why didn't they have trained prison guards to run these places, with experience in dealing with these kinds of situations? Why weren't these soldiers supervised??
According the Geneva Convention, it's unacceptable.
Here's another kink - even IF one thinks that tactics like these are acceptable to use with Al-Qaeda members, there's no evidence that any of the prisoners treated this way were, in fact, Al-Qaeda.
In Iraq, the prisons hold a mix of those with ties to Saddam, criminals, and others caught up in general sweeps - and no reliable way to identify which group individuals belong to. What other explanation is there for keeping innocent bystanders imprisoned for months?
There really isn't a credible defense for what has been allowed at the Iraqi prisons.
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
"..these ARE people who tried to kill our people, you know.."
The estimate is that 70to90% are guilty of nothing more than being in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Of those remaining, many are guilty only of being uncooperative during house searches, eg: all the men&boys of a household arrested for trying to block soldiers during nightsearches from viewing the undressed (in terms of religiously mandated modesty) women&girls in their home, or trying to keep searchdogs from entering their home (religiously, dogs are considered unclean by many Arabs and NorthAfricans). Then there are families arrested on only the word of "informer"s who are known by neighbors to have grudges against those arrested. Quite often, those "informer"s are known neighborhood troublemakers.
posted
How would YOU feel if soldiers broke into your house, yelled at you, broke property, arrested you, humiliated you, kept you naked in a pitch black cell, and threatened to kill you if you didn't confess to things? How would you feel if this happened to you and you had done no crime?
Keep in mind that coalition officials themselves admitted that "70 to 90 percent" of arrests were mistaken. How could this possibly be considered "acceptable" in any American sense of the term? Or are we Saddam now?
quote: Here's a question, though: is keeping someone naked and disoriented in the dark inherently abominable? Is there no form of "torture" which is acceptable?
Oh Tom, how we've both changed it seems.
I remember a long time ago having arguement with you about torture, I dont think back then you would asked this question.
It'd be nice if I could find that thread, but sadly I have no idea what the title or subject of the thread was.
From a link on the other thread:
quote:The mistreatment at Abu Ghraib may have done little to further American intelligence, however. Willie J. Rowell, who served for thirty-six years as a C.I.D. agent, told me that the use of force or humiliation with prisoners is invariably counterproductive. “They’ll tell you what you want to hear, truth or no truth,” Rowell said. “‘You can flog me until I tell you what I know you want me to say.’ You don’t get righteous information.”
posted
"I remember a long time ago having arguement with you about torture, I dont think back then you would asked this question."
I think you are mistaking my asking of a question with my ANSWERING a question. Nowhere in that sentence do I pretend to offer an opinion.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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posted
This is where things called "trials" come in handy. It helps the civilized world separate those who are guilty and deserving of punishment from those who are not.
But we can't wait for that type of understanding to be given. We are on a time clock here folks. The rebels are planting bombs for no good reason and funding for this adventure is running out. Instead we just "torture" everyone and someone will tell us what we want to hear.
If you are innocent and the dogs chew up your leg, well we do apologize. However, how innocent can you be if our well trained troops brought you in. For that matter, how innocent can you be living in Iraq.
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Dan's right. They all chose to live there, so it's not our fault if they get caught in the wrong place at the wrong time and got a little embarrassed in one of our prisons. Serves them right for believing in a different God.
Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
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posted
In all fairness, kat, this is one of the few threads on Hatrack in which all the participants might well be JUSTIFIED in being self-righteous; I can't imagine any of the posters here attaching alligator clips to the genitals of naked prisoners, even under orders. Can you -- and if so, whom?
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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I mean the making up of motivations. Abuse isn't enough - to make sure they are the bad guys, let's add religious snobbery to it.
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
Oh good freaking lord.... once again it all comes down to persecution against the religious, doesn't it? Forget the real life abuse and torture being discussed in this thread.... I thumbed my nose at Christians, and that's not okay!Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
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quote: Either torture them or let them all go? Aren't humane prisons an option?
Well, you were the one saying most of them didn't deserve to be in there in the first place. That they were 'mistakenly arrested'. So there is no reason to have the prison at all, right? They're all innocent? No one is killing us over there, right?
posted
Farmgirl, how exactly are you making this leap between "most" and "all"? Last time I heard, they still meant different things....
Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
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posted
Mainly, Aja, I just think it's inaccurate. I think our military would be as likely to torture non-English-speaking, non-white Christian terrorists; if there's a racist/culturalist component (and I'm sure there is), it's less religious than it is societal.
That said, I think the military is INHERENTLY incapable of running a prison to hold its defeated enemies without some form of torture. By definition. It can't do it.
I've said this on another thread, and I'll say it here: military police is an oxymoron. The military's purpose -- its SOLE purpose -- is to crush its enemies and rape their women (metaphorically speaking).
You cannot build nations with the military. You cannot win friends with the military. You cannot spread the ideals of democracy and justice with the military. You kill people with the military, and scare the ones you haven't killed.
So the question is: is this a military prison? If it is, its purpose is to torture its inhabitants until they turn over information essential to the prosecution of a continuing war effort. And this is right and good, presumably, because it's still better than just killing them -- and might well save more lives. Right?
But if it's a CIVILIAN prison, where we don't NEED to torture people -- and, remember, I'm assuming here the need to torture military prisoners, which may or may not be something you're willing to concede -- then it's ridiculous to expect the military to run it properly.
I would not ask a plumber to wire my house. I would not ask a dentist to check my oil. And I wouldn't ask the military to treat people with human dignity.
Why? Because I contend that it is impossible to kill someone while remaining fully conscious of their essential humanity. And it's impossible to extend dignity to someone without first being aware of that same humanity. So the primary goal of the military -- the killing of people -- is in fact directly in opposition to any goal that involves the recognition of human value.
posted
And Farmgirl, you seem to be implying that our abuse and torture of these prisoners is somehow warranted if they were trying to kill our soldiers. Which is really difficult for me to understand, both because I really want to believe that Americans aren't so barbaric as that, and because WE are the invading army here. We're the fleet out to destroy the buggers before they destroy us, and they're the ones defending their homes. I have a hard time seeing all Iraqis as bloodthirsty murderers, simply because none of this would have happened if we hadn't chosen to invade them in the first place.
Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
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posted
Yes, Tom, I can't say I was going for accuracy so much as I was lashing out at the idea that we either need to torture the hell out of these people, innocent or not, or raze the prisons and let them all go.
Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
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posted
And your lashing out needed to bring religion into it why? Especially considering at least one of the people raising the possibility of some of the abuses being necessary comes from a more or less agnostic person?
posted
Dag, if I thought that any of the religious (or non-religious) people here would treat prisoners this way, then I probably wouldn't still be hanging around here.
I don't want to derail this thread or really get into a discussion about this, but personally, in my mind a growing amount of "American Culture" is pretty strongly tied to the "my God is better than your God and you'd better join my side or else!" mentality. Not for everyone, and certainly not for anyone here, but this is how I feel the more I watch the news, or entertainment TV, or anything coming out of the white house. *shrug*
Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
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quote: Why? Because I contend that it is impossible to kill someone while remaining fully conscious of their essential humanity. And it's impossible to extend dignity to someone without first being aware of that same humanity. So the primary goal of the military -- the killing of people -- is in fact directly in opposition to any goal that involves the recognition of human value.
I agree.
Here is a quick "24" question. For you 24 fans, do you feel Jack Bauer is making the correct ethical choices in his brutality? Entertainment often reflects our value system, and I love 24. If the military is holding a military prison, do you think dehumanizing and degrading prisoners is preventable, wrong, or better then the alternative? Does it serve any good or is it just deplorable? Is it a creative way without causing physical damage to break the enemies will, or should we not try to do break the will of prisoners or find a more humane way to break will?
What is the line between interrogation, torture, and just degrading?
Posts: 1034 | Registered: Mar 2004
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posted
"my God is better than your God and you'd better join my side or else!" isn't as scary as
"My intimations with my God are unequivocally more valid than the Law," which isn't nearly as scary if it came from anyone besides the chief executor of the Law. The man legally able to use the force of violence against anyone else in the world, holds himself to be above the Law.
If he were just a little more humble in the face of the law in general, or a little more apphensive about unilateral violence, I wouldn't be as worried. But as it stands, I don't like the casting in this political theater. Or maybe we could draft an American Magna Carta.
Edit:
quote: (The above was directed not to Hatrackers, but to the media that overwhelmingly supported the war and then was Shocked! Shocked! when it turns out that war-like actions occurred.)
First of all, I don't like using fiction as a basis for discussing real-life scenarios. I've never watched "24," but do they make sure the person subjected to torture is actually someone with valuable information?
Second, I think the question of what is "allowable" takes a back seat to a question the administration hasn't concerned itself with until the feces hit the fan:
Namely, how do we figure out just who the small number of prisoners are in this system involved with insurgency? How do we make sure innocent Iraqis are treated humanely and how do we expedite their release?
These aren't just human rights questions. They are issues that affect the amount of support or resistance that builds within a population towards an invader and occupier - us.
Yesterday, on ABC's "This Week," George Will said that there is no progress when failure has no consequences. He went on to give a litany of the "failures" that have met with no consequences within this administration - failures over intelligence, WMDs, the assurances we would be welcomed as "liberators." Of course, Will wasn't sure where to go from there, but he's not very happy with the Bush's managerial style.
How could we incarcerate thousands of Iraqis who have done no wrong for so long and not expect it to help resistance forces within the country? Add the mistreatment to that, and we have a recipe for real disaster - all those people have friends and family on the outside.
The trouble with using extreme measures when you don't know who is actually an "enemy" is that you'll start getting information from people who have none - they'll make up whatever they think you want just so you'll let them alone. Not a new observation, just a call to set priorities. Figure out who belongs with what group, and then start worrying about what is permissable with the "enemy."
Posts: 4344 | Registered: Mar 2003
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posted
"Did anyone here have to study the Stanford Prison experiment in Psych 101?...I am absolutely shocked that this is expected behavior, and no one did anything to forestall it!"
The Stanford Prison Experiment is well-known by the US military. And there are specific US military regulations designed to prevent military guards from going out of control. The chief amongst them is one forbidding military guards from participating in any way in prisoner interrogations. Which the new commander of Iraqi prisons, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller deliberately subverted with the full approval of civilian DefenseDepartment managers, including DonaldRumsfeld.
"I can't imagine any of the posters here attaching alligator clips to the genitals of naked prisoners, even under orders."
That's assuming that Hatrackers are a rather extraordinary group. Only a minority resisted comparable orders from authority during the Milgram Experiment.
quote:"If I as an interrogator feel that the person in front of me has information that can prevent a catastrophe from happening," she says, "I imagine that I would do what I would have to do in order to prevent that catastrophe from happening. The state's obligation is then to put me on trial, for breaking the law. Then I come and say these are the facts that I had at my disposal. This is what I believed at the time. This is what I thought necessary to do. I can evoke the defense of necessity, and then the court decides whether or not it's reasonable that I broke the law in order to avert this catastrophe. But it has to be that I broke the law. It can't be that there's some prior license for me to abuse people."
In other words, when the ban is lifted, there is no restraining lazy, incompetent, or sadistic interrogators. As long as it remains illegal to torture, the interrogator who employs coercion must accept the risk. He must be prepared to stand up in court, if necessary, and defend his actions. Interrogators will still use coercion because in some cases they will deem it worth the consequences. This does not mean they will necessarily be punished. In any nation the decision to prosecute a crime is an executive one. A prosecutor, a grand jury, or a judge must decide to press charges, and the chances that an interrogator in a genuine ticking-bomb case would be prosecuted, much less convicted, is very small. As of this writing, Wolfgang Daschner, the Frankfurt deputy police chief, has not been prosecuted for threatening to torture Jakob von Metzler's kidnapper, even though he clearly broke the law.
he Bush Administration has adopted exactly the right posture on the matter. Candor and consistency are not always public virtues. Torture is a crime against humanity, but coercion is an issue that is rightly handled with a wink, or even a touch of hypocrisy; it should be banned but also quietly practiced. Those who protest coercive methods will exaggerate their horrors, which is good: it generates a useful climate of fear. It is wise of the President to reiterate U.S. support for international agreements banning torture, and it is wise for American interrogators to employ whatever coercive methods work. It is also smart not to discuss the matter with anyone.
If interrogators step over the line from coercion to outright torture, they should be held personally responsible. But no interrogator is ever going to be prosecuted for keeping Khalid Sheikh Mohammed awake, cold, alone, and uncomfortable. Nor should he be.
quote: I don't like using fiction as a basis for discussing real-life scenarios
Actually, I was using 24 to illustrate where our collective opinion may be heading, not as an example of what is acceptable in Iraq. You are right; in 24 we know who the bad guy, in Iraq we don’t. In discussing fiction, I was just wondering if 24 is a sign of a collective acceptance of “the end justifies the means” mentality.
quote: Namely, how do we figure out just who the small number of prisoners are in this system involved with insurgency? How do we make sure innocent Iraqis are treated humanely and how do we expedite their release?
These aren't just human rights questions. They are issues that affect the amount of support or resistance that builds within a population towards an invader and occupier - us.
posted
"That's assuming that Hatrackers are a rather extraordinary group."
Yeah. I was taking that as a given.
-------
"What do you think?"
kat, I think it is impossible for someone to morally act immorally, even with moral purposes. One can rationalize this, of course, but it does not ameliorate the evil of the act in question.
The "wink and a nod" approach to torture -- that we punish people when they screw it up, but slide it under the table when it gets us what we want -- is a great way to get someone who starts out with the best of intentions to teeter on the edge of outright evil.
Like many of the worst types of evil, it's insidious -- and practical. It's evil that makes sense and seems necessary. But that doesn't mean it's not still evil.
posted
You know, kat.... if all we were talking about was keeping people we had serious reason to suspect naked, cold, and alone as a means of aquiring information, I doubt that there would be many complaints.
It's when we're talking 70%-90% innocent bystanders, alligator clips, sexual abuse, and photographs of laughing guards enjoying it all that we have a problem. The Atlantic article seems to miss that point.
Posts: 2220 | Registered: Jun 1999
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posted
The Atlantic article was written months ago - before any of this came out.
I'm not justifying anything. It just made me think.
I don't believe there IS any such thing as a moral war. Why is it okay to shoot someone on a battlefield, but be shocked when they mock those same people in a prison. The Geneva conventions are a good idea and I would love it if they worked, but it's like trying to stop the tide. We declared war on Iraq! Why is it shocking when war-like things occur? It became immoral the moment anyone besides Sadaam Hussein himself was killed.
For all the outrage over the pictures, haven't thousands of Iraqi civilians been flat out killed? That isn't okay either! But no one called for resignations then.
The point is that this isn't a special case. Even if every other prison is gilded and serving veal at lunch, it's immoral to be there at all.
This really isn't directed against Hatrackers. But I'm floored at the Shocked!Shocked! attitude of the press. People, what did you think a war would entail?
Posts: 26077 | Registered: Mar 2000
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posted
And do those of you who aren't that outraged also feel Saddam's torturing of the Shiites and other enemies (guilty and innocent) was okay when he was fighting their attempts at rebellion?
posted
"But I'm floored at the Shocked!Shocked! attitude of the press."
Part of it, I think, is that most people see the accidental killing of a civilian as less of a consciously evil decision than the knowing torture of a wicked man.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Would you allow one person to inflict pain on another in order to save the life of a third?
Would the amount of enjoyment the torturer recieved from this act make a difference?
Would you allow one person to inflict pain on a second persoin if there was a 50/50 chance it would save the life of a third?
How about a 10% chance?
How about a 1% chance?
What if it was 100 people that would be saved?
What if it was 100,000?
If torturer enjoyed doing this would you change your mind?
If you began to enjoy it, would you change your mind?
There is a lot of talk about Evil in this forum. People call each other, or themselves evil in jest. But this is how Evil works. One day you are doing your duty, following orders, risking your life heroically. Slowly, bit by bit you succumb to the influences around you. A week, a month, an hour later, you are threatening some poor man with attack dogs, and you are enjoying it. THen the idea strikes you that you are in charge, you are the power, that one "accidental" slip and these dogs would rip the skin off of his bones. Wouldn't that be fun? Wouldn't that be cool?
Posts: 11895 | Registered: Apr 2002
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posted
Sorry, Ayelar -- having a hard time keeping up with this thread and my work too, so I just keep popping in and out once in awhile.
I never intended for what I said to be justification for what those soldiers have done. Even if you throw out Geneva conventions, training, rules -- those soliders should have known IN THEIR GUT that what they were doing was wrong. There is a right and wrong we should ALL know about how to treat each other, regardless of religious background (or lack thereof), culture or education. Unfortunately, we have shown historically, over and over, that humans don't treat humans right.
I am simply saying that in the context of war, this is not surprising. It is not shocking. People get caught up in the "us vs. them" mentality and fuel each other's conversations until things get out of hand. One of their buddy's get shot, and they get all upset and angry and take it out on any other 'like' person over there. So these prisoners were paying the price for all the grief and sadness and anger and other emotions that these soldiers were feeling.
It is not shocking, it should not be surprising (given what we know about human nature) but it is wrong.
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