Last year, George W. Bush told us the U.S. had to invade Iraq to prevent Saddam Hussein from using weapons of mass destruction. Later we learned there were no weapons of mass destruction and that the Bush administration had twisted facts to make it seem as if there were. This year, Mr. Bush told us we invaded Iraq to establish a democracy that would be a model for the Middle East. Now we know our soldiers have been torturing, sodomizing, beating, raping and killing people in Iraqi prisons, the same Iraqi prisons Mr. Hussein used for the same purposes. Whatever the White House decides to do next, one thing it should NOT do is put forth another rationale for the Iraq invasion and occupation.
The problem with the U.S. Army torturing prisoners is not that it is misdeeds of a handful of renegades; it’s the opposite. Torture, humiliation, disrespect and degradation are standard operating procedure – you won’t find it written in any manual, but it is policy nonetheless and has been for every tyrant’s army from Caesar to Cromwell to Bush.
Yesterday’s New York Times carried a 3,000-word account of the travails of Sayed Siddiqui, a police colonel in Afghanistan – one of the good guys. Col. Siddiqui angered the wrong people last summer – influential, vindictive people who whispered in the Americans’ ears that Col. Siddiqui was with the Taliban. For the next 40 days, Col. Siddiqui was given the same treatment that has become infamous at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib. He was bound and beaten, stripped, sexually abused. American soldiers told him his wife and daughters had been made into whores. They locked him in cage and threw stones at him. And, of course, when they taunted and humiliated Col. Siddiqui, they did it with a boot on his neck. After six weeks of torture and abuse, the colonel was given a piece of paper declaring he is not a threat to the U.S. and released.
It is because torture and abuse are the unwritten policy of the U.S. military that the story is the same in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is because these war crimes are sanctioned and widespread that once those first photos from Abu Ghraib got out, it was inevitable that others would follow and more are still to come. Now that we have acknowledged the incidents at Abu Ghraib, the media has begun to pay attention to the reports the Red Cross and Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have been filing for the past few years. Unfortunately, the media suffers from the same affliction as so many Americans – it doesn’t believe something until it sees it on tee vee, in this case on “60 Minutes II.”
Seymour Hersh’s exposure of the U.S. Army massacre at My Lai helped commence the reporting of American atrocities in Southeast Asia; now his writing for the New Yorker is helping commence reporting of another generation of atrocity. Mr. Hersh reports this week that U.S. soldiers regularly set dogs on prisoners. He reports an incident in which GIs handcuffed 30 Iraqis, pushed them into a house and set a dog loose on them. The stories in the Times are similar, soldiers coming in the night, kicking in doors, beating, destroying furniture, stealing and leaving.
Two Afghans in U.S. custody were killed in December 2002. The military is “still investigating” the incident. The deaths have been classified as homicides and were caused by “blunt force injuries to the lower extremities.” There’s a name for the practice that inflicts such injuries, it’s “bastinado” and it’s a form of torture. Now Don Rumsfeld’s Pentagon is treating us all to a curriculum in the vocabulary and methods of torture.
The U.S. is in violation of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war. Mr. Rumsfeld has argued that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the situation America finds itself in. If, for the sake of argument, that is the case, how should a civilized nation conduct itself? Should it simply descend to brutality, as Mr. Rumsfeld has allowed his military to do, or should it make the effort to draw a new set of ethically acceptable principles and practices and follow them? Once again, Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Bush have failed miserably.
The U.S Army applies the same torture methods in Afghanistan and Iraq because it is Army policy. Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush set that policy. It is they who are ultimately responsible, it is they who are war criminals and it is they who should be removed from office, publicly tried and jailed for their offenses. They should not be tortured or abused. We should have the courage to rise above such tactics – it’s what America should be about.
The Fuse is Burning
Last year, George W. Bush told us the U.S. had to invade Iraq to prevent Saddam Hussein from using weapons of mass destruction. Later we learned there were no weapons of mass destruction and that the Bush administration had twisted facts to make it seem as if there were. This year, Mr. Bush told us we invaded Iraq to establish a democracy that would be a model for the Middle East. Now we know our soldiers have been torturing, sodomizing, beating, raping and killing people in Iraqi prisons, the same Iraqi prisons Mr. Hussein used for the same purposes. Whatever the White House decides to do next, one thing it should NOT do is put forth another rationale for the Iraq invasion and occupation.
The problem with the U.S. Army torturing prisoners is not that it is misdeeds of a handful of renegades; it’s the opposite. Torture, humiliation, disrespect and degradation are standard operating procedure – you won’t find it written in any manual, but it is policy nonetheless and has been for every tyrant’s army from Caesar to Cromwell to Bush.
Yesterday’s New York Times carried a 3,000-word account of the travails of Sayed Siddiqui, a police colonel in Afghanistan – one of the good guys. Col. Siddiqui angered the wrong people last summer – influential, vindictive people who whispered in the Americans’ ears that Col. Siddiqui was with the Taliban. For the next 40 days, Col. Siddiqui was given the same treatment that has become infamous at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib. He was bound and beaten, stripped, sexually abused. American soldiers told him his wife and daughters had been made into whores. They locked him in cage and threw stones at him. And, of course, when they taunted and humiliated Col. Siddiqui, they did it with a boot on his neck. After six weeks of torture and abuse, the colonel was given a piece of paper declaring he is not a threat to the U.S. and released.
It is because torture and abuse are the unwritten policy of the U.S. military that the story is the same in Afghanistan and Iraq. It is because these war crimes are sanctioned and widespread that once those first photos from Abu Ghraib got out, it was inevitable that others would follow and more are still to come. Now that we have acknowledged the incidents at Abu Ghraib, the media has begun to pay attention to the reports the Red Cross and Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have been filing for the past few years. Unfortunately, the media suffers from the same affliction as so many Americans – it doesn’t believe something until it sees it on tee vee, in this case on “60 Minutes II.”
Seymour Hersh’s exposure of the U.S. Army massacre at My Lai helped commence the reporting of American atrocities in Southeast Asia; now his writing for the New Yorker is helping commence reporting of another generation of atrocity. Mr. Hersh reports this week that U.S. soldiers regularly set dogs on prisoners. He reports an incident in which GIs handcuffed 30 Iraqis, pushed them into a house and set a dog loose on them. The stories in the Times are similar, soldiers coming in the night, kicking in doors, beating, destroying furniture, stealing and leaving.
Two Afghans in U.S. custody were killed in December 2002. The military is “still investigating” the incident. The deaths have been classified as homicides and were caused by “blunt force injuries to the lower extremities.” There’s a name for the practice that inflicts such injuries, it’s “bastinado” and it’s a form of torture. Now Don Rumsfeld’s Pentagon is treating us all to a curriculum in the vocabulary and methods of torture.
The U.S. is in violation of the Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war. Mr. Rumsfeld has argued that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to the situation America finds itself in. If, for the sake of argument, that is the case, how should a civilized nation conduct itself? Should it simply descend to brutality, as Mr. Rumsfeld has allowed his military to do, or should it make the effort to draw a new set of ethically acceptable principles and practices and follow them? Once again, Mr. Rumsfeld and Mr. Bush have failed miserably.
The U.S Army applies the same torture methods in Afghanistan and Iraq because it is Army policy. Donald Rumsfeld and George Bush set that policy. It is they who are ultimately responsible, it is they who are war criminals and it is they who should be removed from office, publicly tried and jailed for their offenses. They should not be tortured or abused. We should have the courage to rise above such tactics – it’s what America should be about.
(c) Mark Floegel, 2004