The two questions that most urgently need answers in the Iraq torture scandal are: How far up and for how long? How far up the chain of command did authorization of torture go and how long has this been sanctioned practice?
The trickle of testimony on this subject has become a stream; next week it will likely become a torrent and by mid-June, a flood. The Bush administration is offering a handful of soldiers for courts martial. It’s impossible that responsibility ends there. Congressional representatives have been shown 1,800 photos of torture. Given the unlikelihood that all torture was photographed, it wold be logistically impossible for seven people to generate that much torture in the evening hours, after supervisors were off duty.
Newsweek reports that photos show prisoners subjected to classic torture techniques. Did the “bad apples” re-invent classic torture, or were they taught? Who taught them? How is it we are learning that the same beatings, sexual humiliation and sodomy were committed in Afghanistan and in a Brooklyn jail after 9-11? The same savage things have been happening at Guantanamo Bay, released prisoners tell us; the difference is that the military has done a better job of suppressing the evidence.
Today’s Washington Post reports that a sergeant attached to military intelligence has come forward to report that shackling, stripping and sexual humiliation were ordered by intelligence officers and were not merely the acts of rogue guards.
In recent days, the capital has been ringing with praise for Gen. Antonio Taguba, whose “scathing” report on the torture scandal faults a “failure of leadership.” Failure of leadership is a discouraging thing and may result in a general here or there not getting that extra star, but it pales beside the sergeant’s testimony, which speaks of premeditated war crimes. Is Gen. Taguba’s report scathingly honest, or is it a more sophisticated-than-average whitewash?
Newsweek also reports that White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales wrote a memo to George Bush in January 2002 to the effect that Mr. Bush need not be restrained by the Geneva Conventions in his “war on terror.” That answers the question of how far up. At the top of the armed forces, George W. Bush, commander-in-chief decided the Geneva Conventions need not apply to the American military. In this week’s New Yorker, Seymour Hersh reports Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized special interrogation techniques for use in Iraq late last year. The press office at the Pentagon hotly disputed this, but in a truth-out between Don Rumsfeld and Sy Hersh, my money’s on Mr. Hersh.
The president approved a dispensation from the Geneva Conventions; the defense secretary approved a secret memo authorizing the use of extreme interrogation techniques and assassination. Should we be surprised that by the time this all works down to the level of sergeants and privates that there are thousands of photos of torture, occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan and Guantanamo and Brooklyn?
How long has this been going on? A while, at least. In January 2000, an 11-year-old Albanian girl was raped and murdered by a sergeant with the 82nd Airborne Division on peacekeeping duty in Kosovo. The subsequent investigation revealed that U.S. troops were regularly beating and sexually assaulting the civilians they had been sent to the Balkans to protect. At the time, Army brass blamed the civilians in the Clinton administration. The generals said discipline broke down because our soldiers – our warriors trained for all-out combat – had trouble adjusting to the ignominious role of peacekeeper. Four years later, we have all-out war and the Army cannot maintain discipline in this situation, either.
When nothing works, when it all breaks down, it is not the fault of the enlisted troops. It’s just that so far, enlisted troops are the only ones to be held accountable.
How Far Up? For How Long?
The two questions that most urgently need answers in the Iraq torture scandal are: How far up and for how long? How far up the chain of command did authorization of torture go and how long has this been sanctioned practice?
The trickle of testimony on this subject has become a stream; next week it will likely become a torrent and by mid-June, a flood. The Bush administration is offering a handful of soldiers for courts martial. It’s impossible that responsibility ends there. Congressional representatives have been shown 1,800 photos of torture. Given the unlikelihood that all torture was photographed, it wold be logistically impossible for seven people to generate that much torture in the evening hours, after supervisors were off duty.
Newsweek reports that photos show prisoners subjected to classic torture techniques. Did the “bad apples” re-invent classic torture, or were they taught? Who taught them? How is it we are learning that the same beatings, sexual humiliation and sodomy were committed in Afghanistan and in a Brooklyn jail after 9-11? The same savage things have been happening at Guantanamo Bay, released prisoners tell us; the difference is that the military has done a better job of suppressing the evidence.
Today’s Washington Post reports that a sergeant attached to military intelligence has come forward to report that shackling, stripping and sexual humiliation were ordered by intelligence officers and were not merely the acts of rogue guards.
In recent days, the capital has been ringing with praise for Gen. Antonio Taguba, whose “scathing” report on the torture scandal faults a “failure of leadership.” Failure of leadership is a discouraging thing and may result in a general here or there not getting that extra star, but it pales beside the sergeant’s testimony, which speaks of premeditated war crimes. Is Gen. Taguba’s report scathingly honest, or is it a more sophisticated-than-average whitewash?
Newsweek also reports that White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales wrote a memo to George Bush in January 2002 to the effect that Mr. Bush need not be restrained by the Geneva Conventions in his “war on terror.” That answers the question of how far up. At the top of the armed forces, George W. Bush, commander-in-chief decided the Geneva Conventions need not apply to the American military. In this week’s New Yorker, Seymour Hersh reports Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld authorized special interrogation techniques for use in Iraq late last year. The press office at the Pentagon hotly disputed this, but in a truth-out between Don Rumsfeld and Sy Hersh, my money’s on Mr. Hersh.
The president approved a dispensation from the Geneva Conventions; the defense secretary approved a secret memo authorizing the use of extreme interrogation techniques and assassination. Should we be surprised that by the time this all works down to the level of sergeants and privates that there are thousands of photos of torture, occurring in Iraq and Afghanistan and Guantanamo and Brooklyn?
How long has this been going on? A while, at least. In January 2000, an 11-year-old Albanian girl was raped and murdered by a sergeant with the 82nd Airborne Division on peacekeeping duty in Kosovo. The subsequent investigation revealed that U.S. troops were regularly beating and sexually assaulting the civilians they had been sent to the Balkans to protect. At the time, Army brass blamed the civilians in the Clinton administration. The generals said discipline broke down because our soldiers – our warriors trained for all-out combat – had trouble adjusting to the ignominious role of peacekeeper. Four years later, we have all-out war and the Army cannot maintain discipline in this situation, either.
When nothing works, when it all breaks down, it is not the fault of the enlisted troops. It’s just that so far, enlisted troops are the only ones to be held accountable.
(c) Mark Floegel, 2004