Salon magazine published another round of photos from the Abu Ghraib torture scandal that broke in the spring of 2004. One photo is of the body of Manadel al-Jamadi. One eye is open, fixed and glassy; the other purple and swollen shut. A bloody bandage rests on the side of his face. According to the photo’s caption, Mr. al-Jamadi died in CIA custody at Abu Ghraib. There was no official record of his imprisonment. He was a man who wasn’t there, who came into existence only after he died.
Another photo shows a man who was, according to a report by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, “mentally deranged” and “required special restraints due to his behavior.” Indeed, the man’s wrists and ankles and bound, but he is nonetheless shown inserting an object into his anus. We don’t know why he’s sodomizing himself – is it because he’s deranged, or did U.S. troops force him to do it? They certainly didn’t stop him, choosing instead to take a photo, which was then passed around until it became part of the investigation.
A third photo is a wider shot of the famous image of the hooded man standing on the box with electrodes attached to his fingers. The new image shows Staff Sgt. Ivan “Chip” Frederick off to the side, nonchalantly clipping his fingernails. Spc. Sabrina Harman, who put the electrodes on the man’s fingers, told investigators, “I was joking with him and told him if he fell off he would be electrocuted.” Some joke, what fun.
These were not isolated incidents. Salon states that a June 6, 2004 report from Special Agent James Seigmund says, “A review of all the computer media submitted to this office revealed a total of 1,325 images of suspected detainee abuse, 93 video files of suspected detainee abuse, 660 images of adult pornography, 546 images of suspected dead Iraqi detainees, 29 images of soldiers in simulated sexual acts, 20 images of a soldier with a Swastika drawn between his eyes, 37 images of Military Working dogs being used in abuse of detainees and 125 images of questionable acts.”
It’s not just Iraq, either. The New York Times reported Monday that more than three years after two Afghan men died in American custody at Bagram air base, the maximum punishment handed out has been a five-month sentence. One of the men who died, who went by the single name Dilawar, had committed no crime and was not seen as a threat to U.S. troops. He was picked up by mistake and once in custody, soldiers were amused by the way he cried out when struck, so he was strung up by his wrists and struck repeatedly, leading to his death. An investigation revealed so many soldiers struck Mr. Dilawar that no individual was singled out as having caused the death.
It’s true America’s leaders, from George Bush to Don Rumsfeld on down have given America’s troops bad directions, lies about the people they’re fighting and too little support and supplies, but there’s dishonor enough to go up and down the chain of command. There is no excuse for any American to sodomize and torture, to beat people up for fun, to take photographs mocking prisoners or to paint swastikas on their bodies while they wear an American uniform.
Bush administration officials argue that in a global war on terror, America is justified in using tough tactics; that we can’t “fight with one hand tied behind our back.” They could not be more wrong. Americans must always fight with one hand tied behind our backs. America should represent democratic ideals in the world; the moment we “fight with both hands” by stooping to torture and terror, America is no longer anything more than a blot on the map. America is, or should be, about the advance, not the regression, of civilization. When we “loose both our hands” and use despicable tactics such as those used at Abu Ghraib and Bagram and Guantanamo Bay, we lose all claim to the ideals upon which America was founded and become the great Satan our enemies believe us to be.
The United States of America needs to perform an about-face and march away from the totalitarian path we’ve trod for the past five years – or we are doomed to become the country that wasn’t there
The Man Who Wasn’t There
Salon magazine published another round of photos from the Abu Ghraib torture scandal that broke in the spring of 2004. One photo is of the body of Manadel al-Jamadi. One eye is open, fixed and glassy; the other purple and swollen shut. A bloody bandage rests on the side of his face. According to the photo’s caption, Mr. al-Jamadi died in CIA custody at Abu Ghraib. There was no official record of his imprisonment. He was a man who wasn’t there, who came into existence only after he died.
Another photo shows a man who was, according to a report by the Army’s Criminal Investigation Command, “mentally deranged” and “required special restraints due to his behavior.” Indeed, the man’s wrists and ankles and bound, but he is nonetheless shown inserting an object into his anus. We don’t know why he’s sodomizing himself – is it because he’s deranged, or did U.S. troops force him to do it? They certainly didn’t stop him, choosing instead to take a photo, which was then passed around until it became part of the investigation.
A third photo is a wider shot of the famous image of the hooded man standing on the box with electrodes attached to his fingers. The new image shows Staff Sgt. Ivan “Chip” Frederick off to the side, nonchalantly clipping his fingernails. Spc. Sabrina Harman, who put the electrodes on the man’s fingers, told investigators, “I was joking with him and told him if he fell off he would be electrocuted.” Some joke, what fun.
These were not isolated incidents. Salon states that a June 6, 2004 report from Special Agent James Seigmund says, “A review of all the computer media submitted to this office revealed a total of 1,325 images of suspected detainee abuse, 93 video files of suspected detainee abuse, 660 images of adult pornography, 546 images of suspected dead Iraqi detainees, 29 images of soldiers in simulated sexual acts, 20 images of a soldier with a Swastika drawn between his eyes, 37 images of Military Working dogs being used in abuse of detainees and 125 images of questionable acts.”
It’s not just Iraq, either. The New York Times reported Monday that more than three years after two Afghan men died in American custody at Bagram air base, the maximum punishment handed out has been a five-month sentence. One of the men who died, who went by the single name Dilawar, had committed no crime and was not seen as a threat to U.S. troops. He was picked up by mistake and once in custody, soldiers were amused by the way he cried out when struck, so he was strung up by his wrists and struck repeatedly, leading to his death. An investigation revealed so many soldiers struck Mr. Dilawar that no individual was singled out as having caused the death.
It’s true America’s leaders, from George Bush to Don Rumsfeld on down have given America’s troops bad directions, lies about the people they’re fighting and too little support and supplies, but there’s dishonor enough to go up and down the chain of command. There is no excuse for any American to sodomize and torture, to beat people up for fun, to take photographs mocking prisoners or to paint swastikas on their bodies while they wear an American uniform.
Bush administration officials argue that in a global war on terror, America is justified in using tough tactics; that we can’t “fight with one hand tied behind our back.” They could not be more wrong. Americans must always fight with one hand tied behind our backs. America should represent democratic ideals in the world; the moment we “fight with both hands” by stooping to torture and terror, America is no longer anything more than a blot on the map. America is, or should be, about the advance, not the regression, of civilization. When we “loose both our hands” and use despicable tactics such as those used at Abu Ghraib and Bagram and Guantanamo Bay, we lose all claim to the ideals upon which America was founded and become the great Satan our enemies believe us to be.
The United States of America needs to perform an about-face and march away from the totalitarian path we’ve trod for the past five years – or we are doomed to become the country that wasn’t there
© Mark Floegel, 2006
(You can read Salon’s story and see some of the photos at: salon.com/news/feature/2006/02/16/abu_ghraib/)