Bush, Torture and American Values in Iraq

[seemslikeadream]

The British and US military were trained in torture techniques taught at the Joint Services Interrogation Centre in Ashford, Kent, now transferred to the former US base at Chicksands, UK. British and US Special Forces learn about the degradation techniques (R2I, or resistance to interrogation) because they are subjected to them to help them resist if captured. The techniques are intended to prolong the shock of capture. Female guards are used to taunt male prisoners sexually and at British training sessions when female candidates were undergoing resistance training they would be subject to lesbian insults. Trainers recognize that in inexperienced hands prisoners can be pushed into psychosis. These techniques are widely known in the business.

Techniques include keeping prisoners naked; inmates being forced to crawl on a leash; forced to masturbate in front of a female soldier; mimic oral sex with other male prisoners; and form piles of naked, hooded men; hooding; sleep deprivation; time disorientation; and depriving prisoners not only of dignity, but of fundamental human needs, such as warmth, water and food.

The US commander in charge of military jails in Iraq, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, confirmed use of fifty techniques used against prisoners. Miller, who ran the prison camp at Guantánamo, said his main role was to extract as much intelligence as possible. British intel officers were stationed at Abu Ghraib, and members of British MI6 visited the prison regularly in 2003 when the most flagrant abuses took place.2

The CIA was authorized to use water torture in a “...technique known as "water boarding," in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown.” It is no surprise that the torture techniques are the same as those outlined in the Guardian article above: “...authorized tactics are primarily those methods used in the training of American Special Operations soldiers to prepare them for the possibility of being captured and taken prisoners of war.” After 9-11, Bush authorized the CIA to use any means necessary to get bin Laden. The specifics of these directives are not public, and perhaps may never be under the secret government of Bush. “The C.I.A. has been operating its Qaeda detention system under a series of secret legal opinions by the agency’s and Justice Department lawyers. Those rules have provided a legal basis for the use of harsh interrogation techniques, including the water-boarding tactic...” Legal loopholes to absolve US officials of war crimes include torturing the prisoner in another country, or using surrogates to do the actual torture. Or by calling prisoners "unlawful combatants". One intelligence official said “There was a debate after 9/11 about how to make people disappear.”

The elite American Delta Force also used torture at a BIF (battlefield interrogation facility) near Baghdad’s airport. It was

“...the scene of the most egregious violations of the Geneva Conventions in all of Iraq’s prisons. A place where the normal rules of interrogation don’t apply, Delta Force’s BIF only holds Iraqi insurgents and suspected terrorists - but not the most wanted among Saddam’s lieutenants pictured on the deck of cards....Prisoners there are hooded from the moment they are captured. And in the BIF’s six interrogation rooms, Delta Force soldiers routinely drug prisoners, hold a prisoner under water until he thinks he’s drowning, or smother them almost to suffocation.” Rumsfeld said “Iraq’s a nation. The United States is a nation. The Geneva Conventions applied. They have applied every single day from the outset.” Apparently Rumsfeld knew all about BIFs and Abu Ghraib.
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=1544

[TahitiNut]

1. Link to original article ...

http://www.counterbias.com/054.html

[seemslikeadream]

2. Thanks TahitiNut

[TahitiNut]

3. So ... just what is an "illegal order" anyway?

(I repeat what I posted here.)

Maybe I'm just dense, but it sure seems to me that the Busholini Regime has printed up a "Get Out Of Jail Free" card for every member of the military, and possibly any "contractor" as well, charged with abusing detainees at any of the couple of dozen concentration camps this regime is now running. Let me see if I understand this.

An "illegal order" is one that's contrary to UCMJ and the pertinent laws, both domestic and international, that the UCMJ holds sovereign. The Executive Branch is solely vested with enforcement, not enactment nor interpretation, of laws. Yet the Executive Branch, particularly in both the Department of Justice and the Department of Defense, has established as the policy of the Executive Branch that the Commander in Chief can, without breaking the law, order treatment of "detainees" consistent with the treatment that has resulted in courts martial of some enlisted folks.

Now, unless they were specifically ordered not to treat these prisoners in the ways they did, just what can they be convicted of? After all, if that treatment can be ordered at all, then it must be "legal," right? Doing something without a specific order is usually called "initiative" in the military. So, if it's not illegal and it's not contrary to an order ... what's the government's case?

Furthermore, it seems to me, if the people (Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Gonzalez, et. al.) who've opened this Pandora's Box aren't prosecuted, they've permanently established the permissable nature of this treatment of prisoners except in cases where, by order, it's specifically prohibited. But it's not generally regarded as 'illegal' anymore once the CinC claims he can order it. (After all, in this regard the CinC is as subject to what's legal or illegal as anyone else, right?)

When DimSon repeatedly claims he didn't order the torture of prisoners, he's specifically avoiding the fact that he didn't prevent or prohibit it, either.

Notice that Rumsfeld didn't prohibit it either ... he said it was OK in early December 2003 and then "withdrew his permission" on January 15. This clearly sent the message it was "legal" ... because the SecDef wouldn't do something illegal, would he?

In other words, they LIHOP ... even more far-reaching than 9/11, methinks.

[struggle4progress]

4. kick for torture policy coming from the top

:kick: