The best definition of torture that I know of is one I heard from a physician at the renowned Danish center for treatment and rehabilitation of torture victims. He said, “Torture is an attempt to destroy the indpendent human personality.”
Physical abuse is often a part of it. But the most devastating part is the systematic attempt, using psychological mechanisms, to break a person’s mind.
This is why I found reading the interrogator’s report printed in this week’s Time magazine so disturbing.
Including these portions:
- 20 December 2002
1115: … Interrogater began by reminding the detainee about the lessons in respect and how the detainee had disrespected the interrogators. Told detainee that a dog is held in higher esteem because dogs know right from wrong and know how to protect innocent people from bad people. Began teaching the detainee lessons such as stay, come, and bark to elevate his social status up to that of a dog. Detainee became very agitated.
21 December 2002
2223: As I began to inform the detainee of the changes the Saudi government has been making in order to support the efforts of peace and terror free world I began to engage closeness with the detainee. [I’m assuming the writer of this report is probably female ~HC] This really evoked strong emotions within the detainee. He attempted to move away from me by all means. He was laid out on the floor so I straddled him without putting my weight on him. He would then attempt to move me off of him by bending his legs in order to lift me off but this failed because the MPs were holding his legs down with their hands. The detainee began to pray loudly but this did not stop me from finishing informing the detainee about the Al Qaeda member, Qaed Salim Sinan al Harethi aka Abu Ali, that was killed by the CIA.
Here below is an entry that has many terms that I don’t understand. (Can anyone explain “sissy slap” to me?) But buried in it is a reference to “dance instruction” that should send shivers down the spine of anyone who remembers the scene in the movie “The Pianist” where the German guards at the crossing point out of the Warsaw ghetto force some of the Jewish detainees waiting to walk through it to dance for the guards’ own amusement…
Or, the narratives of enslaved African people on British and American slave ships being forced to “dance” for the amusement of the boat’s crew members…
- 13 December 2002
1115: Interrogators began telling detainee how ungrateful and grumpy he was. In order to escalate the detainee’s emotions, a mask was made from an MRE box with a smily face on it and placed on the detainee’s head for a few moments. A latex glove was inflated and labeled the “sissy slap” glove. The glove was touched to the detainee’s face periodically after explaining the terminology to him. The mask was placed back on the detainee’s head. While wearing the mask, the team began dance instruction with the detainee. The detainee became agitated and began shouting.
While you’re reading these accounts, don’t forget that physical force and violence are also being used on the detainee at this point; and earlier, considerably more physical violence may well have been used on him.
The excerpt Time has there on its website is fairly short. But there is no mention anywhere in it of the interrogators actually asking the detainee for any information. Their intention seems only to be to humiliate and “break” him. (Perhaps also to try to “test” some of their techniques on him?)
But what useful information would he have anyway, in December 2002– probably more than a year after he was captured?
Why was he still there, being tortured and humiliated in that way?
He is most likely still there. (Only a small proportion of Gitmo detainees have been released since then.)
Is he still– 30 months after December 2002– being subjected to these kinds of humiliations? Quite likely. Can you imagine what happens to a human personality after a total of, now, some 42 months of abuse, torture, and outrageous, intentional humiliation along these lines?
And Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld have now firmly told everyone— including the President, who looked like he might be getting a little “wobbly” on this point– that they have no intention of closing the Guantanamo prison.
Helena
Donald Rumsfeld should be in court for his crimes
1. Helping and supplying Saddam with chemicals and other tools during Iraq-Iran War.
2. His responsibility for all these atrocities against humanity.
3. Involved misleading Congress.
4. Promotion, funding and encouragement using contractors (Xmilitry personal)
This should be sooner not later as we know this sort of guy
Salah
It’s not just Rumsfeld that should be in court, it’s the whole menagerie that are ‘leading’ the US. Starting with Bush, continuing with Cheney, and of course including Rumsfeld. Wolfowitz is culpable but he did not make the decisions and he might yet redeem himself. Before this job, there were signs in his career that indicate he might be able to do so.
On the counts of your ‘indictment’:
1. Rumsfeld’s hands are dirty but he was not the sponsor or decision maker, so he will walk. Somehow, people with clearer cases against them and more blood on their hands escaped prosecution and now have public lives (e.g. John Poindexter). That is a bad thing.
2. Yep, there should be no escape
3. Yep, should be no escape here either and even stronger evidence for the case. Here too, though, somehow others have walked and even have government jobs now (e.g. Elliot Abrams … WTF?)
4. I don’t actually understand what you mean by this. Technically, there is nothing against the law about hiring contractors who are ex-military. I myself am ex-military; what I was told when I started doing ‘humanitarian’ work was that ex-military people are often sought after because they know how to work in difficult circumstances. Military people also tend (tend, mind you, there are too many exceptions for me to be comfortable) to value competence, which NGOs cannot often even spell.
On the other hand, the specifics of the contracts matter, and you will be happy to know that the corrupt ones are actually being prosecuted … but unhappy to know that they are often still getting contracts by being slippery. Do a Google search on ‘Custer Battles’ for a good example.
It would do a lot to re-establish the standing of the US if these people were tried in an international court, but we know that is not going to happen. Kissinger has slithered out of this spot for years now. And, thanks to Bush, the US withdrew from the ICC convention, even after a ton of loopholes were created for the US by the Clinton administration.
So, let’s hope that what’s left of the American courts will step up and do the right thing when the cases are handed to them. I am hoping, not predicting.
And finally: what you are seeing (and feeling first hand) now is way, way worse than Central America.
“4. I don’t actually understand what you mean by this. Technically, there is nothing against the law about hiring contractors who are ex-military”
Thanks for your comment.
What I meant about is these military officials they use those contractor to do what they like to do, in case like Abu Grab scandal they simply put the blames on these guys contractors and show us that their mistakes to handle the job because they are contracted for job…
I don