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At one point during the five and a half years John McCain spent as a prisoner of war in North Vietnam, he was tortured and beaten so badly he tried to kill himself.
After four days of this brutality, he gave in and agreed to make a false confession, telling lies to end the unbearable pain.
Later, he would write, "I had learned what we all learned over there: Every man has his breaking point. I had reached mine."
Similar techniques were utilized in the Asian war preceding Vietnam - Korea. The Communist Chinese used these techniques to interrogate U.S. POW's and force them to confess to things they didn't do, such as germ warfare.
A chart of the Chinese methods, compiled in 1957 by an American sociologist, lists the methods, among them, "Sleep Deprivation," "Semi-Starvation," "Filthy, Infested Surroundings," "Prolonged Constraint," and "Exposure."
The effects are listed, too: "Makes Victim Dependent on Interrogator," "Weakens Mental and Physical Ability to Resist," "Reduces Prisoner to 'Animal Level' Concerns," and others.
On July 2, The New York Times reported that the chart had made a surprise return appearance, this time at Guantanamo Bay, where in 2002 it was used in a course to teach our military interrogators "Coercive Management Techniques," to be used when interrogating detainees held there as prisoners in the "war on terror."
In other words, we had adopted the inhumane tactics of enemies past, tactics we once were quick to call torture. Tactics created not to get at the truth but to manufacture lies that we then characterize as credible.
How can we expect this to be an effective way to extract real information from terrorists?
Since 2005, Congress has banned the use of such methods by the military but we have no way of knowing whether the CIA continues to use them.
For example, The Associated Press reported Thursday that, "CIA Director Michael Hayden banned waterboarding in 2006, but government officials have said it remains a possibility if approved by the attorney general, the CIA chief and the president."
Such is the secrecy and deliberate obfuscation that have characterized our nation's descent into lawlessness and duplicity, depicted brilliantly in New Yorker magazine investigative reporter Jane Mayer's new book, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned into a War on American Ideals.
Post 9/11, she reports, "For the first time in its history, the United States sanctioned government officials to physically and psychologically torment U.S.-held detainees, making torture the official law of the land in all but name."
The late American historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., she says, told her that "the Bush administration's extralegal counterterrorism program presented the most dramatic, sustained and radical challenge to the rule of law in American history."
Over lunch in 2006, the year before Schlesinger died, he said, "No position taken had done more damage to the American reputation in the world -- ever."
Read all of this in light of the series of hearings on Capitol Hill over the last weeks in which members of Congress have tried to find out how in the name of protecting us from further terrorist attacks, the Bush White House has twisted or abandoned the law to allow what most of the international community recognizes as torture.
The administration remains in denial.
Former Attorney General John Ashcroft told the House Judiciary Committee, "I don't know of any acts of torture that have been committed by individuals in developing information. ...
"So I would not certainly make an assumption. I would attribute the absence of an attack [since 9/11] at least in part, because there have been specific attacks that have been disrupted, to the excellent work and the dedication and commitment of people whose lives are dedicated to defending the country. Interrogators have used enhanced interrogation techniques but they haven't used torture."
Grim hairsplitting. This week, as the result of a Freedom of Information Act suit, the ACLU received a heavily redacted copy of an infamous August 2, 2002, memo, signed by then-head of the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel Jay Bybee and written with his subordinate, the equally infamous John Yoo.
"An individual must have the specific intent to inflict severe pain or suffering," it reads. "The absence of specific intent negates the charge of torture... We have further found that if a defendant acts with the good faith belief that his actions will not cause such suffering, he has not acted with specific intent."
Jameel Jaffer, head of the ACLU's national security project, told Spencer Ackerman of The Washington Independent, "Imagine that in an ordinary criminal prosecution a bank robber tortures a bank manager to get the combination to a vault. He argues that the torture was not to inflict pain, but to get the combination. Every torturer has a reason other than to cause pain. If you're going to let people off the hook for an intention other than to cause pain, you're not going to be able to prosecute anyone for torture."
Deborah Pearlstein, a constitutional scholar and human rights lawyer who has spent time at Guantanamo monitoring conditions there, testified to Congress that, "As of 2006, there had been more than 330 cases in which U.S. military and civilian personnel have, incredibly, alleged to have abused or killed detainees. This figure is based almost entirely on the U.S. government's own documentation.
"These cases involved more than 600 U.S. personnel and more than 460 detainees held at U.S. facilities throughout Afghanistan, Iraq, and Guantanamo Bay. They included some l00-plus detainees who died in U.S. custody, including 34 whose deaths the Defense Department reports as homicides. At least eight of these detainees were, by any definition of the term, tortured to death."
Pearlstein cited a recent British study that discovered that our detainee policies had led to Britain's withdrawal from joint, covert counterterrorism operations with the CIA "because the U.S. failed to offer adequate assurances against inhumane treatment."
The House of Commons Select Committee on Foreign Affairs has issued a report stating the United States can't be trusted to tell the truth about how it interrogates detainees.
"Given the clear differences in definition," the report concludes, "the UK can no longer rely on US assurances that it does not use torture, and we recommend that the Government does not rely on such assurances in the future."
On Monday, the first American war crimes trial since World War II opened at Guantanamo, the United States presenting its case against Salim Ahmed Hamdan before a jury of U.S. military officers.
Hamdan, who at the time of 9/11 was Osama bin Laden's driver, is charged with conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism. Two surface-to-air missiles were found in a car he was driving - he says it was a borrowed vehicle and that he had no idea what was in the trunk.
The judge has thrown out confessions Hamdan made in Afghanistan after his capture.
"The interests of justice are not served by admitting these statements," the judge said, "because of the highly coercive environments and conditions under which they were made." Hamdan was bound for long periods of time, with a bag over his head.
You will know us by the company we keep. The burners of witches and the medieval masters of thumbscrews and Iron Maidens, the interrogators of the Spanish Inquisition, the North Vietnamese soldiers who beat John McCain and his fellow American prisoners of war into false confessions.
We have joined their ranks.
In the almost seven years since 9/11, we have countered terror not only with vigilance and war but fear, imprisonment without due process and yes, torture.
Torture is no more about learning the truth than rape is about sex. Both are about the violent abuse of power.
Michael Winship is senior writer of the weekly public affairs program, Bill Moyers Journal, which airs Friday night on PBS. Check local airtimes or comment at The Moyers Blog at http:www.pbs.org/moyers.
© 2008 Consortium News
27 Comments so far
Show All"there is only one corner of the universe you can be certain of improving, and that is your own self." ~A. Huxley
Being a recovering conservative, I'm refreshed to see other (hopefully)recovering conservatives taking out their fearful conservative beliefs and airing them. Surely, the musty smell of old indoctrinated beliefs will get their attention. Only by being exposed to the light of compassion for human life will they be able to change the beliefs that are forced down our throats by the corporate media. If other countries did the sh*# we do, they'd be outraged. Keep reading, neo-cawn followers. The truth will set us free and together we can take back the country we all really want.
Lisa,
McKinney, really? Since when did racism become a progressive/extremist left value?
Did anyone else watch Bill Moyers Journal on PBS yesterday.
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07252008/profile.html
He interviewed Jane Mayer, the author of "Dark Side". Not only did they talk about the horrors of torture, but the atmosphere in the White House and the FBI. There were people around the White House that were so intimidated that they were afraid of what could happen to them phyically. The FBI apparently washed its hands of it and considered the CIA to be criminals.
{The late American historian Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., she says, told her that "the Bush administration's extralegal counterterrorism program presented the most dramatic, sustained and radical challenge to the rule of law in American history."
Over lunch in 2006, the year before Schlesinger died, he said, "No position taken had done more damage to the American reputation in the world — ever."}
Mr. Schlesinger may have been correct about the Bush administration. In any case approval of the current administration shows blind allegience, stupidity or willful ingnoring of undeniable facts -- if not all three.
On the other hand, Mr. Schlesinger considered FDR a younger brother of Jesus of Nazareth, which showed blind allegience, stupidity or willful ignoring of undeniable facts -- if not all three.
Reliable facts about FDR are found in the semi-supressed book by John T. Flynn: The Roosevelt Myth.
Mr. Schlesinger is a questionable authority. At best, preconception did not allow him to write without bias about presidents.
ezeflier - "Torture comes from our conservative side."
curmudgeon is right. You can't deny your personal dark side by claiming to have moved to liberalville. We are all children of Freud, as I think you agree, and it is true that those of us who have not become devils have done some thinking about which inner voices should be acted upon and which should not. The thing many of us fail to understand about our nasty streak is that it is fairly universal - a problem of the human condition generally - and needs to be addressed as such. What gets our liberal shorts in a twist is the hiatus between American ideals, or such ideals as the Geneva accords purport, and the reality of our perennial behavior. It disappoints us and pisses us off. We want to believe we (Americans, whoever...) have found a way out of savagery, but clearly savagery, like a devoted pit bull, is still with us. Of course we are no different from Al Zarqawi and the Viet-Cong and the Jangaweed, and simply the proclamation of a civilized ideology is insufficient to change that fact. If we are going to rectify the human pathology we'll need to do more than impeach a few scoundrels or reinforce our resolution to be nicer in the future. We need to sit down in group therapy with our brothers Auguste Pinochet and Pol Pot and Adolf Eichmann and Idi Amin and figure out what's wrong with us all.
Torture is torture only when others do it.
It's enhanced interrogation when we do it.
Criminals can not be brought to justice in the US Gov't.
Those charged with administering justice are the criminals.
McCain declares the surge in Iraq a success.
If Hitler had used Chem. weapons, and carpet bombed Europe to stabilize it, would McMcain have declare it a success?
It says much about a person who declares that flagrant violations of laws and war crimes are a success.
There's a total lack of morality. Around here we have a major weapons manufacturing plant. They make cruise missiles and DU warheads. This is a very rural and impoverished area, so if you work at Allegany Ballistics Lab or Alliant Tech you make a good buck and can afford expensive Harley Davidson motorcycles and huge, shiny new Dodge Ram pickups. One of the nearby churches has a deal with ABL--they build bombs all week, then one evening a week they come down and mow the church's lawn. The church calls them "ABL Interns." And it's Methodist, no less.
There has been much said about the "orders" given to soldiers Marines, CIA operatives, Abu Ghraib Guards, etc.
The one fact remains true: the people giving the orders had plenty of people willing to obey them.
The American people (with the exception of those who are progressive thinkers of course) are a cruel, deceitful, greedy, dangerous people, who have for some time now been residing over a collapsing society, that renews itself with each generation, and expounds upon the cowardice and stupidity of the previous generation.
When George and Barb gave birth to GW he was simply the continuance of the previous generation and it's excesses, and the people who put him into power (not to be confused with the voters who are a separate group of perpetrators) are simply a continuance of the previous generation and it just keeps going and going like the cycle of water---which turns to vapor which condenses into rain which falls and collects in pools and streams and starts the process all over.
When the American people begin to teach in the public schools that to participate in international criminal activity makes the participant a criminal as well; and that wars of aggression are illegal and criminal. Then and ONLY THEN will there be no one around to carry out the orders to torture, or maim, or bomb, or burn, or----kill little babies in their mothers arms from 35K feet in an air conditioned captains seat, or push a button to launch weapons of mass destruction.
The "little people" (you know, the ones who pay taxes) have tremendous power in their sheer numbers-------teach them to use it, and start NOW----with Mrs. Smith's Kindergarten Class,at the local elemtary school---funded by tax payers dollars; because that is where it ALL begins.
Thank you for your time.
As Professor Zimbardo makes clear in his book, The Lucifer Effect, we need to put on trial Bush, Cheney, Sanchez, Miller and other leading officials who directed the torturing of illegally held captives.
Anything less means we are not a nation of law, but a nation of men; that what we teach our children in school is false and that there is no legitimate system of justice in this country.
Who says McCain was ever tortured? McCain says it.
Sartre once wrote that "evil is the concrete made abstract." Therefore, "enhanced interrogation" is the euphemism for torture, "collateral damage" is the bombing of wedding parties and (taken to its final conclusion) the "Final Solution" for Himmler and Eichmann was the murder of millions of human beings. Of course, Eichmann never witnessed the actual killings from behind his desk.
Cunuck Chuck is right:
Water-board all USA taxpayers who didn't submit their tax returns in timely fashion by April 15th! (any red-blooded American should by now have this date hard-wired into their memory).
...maybe some of the USA government's agents keeping tabs on the Common Dreams website can forward Chuck's brilliant idea here onto the IRS? :D
curmudgeon99 July 26th, 2008 1:58 pm
I'm afraid you may have a point.
Torture is not hard to define and anyone that would condone it, approve it or indulge in it should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
Its the definition of cowardly.
hey lisa.
curmudgeon said:
"Wrong, ezflyer - it comes from the dark side of our collective souls. which we are all guilty of ignoring."
"Dark side" and "soul" are ethereal concepts. Concrete definitions can help:
The opposite of "liberal" is actually "authoritarian". "Conservative" just sounds nicer.
Therefore torture comes from our (authoritarian) conservative side.
The Company We Keep
When will the Evangelicals change their symbol
of an Arab tied to a cross
to an Arab tied to a waterboard?
Save us from our friends
Just as we saw the world's largest mass demonstrations, worldwide, before the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, we should be organizing a mass, nonviolent, worldwide demonstration to push for impeachment and prosecution for war crimes.
Sane, compassionate people of conscience have to wake up to the reality that there are people who have committed, and will commit more, evil acts, and the Democrats in congress knew about and/or approved of too much of it to be trusted on their own to impeach.
Pope JPII went on record saying that the death penalty was outdated because most dangerous criminals could be safely given life in prison, without fear that they would break out and commit more crimes. But Catholics should be talking about the fact that after impeachment and conviction for high crimes, the death penalty should be considered for Bush-Cheney-Rove-Rumsfeld, because the risk of a future Republican pardon is too great, and the criminals could do more harm.
We have to change the terms of the discussion. Mass, nonviolent worldwide protests could do this. Mass strikes and boycotts could do this. We have not yet learned how to stand in our power.
Our current neocon leaders are acting as if the Constitution and Bill of Rights don't matter, don't exist. Yes, they have been violated many times before; yes, we have fought wars of agression before (Mexico, Cuba, Philippines, Banana republics, covert actions, coups). Yes, we have repressed the freedoms of our own citizens in the name of militarism, nationalism, patriotism.
But we have to act as if the Constitution and Bill of Rights do and should exist, lest we lose even more.
Compassionate Conservatism. A Republican Torture Chamber.
Obama/Kucinich '08. Gore EPA. McKinney in Cabinet.
(Nader Arrested for Raytheon=Cluster Bombs Investments.)
Obama/Kucinich '08. Because There ARE differences.
hey ezeflyer.
Come on, let's face it - most Americans don't give a shit. We're king of the hill, the greatest nation ever on the face of the Earth, the toughest asshole on the block.
Not only will we torture anyone we damn well please, we'll make torture-tainment, too.
"Saw V" opens this Halloween. The series has already grossed over $500 million. That's right, baby - not only do we Americans have no problem torturing fellow humans, we'll pay ten goddamn dollars to watch it!
We have to simply admit to ourselves that the U.S. is a terrorist nation - then we need to do everything we can do change it. The most effective way to do so is to only vote for those candidates, at all levels, who do not condone or support it. It's time to end the so-called two-party (sic) system of government and only vote for other parties than Dems or Repubs.
Wrong, ezflyer - it comes from the dark side of our collective souls. which we are all guilty of ignoring.
Torture comes from our conservative side.
The USA has been systematically torturing and murdering people for decades.
It is a TERROR tactic AMERICA has used with frothing at the mouth enthusiasm since the early 1950's.
To quell dissidence in the 50 countries, many democraies, we subverted, attacked, and where we orchestrated coups.
The School of the America's in Georgia: A Torture School.
TORTURE
AMERICA
ALL GOVERNMENTS (except maybe Costa Rica) ARE
SERIAL KILLERS!!!
Nothing exists.
The bizarre logic of "we don't torture, therefore what we do is NOT torture" is, quite simply, torturous.
Americans, Democrats OR Republicans, are simply deluding themselves in they think for one second, that the government will not eventually turn these" enhanced torture tecniques" on THEM...
"did you pay ALL your taxes?, yes?..dont beleive you....ok, strap him, to the board and get the water bucket"