Thursday, May 13, 2004
Torture
The news from the several fronts, including Washington, continues to sour the mood of the country. It is coming out that as many suspected after 9/11 the government, with many misgivings even in the CIA, developed new standards for how they would interrogate prisoners, particularly al-Qaeda. These were apparently especially meant for Guantanamo. But they quickly became almost a norm in Afghanistan and Iraq, in many cases for prisoners with no relation to al-Qaeda. What the new rules exactly were and the degree to which persons in the field extemporized is not yet clear. But we do know that picture taking was apparently widespread, that nakedness and hoods were used as punishments, and that threats (for example of drowning) became a part of the package. Kicking and beating became common, although this might not have been in "the instructions". How much of the more serious sexual humiliation was just overlooked or actually promoted, we do not know at this time. In any event, it is clear that untrained, inexperienced people were asked to "soften up" the prisoners before they were questioned and that they spent whole night with them apparently with little supervision. (One wonders that if we had inexperienced people handling such matters this time around, how much better the situation will be in the future after the government "recruits volunteers" to replace the people who have been punished for these activities?).
One can only hope that the result of this investigation is (1) adequate punishment of those officers who oversaw and planned these activities, (2) a rewritten set of regulations as to how information is to be obtained in the future under comparable conditions, and (3) the testing of any persons who will administer this process at any level in their understanding and acceptance of these new regulations.
The news from the several fronts, including Washington, continues to sour the mood of the country. It is coming out that as many suspected after 9/11 the government, with many misgivings even in the CIA, developed new standards for how they would interrogate prisoners, particularly al-Qaeda. These were apparently especially meant for Guantanamo. But they quickly became almost a norm in Afghanistan and Iraq, in many cases for prisoners with no relation to al-Qaeda. What the new rules exactly were and the degree to which persons in the field extemporized is not yet clear. But we do know that picture taking was apparently widespread, that nakedness and hoods were used as punishments, and that threats (for example of drowning) became a part of the package. Kicking and beating became common, although this might not have been in "the instructions". How much of the more serious sexual humiliation was just overlooked or actually promoted, we do not know at this time. In any event, it is clear that untrained, inexperienced people were asked to "soften up" the prisoners before they were questioned and that they spent whole night with them apparently with little supervision. (One wonders that if we had inexperienced people handling such matters this time around, how much better the situation will be in the future after the government "recruits volunteers" to replace the people who have been punished for these activities?).
One can only hope that the result of this investigation is (1) adequate punishment of those officers who oversaw and planned these activities, (2) a rewritten set of regulations as to how information is to be obtained in the future under comparable conditions, and (3) the testing of any persons who will administer this process at any level in their understanding and acceptance of these new regulations.
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