Iraq and Afghanistan

Two members of the Defense Intelligence Agency have reported to their Agency, who forwarded the report to the Pentagon, that prisoner abuse has apparently continued long after Abu Ghraib was exposed. Last June they saw prisoners being brought into a detention center in Baghdad with burn marks on their backs and damage to their kidneys. They saw a prisoner being badly beaten up. When they complained to those in charge of the detention center, the DI officials were threatened by those in charge, their photographs confiscated, their car keys impounded, their email screened, and they were warned never to report the information. Reports have also surfaced that the FBI has severely criticized coercive techniques that continue to be used at Guantanamo Bay.

It appears to me that prisoner abuse, often including torture by any definition, has become so much a part of standard operating procedure in some American interrogation and detention facilities that it will take a major effort to change the picture. Abuse and cruelty has become an integral part of the working culture of those inflicting the punishment. If we do not go beyond the surface and attack this problem honestly soon, then America’s reputation will continue to take heavy blows, and unity within the country as well as our erstwhile alliances will be still further eroded.