Sunday, January 09, 2005
Who knew the flag of Israel was an instrument of torture?
Nevertheless, I can't help but be struck by press coverage that breathlessly reports as "abuses" actions that are only abusive -- if that is what they are -- because of the obscene ideology of our enemies. Consider this passage from the current issue of Newsweek:
Ibraham Al Qosi's stories seemed fairly outlandish when they first surfaced last fall. In a lawsuit, Al Qosi, a Sudanese accountant apprehended after 9/11 on suspicions of ties to Al Qaeda, charged that he and other detainees at Guantanamo Bay had been subjected to bizarre forms of humiliation and abuse by U.S. military inquisitors. Al Qosi claimed they were strapped to the floor in an interrogations center known as the Hell Room, wrapped in Israeli flags, taunted by female interrogators who rubbed their bodies against them in sexually suggestive ways, and left alone in refrigerated cells for hours with deafening music blaring in their ears.
For a moment, set aside the part about solitary confinement in refrigerated cells listening to deafening music. If it was rap, even I'm appalled. Focus on the first couple of items.
The first "fairly outlandish" practice is wrapping a suspected jihadist in an Israeli flag. Presumably the supposed atrocity here is not that the physical discomfort of being wrapped in a flag, but the psychological stress of being wrapped in an Israeli flag. But the stress is purely a function of the wrapee being a stomach-turning anti-Semite! What's wrong with using the prisoner's own hatred as a weapon against him? Suppose Israel had existed in 1944, and American interrogators had wrapped a captured SS officer in the Isreali flag? Would anybody think that was abusive? The practice is only stressful to the detainee because the detainee is a hateful and evil person.
The other practice -- being "taunted by female interrogators who rubbed their bodies against them in sexually suggestive ways" -- is hardly abuse. To me it sounds more like a lap dance. Many a best man has forked out good money just to buy his friend a heap of sexually suggestive female body rubbing. In any case, interrogative lap-dancing is only humiliating because of the ideology of the prisoner. It is, at worst, using his ideas about females and sex against him.
Both of these tactics seem designed to inflict psychological discomfort on the detainee. Well, it is, after all, an interrogation. Is not the infliction of psychological discomfort the essence of a good interrogation? Why else would somebody tell you information that will betray their cause and their friends? Why are either of these tactics considered to "shock the conscious," as has been alleged? Call me a bonehead, but I just don't see the problem with either of these techniques. Heck, under the right circumstances I could groove on that there lapdance torture.
The final tactic described in the article involves solitary confinement in a refrigerated room with "deafening music" blaring in their ears.
Again, presumably neither the solitary confinement nor the chilly room resulted in permanent physical injury, or even unreasonable physical pain in the event. Of course, if the room were cold enough and the prisoner poorly dressed, it might be painful or even dangerous, but there is no allegation of physical injury in the Newsweek article or al Qosi's complaint (pdf). These both seem like pretty reasonable interrogation techniques. But maybe I'm just heartless.
The article is unclear whether the music was figuratively "deafening" or literally so. I agree that if the music were literally deafening in the sense of inflicting permanent injury it should not be lawful. If it was merely deafening in the psychologically punishing sense that a rock concert or nightclub is deafening, then again, what's the big deal? Is it any different than the tactics used by the FBI in hostage standoffs (at Waco, for example, the FBI blasted loud music and Tibetan chants into the Davidian compound in the hope of forcing an evacuation).
There is nothing in either the Newsweek article or al Qosi's complaint (pdf) that looks like torture in the hot pins, electric shock and rubber hose meaning of the word. There is no allegation of anything other than physical or psychological stress. There is no allegation of permanent injury, or even the inflicting of great but emphemeral pain (other than in transit from Afghanistan, when the prisoners were told to remain motionless in a crouched position for a long period of time). There is plenty of reason to wonder whether we were effective in our interrogation of these hapless people (why did we waste our time on "severe, intense, nearly daily interrogations" of al Qosi more than two years?), and it is entirely possible that some actually innocent people were swept up on the war in Afghanistan, but I see nothing in the complaint that strikes me as inappropriate treatment of people who did what the Taliban did.
And while it may be that the only evidence against al Qosi is that extracted from him and other Gitmo detainees under psychological and physical stress, one might also wonder what a Sudanese accountant was accounting for in the Taliban's Afghanistan. His complaint, for all its indignation, does not give an explanation for his presence in Afghanistan. It merely denies that he was a member of al Qaeda and that he was turned in by some Pakistani looking for a cash bounty. Al Qosi's complaint is very detailed in its discussion of the facts regarding the conditions of his detention and interrogation, so the absence of any explanation of his reasons for being in and then fleeing Afghanistan is at least curious.
Separately, I recommend reading al Qosi's complaint for a detailed explanation of the legal arguments that human rights groups are leveling at the United States. I have done no work to understand how strong they are.
3 Comments:
By 
, at
Sun Jan 09, 06:09:00 PM:
Jack... I must confess I am shocked beyond all reason.
I never suspected you were such a heartless b*stard... Even knowing that you have volunteered to travel at your own expense to Gitmo to experience, firsthand, the scarring humilating psychological effects of having female interrogators rub their bodies against you in suggestive ways does nothing to alleviate my exteme disappointment.
Is there nothing sacred left in the Blogosphere???
I feel obligated to inform you that I will have no choice but to delete you from my blogroll immediately :)
By , at
Sun Jan 09, 06:10:00 PM:
(*&^^
I keep forgetting I'm posting anonymously.
As though you didn't know who this was...
- Cassandra
By , at
Mon Jan 10, 08:30:00 AM:
It seems to me there are 2 reasons not to "torture" - that is, use aggressive means of physical intimidation to extract information during an interrogation of an adversary. The first relates to moral considerations -- it may be considered immoral to "torture" a captured and unarmed or defenseless subject; the second relates to tactical considerations -- it may protect your own citizenry who may be held prisoner by your adverasry in war from similar abuse.
In the current broadly defined Middle Eastern conflict against Sunni islamists and other rejectionists, the tactical consideration has very limited and perhaps no merit whatsoever. Our adversary does not respect Western-created rules of engagement such as the Geneva Convention standards. Our prisoners will not be treated according to such standards. Period. There are many other related arguments to make about the natuer of the opponent. Let's leave it at that; I doubt there would be much dispute on this point.
That leaves only the moral dimension. It has been long established, however, that one may take extreme measures in one's own defense. I may kill another if I reasonably believed that the other intended to kill me.
In the broader societal context, a nation at war with an opponent who has demonstrated a wanton desire to kill your citizenry, without regard to definition of combatant status (that is, kill civilians) in large number and with whatever weapon at their disposal, has invited aggressive treatment for their combatants. Any piece of information we can extract from any suspected al qaeda or rejectionist operative has a reasonable expectation for preserving the lives of our citizenry. Had Mohammed Atta been detained by the FBI, we would have been right to torture him by the most vile means to extract the information associated with a theoretically prospective 9/11 attack.
It is an extreme argument, but I firmly believe in it.
