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December 16, 2008 in Opinion
Our View: Torture report illuminates American atrocity
To paraphrase one of the more ignominious comments from the Iraq war, “We go to war with the defense secretary we have, not the one that we want.”
A bipartisan Senate committee recently released a torture report that highlights then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld’s endorsement of the abuses of detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq and at the military prison at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. He certainly didn’t act alone, as the report points to several top administration officials, including President Bush.
But the Senate Armed Services report points to Rumsfeld as the brains behind a venture outside traditional military protocols and the Geneva Conventions when it comes to the treatment of prisoners.
The notion that these prisoners required different treatment because of their disregard for human life is both ironic and wrongheaded. That’s just one of the excuses the report obliterates in its devastating dressing-down of the administration’s denials and rationalizations.
The abuses at Abu Ghraib prison were not merely the actions of “a few bad apples,” and the request to torture did not come from officers in the field. No, this was a top-down operation, and the techniques were derived from the resistance training given to government employees traveling overseas in case they are captured and tortured.
Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape, or SERE, is taught at survival schools, such as the one attached to Fairchild Air Force Base. But the report said the administration decided to apply the techniques directly to enemy combatants, which was a perversion of the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency’s mission. A Spokane military psychologist, Bruce Jessen, was involved, but he isn’t saying much.
So rather than teaching Americans ways to resist simulated drowning, painful stress positions, snarling dogs, hooding, forced nudity, sleep deprivation and blaring music, the U.S. military subjected prisoners to these techniques that have long been considered forms of torture. And, yes, it’s still torture if we do it. We learned these barbaric practices from communist China, which used them on U.S. troops in the Korean War.
We are better than that, or should be. The damage to the United States’ reputation around the world is incalculable. The torture of detainees has certainly aided the recruiting efforts of terrorists.
Some might ask whether it’s worth revisiting this controversy, but it is imperative that Americans know what their government is capable of. And it’s important for the rest of the world to know that our government can expose wrongdoing and accept responsibility, which is the first step toward redemption.
The good news is that the current head of U.S. Central Command, Gen. David Petraeus, understands this. In a 2007 letter to troops he wrote:
“Our values and the laws governing warfare teach us to respect human dignity, maintain our integrity, and do what is right. Adherence to our values distinguishes us from our enemy.”
We can’t say it any better than that.
Don’t fudge fish standard 
on December 17 at 12:19 p.m.
As I read your opinion piece on torture I couldn’t help but think about the scenes of bodies falling from the World Trade Center, the beheading of reporter Danny Pearl, the Bali nightclub bombing, the lastest incident in India, etc. I remember the criticism heaped on the US intelligence services after 9/11 and the fear we had of additional attacks on the United States. Now, 7 years later, we have Congress, who let us down by not preparing for terrorist attacks in the US before 9/11, criticizing those who responded to the call of their leaders to gather intelligence to protect us. Add to that your public criticism of these local patriots and I am appalled at this narrow and naive editorial opinion. I am glad you were not in charge of gathering the intelligence that has prevented attacks in the US for 7 years. Garry Borders
fletchbiz on December 17 at 6:20 p.m.
Hi bordersg,
You know, there are a lot of aspects to be considered when it comes to obtaining intelligence. But ultimately, they’re going to boil down to some fundamental ideas.
One is that two wrongs do not make a right. If we go to battle against evil, but we act in an evil manner, where are we? Have we not become our enemy?
Another idea is that if we torture to obtain intelligence, can we trust the information we have obtained? I once read a biography of a man kept in prison in Romania for 14 years (Richard Wurmbrand, founder of Voice of the Martyrs). He was tortured often, even daily, during that time. When his torturers demanded the names of his associates, he provided those of people who were already dead. When they discovered that he had done that, they tortured him more, but he did not provide the information they desired. The accomplishment of the people who held Wurmbrand prisoner was to teach him how to endure pain and humiliation more successfully. Does inflicting pain and humiliation during an interview reliably bring about a truthful testimony of relevant facts?
Lastly, I used to be in the Army. Back in the 1980s I was an Arabic linguist in Psychological Operations. Our motto was Triumphus Persuasionis, or victory through persuasion. I always felt that it was better to end a battle by persuading the enemy to stop fighting than to kill them. However, will that option to persuade still be available if we torture captured enemy soldiers? Will a captured enemy soldier be open to believing that we are good and their team is the evil element after we torture him? Will he be able to perceive a difference between us and them at that point? If he cannot distinguish between us (supposedly the soldiers fighting for freedom) and them (the agents of evil dictatorship and oppression), then what is the point in the whole exercise?
Hope you find this helpful. Thanks for listening.
Charlie
Struensee on December 19 at 1:14 p.m.
Some of our grandmothers used to say: your sins will find you out. Apparently, not many grandchildren working at the JPRA Personnel Recovery Academy (PRA) at White Bluffs heard this sage old advice. What the recent Senate Armed Services Committee findings say should be nothing new to HQ JPRA and PRA, which has fought contentious and bullied battles against the Intelligence Community (IC) for years. The IC stressing the need for study, erudition and true subject matter expertise; with PRA claiming that little more than a high school education and SERE technical training is sufficient to dispense critical advice to military leaders and warfighters. And so we saw the amateurs from PRA “winging it” in Iraq and elsewhere: and in so doing violating the basic tenets Geneva Convention. Anything for fame, and in the present case we are seeing that PRA employees were so divorced from common ethics and the expectations of professional conduct that they could not even recognize that their official actions were tantamount to war crimes. At least one present PRA employee and one former contractor should be investigated and charged in like fashion as the recent case of former Blackwater guards (extra-territorial crimes). Moreover, the commanders of JPRA and PRA need to stand down their sadly defamed organizations and critically review the situation (just as a flying squadron would after a serious accident), beginning with a thorough review of situational government ethics and moreover what the good citizenry of America expect from our military and civil servants, especially highly compensated employees. The JFCOM commander may indeed have to order this to happen, as JPRA has proven itself repeatedly unable to self govern. Obviously, some JPRA employees simply must depart if the failures of leadership cited by the SASC show flawed advice either given or advocated by agency principals and directors. Clearly, the Nuremberg defense of “just following orders” cannot stand at JPRA as an excuse for culpable conduct and JPRA employees must understand that classified clearances and programs are no shield to protect them from the discovery of negligence or malfeasance of office. This will mean stop offering agency instructors/employees immunity for misconduct and cease hiring scores of contractors for positions that clearly require close governmental supervision and oversight (the “revolving door” hiring practices of JPRA are seen by many insiders as a prime example of government nepotism). The agency can start these recommendations by disciplining at least one senior PRA research employee named in the SASC investigation, and work up his ignoble chain of command. And given certain past and present JPRA commanders and deputy commanders are apparently devoid of moral compasses, the agency must seek outside peer review of their agency’s actions, which in the immediate historical context brought the reputation of JPRA into infamy.