There
are many differences between the United States war in
Iraq and the war in Vietnam. But there are some obvious
similarities. Both conflicts, for one example, involved
widespread brutality by the American armed forces toward
civilians and the torture of "suspected" enemies.
Thirty-five years ago, commenting on the
American massacre in My Lai, Vietnam, this author wrote
an editorial in the Guardian weekly (US) that contained
the following paragraph: "This calculated slaughter of
the innocents is neither a mistake nor an aberration,
neither a temporary moral lapse on the part of weary GIs
nor the debased sadism of a few perverts. The murder of
more than 500 civilian residents of My Lai - children in
arms, women and men - is the quintessential expression
of American imperialism and racism directed toward one
hamlet in ravaged South Vietnam."
The murder,
rape and torture of My Lai came to mind recently when
President George W Bush insisted that the shattering
revelations of the use of torture by the US military
against inmates in Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison were the
product of a "few people who have stained the honor of
this country". He argued, "that's not the way we do
things in America".
The history of the US is
nothing if not contradictory. Its extraordinarily
productive economy has transformed the US into the
world's most powerful state, and its society offers a
certain degree of liberty, opportunity and benefit to
some - though hardly all - of its citizens. As such,
those who promote America depict the country as the apex
of civilized development and the beacon of freedom and
democracy.
In this connection, of course, it
must be noted that the history of the US has been
punctuated frequently by episodes of extreme barbarism,
oppression and torture toward largely non-European
peoples since it was colonized nearly 400 years ago. Our
vast continental configuration is the product of a long
campaign of genocide and displacement of the indigenous
population; our economic growth was assisted until 1865
by over 200 years of slave labor from kidnapped and
brutalized Africans who were tortured at the whim of
their masters.
Aside from the deplorable and
violent conditions that exist in many American prisons
and the brutality and racism evident in some police
departments, torture in the conventional sense is not a
routine practice within the US proper, except for
inhumane treatment in particular cases such as that of
Muslims rounded up in the aftermath of the September 11
attacks on the Pentagon and the World Trade Center.
In our view, however, the events in Abu Ghraib
prison constitute a metaphor not only for the Bush
administration's unjust war against Iraq, but for
Washington's frequent use of violence to extend and
secure its economic and political interests, in Latin
America for over a century, and throughout the globe
after World War II. In a sense, the stunning new
revelations were the equivalent of Washington's
swaggering deployment of overwhelming force to subdue a
virtually defenseless country - writ small in the
grotesque "thumbs up" jocularity that accompanied the
enforced humiliation of terrorized inmates.
It
may come as a surprise to some readers, but while a
number of the cruelties devised by the guards go beyond
Bush administration guidelines, many of their actions -
once defined as "cruel and unusual" - are now considered
within bounds. The types of punishment approved by the
present US government include stripping detainees naked;
the use of cameras to take pictures of naked detainees;
hooding for interrogation and for long periods of time;
requiring detainees to assume painful "stress" positions
for long periods of time; prolonged sleep deprivation;
use of dogs to intimidate prisoners during interrogation
and elsewise; exposure to heat or cold or cold water;
sensory assault, including exposure to loud music and
bright lights; isolation longer than 30 days; and
threatening prisoners with abuse.
The members of
the US Military Police who joyfully perpetrated sadistic
outrages against Iraqi prisoners were undoubtedly under
the impression, albeit distorted, that they too were
promoting America's interests. They may have been poorly
trained reservists resentful of prolonged service amid
the chaos and confusion of a bungled occupation, but
they are also volunteers who are continuously exposed to
the full brunt of the Pentagon's "patriotic" propaganda
about Iraq constituting the very epicenter of a "war on
terrorism" that threatens to destroy their families and
home towns. The Abu Ghraib prisoners they tormented may
well have been innocent civilians swept up in mass
arrests, but to the MPs they were probable terrorists
who might even be connected to September 11.
It
is also likely that the seven prison guards (none of
whom are officers) soon to face trial on charges of
brutalizing inmates believed it was their responsibility
to break the emotional and psychological will of their
victims in order ease the task of Military Intelligence
interrogators seeking information about the resistance
forces. Their chosen means of accomplishing this
assignment was to contrive circumstances grossly
humiliating and disgraceful to Arab and Muslim men:
public nakedness, enforced masturbation and feigned
homosexual acts in front of an audience that included
mocking young women soldiers. The photographs that so
shocked the world were taken to exacerbate this
humiliation, but judging by the smiles of several MPs
posing in the background they were also intended to
function as mementos in later years when the former
guards reminisce about their wild and crazy year
fighting for the freedom of Iraq and in defense of the
homeland.
Obviously, the suggestion to force
selected inmates to undergo sexual humiliation came from
the military and "contract" interrogators experienced in
techniques to expedite the acquisition of information
from possibly reluctant individuals. The willingness of
these prison guards to comply with such suggestions and
to make sport of them as well bespeaks a deep-seated
racism toward Arabs and contempt for the religion of
Muslims that found its outlet in sexual degradation.
Fortunately, several of the Abu Ghraib guards
disapproved of these practices, which were widely known
throughout the prison because the photos had been
circulated. One of the MPs, specialist Joseph M Darby,
was sufficiently upset enough to report the matter to
the Army's Criminal Investigation Division in January.
Now back at their base in California, three of the MPs
who were also disgusted by the actions of their fellow
guards spoke to the press in early May. Said one: "They
think that because we're Americans you can do whatever
you want." Another commented, "I went to my superiors
and said people were forgetting they're American
soldiers," but they did nothing about it. And another:
"I don't understand why we had to be so rude with these
prisoners and beat the crap out of these guys."
Darby's revelation led to the late-February
53-page report on the situation by Major General Antonio
M Taguba, who detailed what he termed the "sadistic,
blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" at the prison. He
also implied that Military Intelligence, which had
acquired control over the prison section in question,
sought to have the MPs participate in pre-interrogation
torments.
The report was immediately provided to
top Pentagon brass, but it was not intended to become
public. The New Yorker magazine and author Seymour M
Hersh somehow "obtained" a copy and it became the
subject of a two-part article in early May. At around
the same time, copies of several of the incriminating
photographs found their way to CBS News. General Richard
Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff,
personally requested that the TV network delay showing
the pictures, which it did for two weeks. Interestingly,
although Myers and his boss, Defense Secretary Donald
Rumsfeld, possessed copies of the Taguba report for two
months and had been briefed about its contents, neither
as of last week had actually read it.
Six of the
MPs were charged with abuse of prisoners on March 20,
but were it not for the later leaked text of the report
and especially the photos, it is improbable that the
full extent of these war crimes would have been publicly
revealed. Respected human rights agencies such as
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch repeatedly
charged the Pentagon with abuse and torture since Iraq
was invaded some 14 months ago, but their complaints
were largely ignored by the corporate mass media and the
government until the photographs made it impossible to
suppress the extent of the abuse any longer.
The
revelations have seriously compromised the Bush
administration, particularly abroad, but at home as
well, coming at a time when US strategy in Iraq has
degenerated to a shambles due to the unanticipated
resistance movement and the ineptitude of the
"coalition" occupation. Bush had been expecting the
impending trial of former president Saddam Hussein to
help pave the way for his reelection in November, based
on his "liberation" of Iraq from "Saddam's torture
chambers". At this stage such a comparison would be
counterproductive, although by election day American
voters may have forgotten all about it. (A CNN poll not
long ago resulted in 47 percent of respondents agreeing
that torture may be justified during interrogation.)
Bush's politically centrist Democratic rival,
Senator John Kerry - who supports the war but insists he
can "manage" it better than the present administration
by attracting troops and money from presently aloof
allies - criticized the president for a failure of
leadership that helped lead to the prison abuses. On May
12 he specifically mentioned the administration's
demonstrated indifference to the Geneva Conventions on
the treatment of prisoners: "This is something that
comes out of an attitude about the rights of prisoners
of war; it's an attitude that comes out of America's
overall arrogance in its policy that is alienating
countries around the world."
Bush and Kerry
agree, however, that it is in imperial Washington's
interests to depict the incidents at Abu Ghraib as the
work of just a few US soldiers and not an outgrowth of
America's actions over the years. Kerry stated that
"what happened over there is not the behavior of 99.9
percent of our troops". A few days earlier, Myers
declared that that "just a handful" of soldiers are
guilty of mistreating Iraqi prisoners." On a surprise
visit to Abu Ghraib May 13, Rumsfeld pronounced the
misdeeds to be an aberration. Clearly, those who rule
America are united in fighting the not unreasonable
notion that the use of torture by the US military is
systemic.
The same attempts to reduce the scope
of US misdeeds to the actions of a "few bad apples" is
another reminder of official attitudes when particularly
heinous war crimes were uncovered in Vietnam. A certain
army major working in Vietnam as a staff officer with
the Americal Division (a unit of which was responsible
for the My Lai Massacre) wrote the following response to
allegations from an enlisted man that the division was
engaging in the murder and torture of Vietnamese
civilians: "There may be isolated cases of mistreatment
of civilians and POWs," the major wrote on December 13,
1968, nine months after My Lai but before the incident
became public knowledge in the US "[But] this by no
means reflects the general attitude throughout the
division ... In direct refutation of this portrayal
[from the whistle-blowing GI] is the fact that relations
between Americal soldiers and the Vietnamese people are
excellent." It took almost another year for the truth
about My Lai to become published. The major's attempted
coverup did him no harm, however. He was ultimately
promoted to general and, in January 2001, Colin Powell
became the US Secretary of State.
Actually,
torture is not uncommon in terms of Washington's
interaction with many other countries and in the overall
"war on terrorism". Let's look at a few of Washington's
experiences with torture in modern times.
After
organizing the overthrow of the elected government of
Iran in 1953 in order to install a puppet monarchy in
Teheran - a political catastrophe resulting in the
torture and deaths of thousands of defenders of
democracy - the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA)
created SAVIC, one of the most vicious secret police
agencies in the world. To protect its investment, the
CIA trained SAVIC in the most up-to-day varieties of
torture, which it deployed with abandon until the Shah
of Iran was ousted a quarter-century later.
Starting in the mid-1960s, various US government
agencies trained the right-wing regime in Uruguay in the
refinements of torture. In addition to providing
lessons, and taking part in the torture of dissidents
and suspected communists in Uruguay, the CIA offered
two-month training courses in the US. Over the years the
same instructions were provided to the governments of
Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras
and other Latin American regimes, leading to the mass
use of torture in Latin America and to the creation of
the notorious death squads.
America's most well
documented direct participation in mass torture took
place during the Vietnam War years when the CIA and US
soldiers subjected tens of thousands of poor peasants
and "Viet Cong" suspects to the most painful punishments
devised since the Inquisition. My Lai was not unique.
Nearly 30 years after Vietnam was liberated, the hidden
horrors perpetuated by the US are still emerging. The
Toledo (Ohio) Blade newspaper won a Pulitzer Prize last
month for exposing the atrocities and tortures conducted
by the so-called Tiger Force unit.
The US
involvement with torture has increased measurably since
the Bush administration launched its "war on terrorism"
in September 2001, but most of it is conducted outside
the country in various concentration camps operated by
the Pentagon in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay
(Cuba); in smaller secret facilities run by the CIA in
unnamed locations in order to interrogate alleged top
al-Qaeda suspects; and in foreign countries within
Washington's orbit which engage in torture themselves.
This latter practice is known as "rendering,"
and it consists of turning alleged "terror suspects"
over to foreign intelligence services for torture,
usually with an agent of the US in attendance. According
to the Washington Post of May 11, "Egypt, Morocco,
Jordan and Saudi Arabia are well-known destinations for
suspected terrorists" identified by the American
government. The article revealed that "the Saudis
currently are detaining and interrogating [torturing]
about 800 terrorism suspects, said a senior Saudi
official. Their fate is largely controlled by
Saudi-based joint intelligence tasks forces, whose
members include officers form the CIA, FBI [Federal
Bureau of Investigation] and other US law enforcement
agencies."
All told, over 43,000 Iraqis have
been arrested by the US occupation army, up to 90
percent of whom, according to a February report by the
usually reticent International Red Cross, had been
"arrested by mistake". Many have been subjected to
brutality by American troops. Many have been injured or
tortured. Many were incarcerated for months without the
knowledge of their families. None had legal
representation. Some were killed. Amnesty, Human Rights
Watch and the Red Cross have identified hundreds of such
incidents since the invasion began in March, 2003. The
Red Cross concluded that US arrest and detention
policies in Iraq "are prohibited under international
humanitarian law". Even Washington's hand-picked and
usually pliant Iraqi Governing Council several months
ago bitterly complained to the ruling Coalition
Provisional Authority about arrest and incarceration
abuses, to no avail.
So far, 34,000 of the
apprehended Iraqis have been released without charges.
Most of the rest will be released in time - a process
that has been accelerated since the Abu Ghraib crimes
became publicly known. Only 600 have ever been charged
with a crime, mostly of a civil nature. And nearly all
of those arrested, including opponents of Saddam, now
despise the US for portraying itself as a "liberator"
while acting in the fashion of an overlord.
The
Abu Ghraib episode is not a question of a few GIs
"staining the honor of their country". It's a matter of
the Bush administration undermining what remains of
America's honor by engaging in brutal tactics against a
civilian population after killing 10,000 other
non-combatants in an unjust and illegal war.
Jack A Smith was the former chief
editor of the now defunct US progressive newsweekly The
Guardian, and presently the editor of a newsletter
devoted to political activism. He resides in the Hudson
Valley region of New York in the USA.
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