Torture: some views

If there's one thing that Bush should be utterly condemned for, it's his attitude about torture. John McCain is is trying to get a bill through that will put forth some rules to stop this hideous practice, and the White House threatens to veto it. I only have one question for Bush: how Christian is torture? If you condone torture, surely as a Christian, you're destined for hell, aren't you? Here are two opinions and two revelations about the subject.

1. GOP Stands Up For U.S. Right to Torture -- by Molly Ivins

On one of those television gong shows that passes for journalism, the panelists used to have to pick an Outrage of the Week. Then, each performer would wax indignant about his or choice for 60 seconds or so. If someone asked me to name the Outrage of the Week about now, I'd have a coronary. How could anyone possibly choose?

I suppose the frontrunner is the anti-torture amendment. Sen. John McCain proposed an amendment to the military appropriations bill that would prohibit "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of prisoners in the custody of the U.S. military.

This may strike you as a "goes without saying" proposition -- the amendment passed the Senate 90 to nine. The United States has been signing anti-torture treaties under Democrats and Republicans for at least 50 years. But the Bush administration actually managed to find some weasel words to create a loophole in this longstanding commitment to civilized behavior.

According to the Bushies, if the United States is holding a prisoner on foreign soil, our soldiers can still subject him or her to cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment -- the very forms of torture used by the soldiers who were later prosecuted for their conduct at Abu Ghraib. Does this make any sense, moral or common?

So deeply does President Bush feel our country, despite all its treaty commitments, has a right to torture that he has threatened to veto the bill if it passes. This would the first time in five years he has ever vetoed anything. Think about it: Five years of stupefying pork, ideological nonsense, dumb administrative ideas, fiscal idiocy, misbegotten energy programs -- and the first thing the man vetoes is a bill to pay our soldiers because it carries an amendment saying, once again, that this country does not torture prisoners.

This is the United States of America. It is our country, not George W. Bush's personal property. The United States of America still stands for the rights of man, for freedom, dignity and justice. We do not torture helpless prisoners. Our soldiers are not the SS, not the North Vietnamese who tortured McCain and others for years on end, not bestial Argentinean fascists, not the Khmer Rouge.

Remember, we invaded Iraq because Saddam Hussein was such a horrible brute that he tortured people. This is beyond disgusting. The House Republicans, which have no shame, will try to weaken McCain's amendment. They need to hear from decent Republicans all over this country. Don't leave this hideous stain on your party's name. This is NOT what America stands for. We've had more loathsome and more dangerous enemies than Al-Qaida and managed to defeat them without resorting to torture.

2. NY Times Editorial: Binding the Hands of Torturers

When the Senate voted this week to bring America's chain of military prison camps under the rule of law, President Bush threatened a veto. The White House explained his objections by saying the measure would bind the government's hands. Yes, exactly. The rules would finally bind military prisons to democratic values and the standards of behavior recognized by every other civilized nation. They would bind the government to a code of conduct that will help protect those in the nation's uniform.

The measure would ban "cruel, inhuman or degrading" treatment of prisoners held by the military - which, by the way, is already against American law and a longstanding treaty. Mr. Bush, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales are about the only ones left who want to defend the justness and practical value of the abhorrent practices introduced at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, and then exported to Abu Ghraib. Ninety senators voted for the new law, including 46 Republicans - even Bill Frist, the majority leader, who yanked the measure from the floor last summer.

More than two dozen retired senior military officers endorsed it, including two former chairmen of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, John Shalikashvili and Colin Powell. Generals know that turning American servicemen and servicewomen into torturers endangers Americans captured on the battlefield. Senator John McCain, the primary sponsor of the legislation, was among the Americans tortured by North Vietnamese jailers. He said that "Every one of us - every single one of us - knew and took great strength from the belief that we were different from our enemies."

The arguments made by the handful of senators still loyal to Mr. Bush on this issue were sadly comical. Senator Ted Stevens, Republican of Alaska, argued that requiring American troops to follow their own field manual was not practical in the so-called war on terror. This is the central myth behind the administration's policies on prisoners, that the 9/11 attacks required a review of the rules and justified changing them to allow the torture of suspected terrorists. No serious person with experience in this field believes that, only because torture yields worthless information and false confessions.

Not only is the Bush administration trying to block the Senate's efforts to finally fix this enormous problem, but it continues to block any serious investigation of the abuse, torture and murder of prisoners.

The senators who voted for the law on the humane treatment of prisoners should also lend their backing to another measure that would create a truly bipartisan and independent commission, armed with subpoena power, to investigate the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib and other military detention camps - like the one that investigated the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The Republican majority in the House should also pass the new law on interrogations - then override Mr. Bush if he has the bad judgment to veto it.

3. From the Sunday Herald: Torture of Iraqis Was for 'Stress Relief,' Say US Soldiers -- by Neil Mackay

For the first time, American soldiers who personally tortured Iraqi prisoners have come forward to give testimony to human rights organisations about crimes they committed.

Three soldiers - a captain and two sergeants - from the 82nd Airborne Division stationed at Forward Operating Base (FOB) Mercury near Fallujah in Iraq have told Human Rights Watch how prisoners were tortured both as a form of stress relief and as a way of breaking them for interrogation sessions.

These latest revelations about the torture of Iraqi detainees come at a time when the Bush administration thought it could draw a line under the scandal of Abu Ghraib following last week's imprisonment of Private Lynndie England for her now infamous role in the abuse of prisoners and the photographing of torture.

The 82nd Airborne soldiers at FOB Mercury earned the nickname "The Murderous Maniacs" from local Iraqis and took the moniker as a badge of honour. The soldiers referred to their Iraqi captives as PUCs - persons under control - and used the expressions "f***ing a PUC" and "smoking a PUC" to refer respectively to torture and forced physical exertion.

One sergeant provided graphic descriptions to Human Rights Watch investigators about acts of abuse carried out both by himself and others. He now says he regrets his actions. His regiment arrived at FOB Mercury in August 2003. He said: " The first interrogation that I observed was the first time I saw a PUC pushed to the brink of a stroke or a heart attack. At first I was surprised, like, 'This is what we are allowed to do?'"

The troops would put sand-bags on prisoners' heads and cuff them with plastic zip-ties. The sergeant, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said if he was told that prisoners had been found with homemade bombs, "we would f*** them up, put them in stress positions and put them in a tent and withhold water. It was like a game. You know, how far could you make this guy go before he passes out or just collapses on you?"

He explained: "To 'f*** a PUC' means to beat him up. We would give them blows to the head, chest, legs and stomach, pull them down, kick dirt on them. This happened every day. To 'smoke' someone is to put them in stress positions until they get muscle fatigue and pass out. That happened every day. "Some days we would just get bored so we would have everyone sit in a corner and then make them get in a pyramid. We did that for amusement."

Iraqis were "smoked" for up to 12 hours. That would entail being made to hold five-gallon water cans in both hands with out-stretched arms, made to do press-ups and star jumps. At no time, during these sessions, would they get water or food apart from dry biscuits. Sleep deprivation was also "a really big thing", the sergeant added.

To prepare a prisoner for interrogation, military intelligence officers ordered that the Iraqis be deprived of sleep. The sergeant said he and other soldiers did this by "banging on their cages, crashing them into the cages, kicking them, kicking dirt, yelling". They'd also pour cold water over prisoners and then cover them in sand and mud. On some occasions, prisoners were tortured for revenge. "If we were on patrol and caught a guy that killed our captain or my buddy last week Ö man, it is human nature," said the sergeant - but on other occasions, he confessed, it was for "sport".

Many prisoners were completely innocent and had no part in the insurgency, he said - but intelligence officers had told soldiers to exhaust the prisoners to make them co-operate. He said he now knew their behaviour was "wrong", but added "this was the norm". "Trends were accepted. Leadership failed to provide clear guidance so we just developed it. They wanted intel [intelligence]. As long as no PUC came up dead, it happened."

According to Captain Ian Fishback of the 82nd Airborne Division, army doctrine had been broken by allowing Iraqis who were captured by them to remain in their custody, instead of being sent "behind the lines" to trained military police.

Pictures of abuse at FOB Mercury were destroyed by soldiers after the scandal of Abu Ghraib broke. However, Fishback told his company commander about the abuse and was told "remember the honour of the unit is at stake" and "don't expect me to go to bat for you on this issue if you take this up". Fishback then told his battalion commander who advised him to speak to the Judge Advocate General's (JAG) office, which deals with issues of military law. The JAG told Fishback that the Geneva Conventions "are a grey area". When Fishback described some of the abuses he had witnessed the JAG said it was "within" Geneva Conventions. Fishback added: " If I go to JAG and JAG cannot give me clear guidance about what I should stop and what I should allow to happen, how is an NCO or a private expected to act appropriately?"

Fishback, a West Point graduate who has served in both Afghanistan and Iraq, spent 17 months trying to raise the matter with his superiors. When he attempted to approach representatives of US Senators John McCain and John Warner about the abuse, he was told that he would not be granted a pass to meet them on his day off.

Fishback says that army investigators were currently more interested in finding out the identity of the other soldiers who spoke to Human Rights Watch than dealing with the systemic abuse of Iraqi prisoners. Colonel Joseph Curtin, a senior army spokesman at the Pentagon, said: "We do take the captain seriously and are following up on this." Fishback has now been removed from special forces training because of the army investigation.

4. From the NY Times: In New Book Ex-Chaplain at Guantánamo Tells of Abuses -- by Neil A. Lewis

James J. Yee, a former Muslim chaplain at the Guantánamo Bay detention center, says in a new book that military authorities knowingly created an atmosphere in which guards would feel free to abuse prisoners. Mr. Yee, 37, is a former Army captain and a West Point graduate who was arrested and imprisoned in 2003 on suspicion of espionage. It was a case that, in the end, proved groundless, to the embarrassment of the Pentagon.

Mr. Yee was ultimately deemed guilty of minor administrative charges involving adultery and the presence of pornography on his computer, and given an honorable discharge. But those convictions, too, were later dropped.

The book, "For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire," offers Mr. Yee's first public comments on what occurred at the camp while he was there. In the book, published by Public Affairs, Mr. Yee writes that Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, the prison's commanding officer - who would later become Mr. Yee's chief antagonist in pressing suspicions of espionage against him - regularly incited anger toward the prisoners with emotional slogans delivered to the troops.

Mr. Yee writes that when General Miller visited the prison, he would tell the guards sternly, "The war is on." That remark and similar comments, Mr. Yee writes, were designed to let soldiers know they were operating in a combat environment where it was understood that rules protecting detainees were relaxed and instances of mistreatment would be overlooked. "Soldiers know that when you are in combat there's considerable leniency in the rules," Mr. Yee said in an interview, "and the leaders, including General Miller, wanted to put them in that frame of mind."

He said that General Miller told him that he remained deeply angry over the loss of military friends who were killed in the attack on the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001. The general, who is now assigned to duty in the Pentagon, declined through a spokesman to comment on the book.

Mr. Yee says the guards were constantly reminded of the Sept. 11 attacks by General Miller and others, and they "retaliated in whatever way they could" against the detainees. "In some cases, punishment often meant physical force," he writes. Mr. Yee describes how, to extract prisoners from their cells, soldiers used a procedure known as "irfing": a team in heavy body armor, called an Immediate Reaction Force, would physically subdue the prisoners and remove them from their cells. He writes that the irfing operations were sometimes needed to control unruly prisoners, but "they were doing it so frequently, so regularly at Guantánamo that I came to believe it was solely to rile the prisoners."

He says some prisoners were irfed because of such violations as having extra plastic foam cups in their cells; the procedure would later be described as necessary to "retrieve contraband."

The military has said repeatedly that incidents of abuse have occurred, but that they are isolated and that all accusations are thoroughly investigated.

In the book, Mr. Yee writes that as he got to know prisoners through his chaplain duties, he became increasingly certain that many were not the hardened terrorists that the authorities had depicted them to be. He says that while he was chaplain to about 600 detainees, the authorities regularly arranged for him to meet reporters and Congressional visitors to demonstrate the military's efforts to accommodate the inmates' religion. He came to believe, however, that he was being exploited to present a false image about the camp's atmosphere.

He writes that he rarely witnessed physical abuse of the sort that has since become a point of contention between the military on one side and human rights groups and defense lawyers on the other. But he says that in his tenure at Guantánamo, he regularly heard about prisoners being beaten and humiliated in their interrogation sessions.

He says he was told of the abuse by detainees and by Arabic-speaking translators who were present at many of the interrogations. He writes that these accounts were given to him months before similar accusations became public through press reports and the disclosure of internal memorandums by agents of the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

In the interview, Mr. Yee declined to discuss the details of the adultery and pornography charges against him, except to say they were used to humiliate him because the military was embarrassed over its handling of his case. He also does not go into the details of the charges in his book.

Mr. Yee was reared as a Lutheran in New Jersey and graduated from West Point in 1990. He converted to Islam and left the Army in the early 1990's, returning later as a chaplain. He now lives with his family in Olympia, Washington, where he is studying for a doctorate in international relations.