MATTHEWGOODONLINE

What is torture? According to the dictionary it is defined as:

“The action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or to force them to do or say something. Great physical or mental suffering or anxiety.”

With regards to torture, the 17th Article of the Geneva Conventions states:

“No physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever. Prisoners of war who refuse to answer may not be threatened, insulted, or exposed to any unpleasant or disadvantageous treatment of any kind.”

Thanks to the likes of John Yoo, in the aftermath of 9/11 the United States went about systematically attacking what it labeled legal ambiguities regarding what constitutes a prisoner of war. It was argued by Yoo, and others, that those captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere were not prisoners of war but rather enemy combatants, and were therefore not assured the protections guaranteed by the Geneva Conventions. This precedent led to the current detention system employed by the United States, how detainees may be interrogated, and the ability of the United States to hold individuals indefinitely without any legal recourse. It also set a precedent with regards to the ability of the United States, a signatory of the Geneva Conventions, to both usurp its authority and redefine those aspects of it that challenge US detention and interrogation methods.

In short, the United States took the position of being able to adhere to the Geneva Conventions when it chose to, or disregard or redefine it when it presented obstacles.

By September 11th, 2006, the number of those detained in the War On Terror exceeded 83,000, none of whom, at that time, were charged with definable crimes under International or US law, nor brought to trial. It was during this immense detention roundup that entirely under qualified US military personnel were following wholly ambiguous rules of interrogation, the majority of whom had no training in interrogation techniques whatsoever and were commonly placed in the position of interrogating detainees after periods of instruction that were, in some cases, as short as six hours. Likewise, soldiers stationed at detention facilities were urged by a variety of individuals, from intelligence personnel to military contractors, to help ‘soften up’ prisoners, again despite the fact they had no experience working in such facilities, let alone dealing with prisoners. These were the individuals that were thrown to the wolves following the Abu Ghraib and Bagram scandals while no high level officer or member of the intelligence community, nor any member of the administration itself, was ever held responsible despite the fact that the interrogation directives themselves emanated from the highest offices in US government.

That said; let’s return to the primary question – what is torture?

While there are those that believe that torture is a wholly physical phenomenon, the truth is that since the 1950’s the Central Intelligence Agency has worked diligently on constructing an interrogation platform almost entirely based on psychological manipulation, including the development of LSD and other drugs as part of its chemical interrogation program known as MK-ULTRA (directed by the CIA’s Technical Services Staff, thus the digraph ‘MK’), which was later renamed MK-SEARCH in 1964. During that period, the following routinely occurred under the umbrella of the program:

- Experiments were conducted without the knowledge or consent of test subjects.

- Academic researchers were unaware in numerous cases that their work was being used to help provide the CIA with data.

- US soldiers were dosed with LSD to study its side affects with regards to mind control (Operation Teapot - Subproject 54, Perfect Concussion).

- Pregnant women were exposed to radiation and other substances and the testicles of inmates at an Oregon prison were irradiated without their knowledge (Operation Teapot – Subproject 54).

It is believed that over 150 different subprojects were carried out under the umbrella of MK-ULTRA. Unfortunately, as ‘luck’ would have it, the majority of the records regarding MK-ULTRA were deliberately destroyed in 1973 by order of Richard Helms, the director of the CIA between 1966 and 1973. As an aside, Helms remains the only CIA director to have ever been convicted of lying to Congress.

So how is this applicable to what is currently transpiring with regards to detainees? The answer is rather straight forward – the CIA’s extensive research into the use of detrimental psychological methods was transformed into the official American handbook on torture. The irony, of course, is that many people do not equate psychological mistreatment with the term ‘torture’, which is, in truth, the genius of its guise. Also of note is that much of the sensory deprivation techniques used by the United States military and CIA were initially researched by Dr. Donald Hebb, a Canadian psychologist, who, at his own admission, has claimed that the prolonged affects of sensory deprivation can easily result in a permanent state of psychosis after a minimum of six to eight days.

For example, take these images that hundreds of millions of people have seen since the detention facility at Guantanamo was opened…

In this photograph, and dozens of others like it, we see detainees at Guantanamo wearing hoods, blackened goggles, ear guards, and mittens. To your average observer this image doesn’t seem all that bad. In fact, it seems rather benign given what the individuals in the photographs have been accused of.

Now take a look at this photograph…

This photograph shows a subject undergoing one of Dr. Hebb’s sensory deprivation experiments. In it the subject is blindfolded, their hands are encased, and their auditory capability has been removed. They are also covered by a blanket, which can be removed and then replaced to control their body temperature and further disorient them (which is also the reason why their hands and feet are covered).

Returning to this image (on the left), we see detainees at Guantanamo sitting in stress positions outfitted with much of the same sensory deprivation equipment worn by the test subject in the photograph above.

That said; the application of sensory deprivation represents only the beginning of the process of psychological torture. Once desensitized and physically overwhelmed, the implementation of fear and degradation are then introduced. While not all prisoners are immediately subjected to sensory deprivation, they are subjected to fear and degradation, which is then commonly followed by the application of sensory deprivation, usually represented by being held in small rooms, cages, or cells in stress positions that make it impossible to sleep. This state is then capitalized on by the introduction of fear, degradation, and the implementation of further sensory deprivation techniques, such as the use of strobe lights and loud music in a dark room while enduring painful stress positions - or other techniques such as waterboarding (though it should be noted that waterboarding is a technique that can be employed outright in an attempt to break an individual).

This photograph (to the left) is, perhaps, one of the most familiar images produced during the Abu Ghraib scandal. In it a prisoner is standing on a small box, their head covered, with wires attached to each hand.

The point of this position is to place the prisoner in a state of fear having told them that they will be electrocuted if they attempt to get off of the box or lower their arms. In actuality the wires aren’t attached to anything, but the prisoner is unaware of that because they have been placed on the box while hooded. Thus, they believe that they will be electrocuted if they move.

In truth, it is far worse than having a gun put to your head and the trigger pulled. At least in that scenario you have no control, and the fear is minimized by the fact that it only lasts a few seconds before you’re killed. In this instance the prisoner is placed in the position of fearing death, or extreme pain, based on their own actions. The catch is that if they’re left in that position long enough exhaustion begins to play a significant role, only heightening their fear despite the fact that they’ve become so fatigued that they begin to lose the ability to remain in the position that they have been told will ensure their well being. The psychological impact of this procedure, while obviously perceived to produce results, would most likely end in the prisoner immediately stepping off of the box if it is repeated enough times that they are driven to the point where death is viewed as a release, even given the stringent view of suicide in the Islamic faith.

When cultural and religious elements are introduced into the equation, humiliation also becomes part of the process. In the case of Muslim men, sexual assault or overt sexual behaviour by female interrogators, forced nudity and masturbation, sexual humiliation, and the forced imposition of homosexual acts are all examples of techniques that have been employed because of the offense and trauma they cause. Coupled with the affects of sensory deprivation and fear, the impact of such techniques works to further degrade the mental state of prisoners.

It is in such a state that, according to the tenets of the doctrine, individuals are more likely to divulge information. But, in truth, they are simply more apt to say whatever it is that their captors want to hear because of extreme disorientation – and that is not the production of reliable intelligence.

If you believe that psychological mistreatment does not constitute torture try a simple experiment at home (and no, I am not actually saying that you should do this, I am just demonstrating a point).

First, get a knife, place the blade over your forearm, and cut yourself. If you are too afraid to do it, remember that feeling.

Second, get a friend to blindfold you, place a hood over your head, wrap towels around your feet and hands, bind them together with something, and then have them place you in a small closet with your arms raised over your head. After they do that, have them turn the thermostat up to full.

After that, every hour have them turn the heat off and wait 30 minutes. Then have them place ice cubes or icepacks inside your clothing, leaving them there for 30 minutes. After that have them return, remove the icepacks, place a winter coat on you, turn the thermostat back up to full, bind your hands back together and resume holding them over your head. Repeat this process for 12 hours.

Chances are that you will not last 30 minutes in that closet. If you last four hours, I will bet you that you would rather willfully cut yourself rather than spend another four hours in it.

Ultimately, what is more torturous? Killing an individual outright, physically torturing them to the point that they could die, or driving them psychologically to the point that they want to? It is one thing to be executed by another. It is altogether another matter to be brought to that black precipice at which you would gladly execute yourself.

And yet they deem it legal.

It’s eight o’clock in the morning. I have no idea what I am doing up, other than the fact that I went to bed pretty early. I watched The Other Boleyn Girl last night after rehearsal and prior to passing out. Why is it that no one can portray the Tudors with any historical accuracy?

Recent Catastrophes

Matters in China are looking grimmer by the day, as are conditions in Burma. One searches for words to put such catastrophes into context, but there are few. The best that I can offer is to suggest donating to the following relief efforts:

Oxfam
The Red Cross

Oxfam
The Red Cross

News Of Note

Congratulations are due the Supreme Court Of California who ruled yesterday that the State law banning same sex marriage is unconstitutional.

According to a recent report, the United States has detained some 2,500 children in Afghanistan, Iraq, and at the US facility at Guantanamo Bay since 2002. While that number has decreased, there are still some 500 juveniles being detained in Iraq, 10 at Bagram Air Force Base in Afghanistan, and of the 8 youths detained at Guantanamo, only two remain that were under 18 years of age when they first arrived. Of course, such detentions fly in the face of International Law as it pertains to Child Soldiers and juveniles, but there really is not point in arguing that fact being that the tenets of International Law only apply to those situations that the Bush Administration considers to be in their interest.

Speaking of juveniles, it seems that the United States is violating an international protocol forbidding the recruitment of youths under the age of 18 for service in the military. In the report entitled Soldiers Of Misfortune, it was found that the military is also disproportionately targeting poor and minority public school students. This, of course, should come as absolutely no surprise to anyone. It’s conveniently always the “dregs of American society” that seem to be “compelled” to defend the “American way of life” while middle and upper class white kids sit at home watching them die on television. The sad reality of modern American wars is that if you want to see one brought to an abrupt end, have rich white kids come home in metal boxes.

The “N” Word

President Bush, who recently claimed that he gave up golf because he thought it sent the wrong message to those that have lost loved ones in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, addressed the Israeli Parliament yesterday claiming that negotiating with militant organizations and radical governments was no different than the appeasement of the Nazi’s…

“Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along,” Mr. Bush said. “We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: “Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided.” We have an obligation to call this what it is — the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history.”

As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, Mr. Bush, the United States did nothing. It did not declare war on Germany, nor would it until Germany declared war on the United States on December 11th, 1941, four days after the attack on Pearl Habour. It would not act when France and the low countries were invaded and occupied, nor would it act when British cities were being decimated by German bombers.

For almost three years, while members of my family were in uniform, and their comrades were being stranded on French beaches having the crap kicked out of them only to be evacuated by civilian pleasure craft, the people of the United States wanted nothing to do with what was transpiring in Europe. By the time the “appeasement”, that you so casually referred to yesterday, had taken its toll, and Western Europe and parts of Africa were in German hands, the American public was still overwhelmingly against US involvement. Let’s also not forget that while Germany was being “appeased” by governments that had seen an entire generation devastated by war not two decades prior, major US financial institutions and corporations were doing business with the Reich, and would make millions in the process while those that would eventually fight along side American troops were being killed.

The reason, Mr. Bush, that you evoked the word “Nazi” yesterday was solely because you were in Israel, which is rather ironic being that an American company, that being IBM, sold the very machinery to the Nazi’s that they would later use to calculate the number of Jews, and others, eliminated during the Holocaust. Even more, that your own grandfather was the director of the Union Banking Corporation, with a convenient single share to his name, the assets of which were seized in 1942 under the Trading With The Enemy Act.

Like it or not, an American President addressing the Israeli Parliament is little more than a corporate president addressing shareholders.

To get away with murder in a war zone you have to have a few things going for you. For example…

1) No international body has the power to independently investigate allegations of war crimes, nor prosecute those found guilty under international law.

3) Only the internal judicial infrastructure of the body to which the accused belongs possesses the right to prosecute based on their findings alone.

That is how just powers get away with murder – by ensuring that when it comes to the possibility of negative attention due to criminality they retain the right to investigate themselves to ensure satisfactory outcomes, or at least those that placate domestic despondency, as domestic perceptions far outweigh other considerations. Winning hearts and minds in Iraq is by no means as important as, for example, punishing a few ‘bad apples’ involved at the lowest level of the Abu Ghraib scandal to placate the American public’s superior sense of morality. Even with a 30% approval rating, a democracy can continue to justify a military action simply because the buffer created by that 30% often means that the silent majority of the remaining 70% never really voice their dissatisfaction. That’s precisely how unpopular, costly, and wholly ludicrous wars endure in the face of seemingly overwhelming domestic disapproval. Added to that is the bizarre inability of so many to be able to grasp the difference between policy and support for those sent to enact it – who are always overwhelmingly represented by the nation’s poorest. Once upper middle class kids start coming home in metal boxes the acceleration of dissent becomes glaringly apparent, a phenomenon that was sadly crucial in helping turn public support against US involvement in Vietnam.

Some months ago I was emailed and provided a link to a story regarding the Haditha massacre. The email went on to ask if, given the contents of that story - which was that some of those involved that day had been cleared of wrong doing - would I be writing a retraction given my initial response to the event. My answer to that question remains the same. Until those Marines are tried in an Iraqi court of law, which was good enough for Saddam Hussein and his henchmen in the eyes of the American people and the current administration, or tried by the ICC, then no, I will not write a retraction. Because when wolves are allowed to investigate other wolves there is no security in the rule of law. Especially when the eyewitness reports of Iraqi civilians are treated as dubious or bias, once again reinforcing an engrained sense of Western moral superiority.

In truth, we will never know the full extent of US and British transgressions in Iraq. That reality was preordained prior to the invasion, a precedent that ensured that the Western public would only ever be presented with a one sided reality.

First, from The Village Voice via Roy. The ‘if and when’ is certainly little more than an extremely hopeful ‘if’, but…

“If and when there’s the equivalent of an international Nuremberg trial for the American perpetrators of crimes against humanity in Guantánamo, Iraq, Afghanistan, and the CIA’s secret prisons, there will be mounds of evidence available from documented international reports by human-rights organizations, including an arm of the European parliament—as well as such deeply footnoted books as Stephen Grey’s Ghost Plane: The True Story of the CIA Torture Program (St. Martin’s Press) and Charlie Savage’s just-published Takeover: The Return of the Imperial Presidency and the Subversion of American Democracy (Little, Brown).

While the Democratic Congress has yet to begin a serious investigation into what many European legislators already know about American war crimes, a particularly telling report by the International Committee of the Red Cross has been leaked that would surely figure prominently in such a potential Nuremberg trial. The Red Cross itself is bound to public silence concerning the results of its human-rights probes of prisons around the world—or else governments wouldn’t let them in.

But The New Yorker’s Jane Mayer has sources who have seen accounts of the Red Cross interviews with inmates formerly held in CIA secret prisons. In “The Black Sites” (August 13, The New Yorker), Mayer also reveals the effect on our torturers of what they do—on the orders of the president—to “protect American values.”

She quotes a former CIA officer: “When you cross over that line of darkness, it’s hard to come back. You lose your soul. You can do your best to justify it, but . . . you can’t go back to that dark a place without it changing you.”

Few average Americans have been changed, however, by what the CIA does in our name. Blame that on the tight official secrecy that continues over how the CIA extracts information. On July 20, the Bush administration issued a new executive order authorizing the CIA to continue using these techniques—without disclosing anything about them.

If we, the people, are ultimately condemned by a world court for our complicity and silence in these war crimes, we can always try to echo those Germans who claimed not to know what Hitler and his enforcers were doing. But in Nazi Germany, people had no way of insisting on finding out what happened to their disappeared neighbors.

We, however, have the right and the power to insist that Congress discover and reveal the details of the torture and other brutalities that the CIA has been inflicting in our name on terrorism suspects.

Only one congressman, Oregon’s Democratic senator Ron Wyden, has insisted on probing the legality of the CIA’s techniques—so much so that Wyden has blocked the appointment of Bush’s nominee, John Rizzo, from becoming the CIA’s top lawyer. Rizzo, a CIA official since 2002, has said publicly that he didn’t object to the Justice Department’s 2002 “torture” memos, which allowed the infliction of pain unless it caused such injuries as “organ failure . . . or even death.” (Any infliction of pain up to that point was deemed not un-American.) Mr. Rizzo would make a key witness in any future Nuremberg trial.”

Of course, the probability of such a trial occurring is entirely remote. If the United States can refuse an extradition request by the Italians with regards to 26 members of the CIA indicted in the abduction and rendition of Osama Moustafa Hassan Nasr to Egypt, where he was tortured, then what real power will any international body have with regards to bringing anyone else to trial?

The United States opted out of the ICC for a reason, and it wasn’t simply to ‘protect’ US soldiers from the legal scrutiny of international criminal bodies, but very likely those that implemented policy as well.

As some of you are aware, former Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, might have trouble vacationing in Germany for some time, after a lawsuit was brought against him, and 13 others, by a Berlin based lawyer for the violation of international law and the UN Convention Against Torture.

The truth of the matter is that a nation as militarily powerful as the United States will never be brought to justice for its crimes, even if American forces abandon Iraq in the years to come, which I doubt will ever happen on permanent basis, and the war itself is viewed as a loss. Even more, that after such an outcome occurred, that evidence of widespread criminality began to surface that exposed crimes that had, until that point, not been wholly revealed.

Even if some future government of Iraq were to move to take action in an international court, or a similar lawsuit was filed by Iraqis with regards to the abuse of international law and the UN Convention Against Torture, what would the outcome really be? That those responsible would be handed over? Hardly.

It’s important to remember that Nuremburg took place because Germany was decimated and its leadership had been captured. They hadn’t the ability to simply refuse to be tried because they were in the custody of those trying them. With regards to Iraq, Guantanamo, rendition, and practices at US Black Sites, that will never be the case because the United States will not find itself in the same position – to have no other recourse but to face the scrutiny of an international legal body. They will simply ignore it, passing it off as ridiculous, which is something that lends credence to just how damaging the Bush Doctrine has been, not to mention how its implementation as official US foreign policy will affect administrations to come.

No, there will be no justice for those seeking it with regards to the United States, nor do I believe that the next administration, Congress, or the people themselves, will really seek to hold accountable those that have been responsible for making the United States the most feared nation on the planet – even more so than terrorist organizations according to international polls.

Might makes right. And the mighty, in their time of unchallenged superiority, never forget it.

To put it another way – from today’s New York Times…

“Newly released documents regarding crimes committed by United States soldiers against civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan detail a pattern of troops failing to understand and follow the rules that govern interrogations and deadly actions.

The documents, released today by the American Civil Liberties Union ahead of a lawsuit, total nearly 10,000 pages of courts-martial summaries, transcripts and military investigative reports about 22 cases. They show repeated examples of troops believing they were within the law when they killed local citizens.

The killings include the drowning of a man soldiers pushed from a bridge into the Tigris River as punishment for breaking curfew, and the suffocation during interrogation of a former Iraqi general believed to be helping insurgents.

In the suffocation, soldiers covered the man’s head with a sleeping bag, then wrapped his neck with an electrical cord for a “stress position” they said was an approved technique.

Chief Warrant Officer Lewis Welshofer was convicted of negligent homicide in the death of Maj. Gen. Abed Hamed Mowhoush after a January 2006 court-martial that received wide attention because of possible C.I.A. involvement in the interrogation.

But even after his conviction, Mr. Welshofer insisted his actions were appropriate and standard, documents show.

“The simple fact of the matter is, interrogation is supposed to be stressful or you will get no information,” he wrote in a letter to the court asking for clemency. “To put it another way, an interrogation without stress is not an interrogation — it is a conversation.”

Last night, after months of searching and then finally having to special order it, I finally got a copy of Ghosts Of Abu Ghraib. Before commenting, let me first say that this documentary should be shown in every classroom in the United States. I believe it to be that important.

The fact that it was so hard to come by says something. Having gone to numerous ‘mega-stores’ that are home to thousands of DVD titles, both in Canada and the US, I was never able to find it after its release on DVD. It aired on HBO on the 22nd of February of this year, but being that I don’t have a television, I was unable to watch it.

Directed by Rory Kennedy, the daughter of late Senator Robert Kennedy, the documentary examines what occurred at the prison and the fact that while 11 low ranking MP’s and MI Corpsmen were made scapegoats for the abuses that took place there, neither military interrogators, private contractors operating at the prison, nor The Department of Defense were ever singled out for their roles in the abuses.

The premise is very simple, and one that, when confronted by it, will make sense to those who languish under the belief that what occurred was the work of a few ‘troubled’ individuals. That following General Geoffrey D. Miller’s visit to the prison at the behest of the Department of Defense in August of 2003, and his suggestion that ‘Gitmo-iszing’ the approach taken by interrogators there would result in the production of better intelligence, the methods employed were significantly altered.

At the time, approximately 300 US soldiers, most of them with absolutely no experience in detention, were in charge of some 6,000 prisoners. The prison itself operated in two capacities. Many considered to be of low priority were housed outside the prison proper in a makeshift camp surrounded by wire. Those that were considered actionable were held in two tiers of the prison, one for men, the other for women and children.

Women and children were held at the prison as bargaining chips, used by interrogators as a way to threaten those being questioned or entice those that had not been captured to surface. In some cases, male children as young as 9 years old were held in the facility entirely naked.

In the male tier of the prison, nudity became the norm. Prisoners were often held in stress positions for hours on end with women’s underwear placed over their heads, some chained to the metal frames of bed racks, some to the bars of cell doors, others to the bars of cell windows. One of the most important aspects of the documentary is that those MP’s that were assigned to these two tiers were placed under the command of military intelligence, and, as previously stated, had no experience, nor training, regarding detention. Ultimately, they were instructed to help ‘soften up’ those that were to be interrogated, which involved the use of numerous techniques, among them - sexual humiliation, sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation, the employment of extreme, prolonged stress positions, and the threat of the use of unleashing guard dogs. And yet, when the scandal broke, the photographs taken by those individuals were used to seal their fate while those above them, that had encouraged such behaviour, were never held responsible.

There is, of course, no excuse for the actions of those that followed such orders without questioning them, though as numerous personal interviews in the documentary demonstrate, some of those involved did, though typically only in private conversation, usually too afraid to actually address the issue with those who either knew nothing of what was actually transpiring or their immediate superiors.

The fundamental purpose of the film is to demonstrate that what took place at Abu Ghraib was not merely the result of a few ‘bad apples’, as then Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld suggested. But that the United States, following the invasion of Afghanistan, purposely set about challenging the application of the Geneva Conventions and the UN Convention Against Torture with regards to detainees, and how such legal manipulations led to a much wider application of internationally illegal intelligence gathering methods.

As some of you are aware, the worst of what occurred at Abu Ghraib was never widely exposed. While the pictures that surfaced caused outrage around the world, the reality that US personnel had raped a female inmate and made a father and son perform sexual acts on one another was not disclosed until some time afterwards, and then only by a handful of media sources that are by no means considered mainstream.

This documentary is a black hole. It shows what human beings are capable of when placed in a position of having to follow orders, having been inundated by highly disingenuous information regarding those being detained. As is pointed out in the film, the vast majority of those that were at Abu Ghraib had no significant information with regards to the insurgency or other groups.

One of Kennedy’s truly brilliant inclusions in the film is what he uses to bookmark the entire documentary. From the film’s opening…

“In 1961, an experiment was conducted by Dr. Stanly Milgram a psychologist at Yale University. Participants responded to a newspaper advertisement. The purpose of their ‘obedience study” was to observe an individual’s willingness to inflict pain when ordered to do so. The participants did not know that the “victim” was an actor and that the shocks were not real.

Research Subject #2: …who’s going to take responsibility if anything happens to him?

Researcher: I’m going to take responsibility. Please continue.

Victim: [screams off camera]

All of the subjects administered shocks. The majority did so at the maximum level: 450 volts.”

Kennedy returns to footage from the study at the end of the documentary in which the commentator interjects a profound assertion. That if, in a setting such as that, under the guidance of individuals with no real authority, people are willing to complete the test and employ the maximum level of electricity to the victim, then what is the government capable of, being that they possess far greater powers of authoritative persuasion and indoctrination?

Decades after that question was put forth, what occurred at Abu Ghraib serves as an example.

The ongoing trials regarding the premeditated rape and murder of 14 year old Abeer Qassim al-Janabi, and the murder of her parents and younger sister, has produced another verdict. Yesterday, Private Jesse Spielman was “convicted of conspiracy to rape and murder” and sentenced to 110 years in prison for his role in the crime.

While Speilman did not take part in the murders or rape, he was instrumental in their planning and acted as a lookout while his fellow soldiers committed the crime mere feet from him. Thus far, his is the longest sentence to be handed out. Three of the others involved in the crime received between five and 100 years after cutting deals with prosecutors. The group’s supposed ‘ringleader’, now discharged Private Steven Green, is being tried in Kentucky and faces the death penalty, which I am obviously against. Personally, he should be made to smash giant rocks into commercial gravel every day for the rest of his life with the world’s smallest hammer.

The following article might be a little stunning to some. I have always believed the exposure of Joe Darby by former Defense Secretary to be no accident, rather a calculated step to detract from the fact that what occurred at Abu Ghraib with regards to prisoner abuse and interrogation went much higher than merely a handful of MP’s.

It’s no secret, given various accounts, that not only were US military intelligence personnel in and out of the prison, but private contractors as well. There have even been reports that Israeli intelligence was also seen at the notorious prison.

That said, what defines and patriot? In the case of Joe Darby, it’s a moral man being exposed to grave injustices and having the guts to bring them to light. That said, one has to wonder at the actions of those that would view his decision to expose what occurred as traitorous…

“The US soldier who exposed the abuse of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison found himself a marked man after his anonymity was blown in the most astonishing way by Donald Rumsfeld.

When Joe Darby saw the horrific photos of abuse at Abu Ghraib prison he was stunned.

So stunned that he walked out into the hot Baghdad night and smoked half a dozen cigarettes and agonised over what he should do.

Joe Darby was a reserve soldier with US forces at Abu Ghraib prison when he stumbled across those images which would eventually shock the world in 2004.

They were photographs of his colleagues, some of them men and women he had known since high school - torturing and abusing Iraqi prisoners.

His decision to hand them over rather than keep quiet changed his life forever.

The military policeman has only been allowed to talk about that struggle very recently, and in his first UK interview, for BBC Radio 4’s The Choice, he told Michael Buerk how he made that decision and how he fears for the safety of his family.

He had been in Iraq for seven months when he was first handed the photographs on a CD. It was lent to him by a colleague, Charles Graner.

Most of the disc contained general shots around Hilla and Baghdad, but also those infamous photos of abuse.

At first he did not quite believe what he was looking at.

“The first picture I saw, I laughed - because one, it’s just a pyramid of naked people - I didn’t know it was Iraqi prisoners,” he says.

“Because I have seen soldiers do some really stupid things. As I got into the photos more I realised what they were.

“There were photos of Graner beating three prisoners in a group. There was a picture of a naked male Iraqi standing with a bag over his head, holding the head, the sandbagged head of a male Iraqi kneeling between his legs.

“The most pronounced woman in the photographs was Lyndie England, and she was leading prisoners around on a leash. She was giving a thumbs-up and standing behind the pyramid, you know with the thumbs-up, standing next to Graner. Posing with one of the Iraqi prisoners who had died.”

Joe Darby knew what he saw was wrong, but it took him three weeks to decide to hand those photographs in. When he finally did, he was promised anonymity and hoped he would hear no more about it.

But he was scared of the repercussions from the accused soldiers in the photos.

“I was afraid for retribution not only from them, but from other soldiers,” he says.

“At night when I would sleep, they were less than 100 yards from me, and I didn’t even have a door on the room I slept in.

“I had a raincoat hanging up for a door. Like I said to my room mate, they could reach their hand in the door - because I slept right by the door - and cut my throat without making a noise, or anybody knowing what was going on, and I was scared of that.”

When the accused soldiers were finally removed from the base, he thought his troubles were over.

And then he was sitting in a crowded Iraqi canteen with hundreds of soldiers and Donald Rumsfeld came on the television to thank Joe Darby by name for handing in the photographs.

“I don’t think it was an accident because those things are pretty much scripted,” Mr Darby says.

“But I did receive a letter from him which said he had no malicious intent, he was only doing it to praise me and he had no idea about my anonymity.

“I really find it hard to believe that the secretary of defence of the United States has no idea about the star witness for a criminal case being anonymous.”

Rather than turn on him for betraying colleagues, most of the soldiers in his unit shook his hand. It was at home where the real trouble started.

His wife had no idea that Mr Darby had handed in those photos, but when he was named, she had to flee to her sister’s house which was then vandalised with graffiti. Many in his home town called him a traitor.

“I knew that some people wouldn’t agree with what I did,” he says.

“You have some people who don’t view it as right and wrong. They view it as: I put American soldiers in prison over Iraqis.”

That animosity in his home town has meant that he still cannot return there.

After Donald Rumsfeld blew his cover, he was bundled out of Iraq very quickly and lived under armed protection for the first six months.

He has since left the army but did testify at the trials of some of those accused of abuse and torture. It is Charles Graner he is most afraid of.

“Seeing Graner across the courtroom was the only one that was difficult during the trial,” he says.

“He had a stone-cold stare of hatred the entire time - he wouldn’t take his eyes off me the whole time he sat there. I think this is a grudge he will hold till the day he gets out of prison.”

Mr Darby and his family have moved to a new town. They have new jobs. They have done everything but change their identities.

But he does not see himself as a hero, or a traitor. Just “a soldier who did his job - no more, no less”.

“I’ve never regretted for one second what I did when I was in Iraq, to turn those pictures in,” he says.”

Of course, the American people were never exposed to the worst of the content, such as video of a US soldier raping and Iraqi woman, or an Iraqi father and son made to perform sexual acts on one another.

Today, President Bush signed an executive order banning cruel, inhumane, or degrading treatment of terror suspects.

In it, sexual acts and attacks on religious beliefs are specifically mentioned, and for good reason. The United States has been guilty of both in the past with regards to detainees. At Abu Ghraib an Iraqi woman was raped by an American soldier, an act that was caught on film though never released to the public, and an Iraqi father and son were also made to perform explicit sexual acts. It is also know that the Qur’an has been desecrated by US personnel in the past.

The practice of water boarding, which the United States has denied the use of despite various accounts by those that have since been released from custody, still remains undefined as being an act of torture, despite the fact that it has been used as such for centuries. In fact, the order states that interrogation tactics must be “determined safe on an individual basis”, an ambiguity that provides ample latitude.

In response to the order, the director of Physicians for Human Rights, Leonard Rubenstein, told the AP…

“What is needed now is repudiation of brutal and cruel interrogation methods. General statements like this are inadequate, particularly after years of evidence that torture was authorised at the highest levels and utilised by US forces.”

Tony Snow, Bush administration spokesman had the below to say when questioned regarding the House investigative panel’s uncovering of 50+ external e-mail accounts set up by the Republican National Committee and used extensively by White House officials including Karl Rove, former Chief of Staff Andy Card, and former political director Ken Mehlman:

“This is an administration that’s been very careful about following the law,” Snow said. “We take it seriously.”

That’s way beyond laughable, it’s pathetic lying, and everyone in the press room who heard him say that, if they had a shred of integrity, should have stood up and called bullshit.

The e-mail accounts were used for official purposes, such as communicating with federal agencies, and by law should have been preserved, the report said. The committee has been investigating the disappearance of administration e-mails and whether White House officials used outside e-mail accounts to avoid requirements of public-records disclosure laws.

Ironically Mr. Snow, this report came out today, as well:

The Government Accountability Office issued a report showing that US government agencies ignored Congressional legislation on 30% of the occasions when President George W. Bush issued a ‘presidential signing statement’ after signing bills into law.

[...]

The GAO examined a sample of 19 specific provisions from fiscal year 2006 appropriations acts where Bush took exception with a signing statement. It found the laws passed by Congress were subsequently ignored about 30% of the time.

“Of these 19 provisions, 10 provisions were executed as written, 6 were not, and 3 were not triggered and so there was no agency action to examine,” said the report, which was issued as a letter and signed by GAO General Counsel Gary L. Kepplinger.

And, if those kinds of Bush Administration depravity don’t disturb you, Matt’s article about the White House’s denial of prior knowledge before media coverage about Abu Ghraib, and the damning report of details to the contrary by Ret. Major General Antonio Taguba, will.

Everyone knows a person like this. You know, where everything that comes out of their mouth smells like it, everything that they respond to you with wreaks of it, everything that they do is steeped in it. That person is just like our southernly neighbour’s Government these days.

It seems that Ret. Major General Antonio Taguba has spilled the beans to The New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh with regards to Donald Rumsfeld’s, and possibly even President Bush’s, knowledge of the abuses that occurred at Abu Ghraib. According to The Independent…

“The two-star Army General who led the first military investigation into human rights abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq has bluntly questioned the integrity of former US Secretary of Defence, Donald Rumsfeld, suggesting he misled the US Congress by downplaying his own prior knowledge of what had happened.

Major General Antonio Taguba also claimed in an interview with The New Yorker magazine published yesterday that President George Bush also “had to be aware” of the atrocities despite saying at the time of the scandal that he had been out of the loop until he saw images in the US media.

The White House issued a response denying the claim, however. “The President said over three years ago that he first saw the pictures of the abuse on the television,” Scott Stanzel, a spokesman, said.

In the extensive interview, Maj-Gen Taguba insisted that at the very least Mr Rumsfeld “was in denial” at a congressional hearing in May 2004, when he said he had only become aware of the extent of the abuse - and seen some of the shocking photographic evidence - one day before. The Secretary told members of Congress that the images published in the media were “not yet in the Pentagon”.

Mr Rumsfeld had summoned Maj-Gen Taguba to the Pentagon on the eve of the hearing, which took place one week after first US media reports of the abuse surfaced in The New Yorker and on CBS News. Yet the General had begun his investigation several months earlier, in January 2004, and had circulated his finished report to Pentagon managers - with pictures and a video - several weeks before seeing Mr Rumsfeld. “The photographs were available to him - if he wanted to see them,” Maj-Gen Taguba said.

As for the Secretary’s congressional appearance, he claimed: “Rumsfeld is very perceptive and has a mind like a steel trap. There’s no way he’s suffering from CRS - Can’t Remember Shit. He’s trying to acquit himself.”

Mr Bush has since conceded that the abuse at Abu Ghraib is the one thing he regrets about the war in Iraq. The photographs that became public at the time - and sparked worldwide condemnation - showed US jailers humiliating inmates who were naked, hooded, on leashes or piled into a human pyramid.

Maj-Gen Taguba said that other material not yet publicly disclosed or mentioned in subsequent trials included a video showing “a male American soldier in uniform sodomising a female detainee”. The first wave of images he received also included images of sexual humiliation between a father and his son.

The General said he was ordered to limit his inquiry into the conduct of military police at the jail even as he became convinced they had a green light from higher up. “Somebody was giving them guidance but I was legally prevented from further investigation into higher authority. I was limited to a box.” He adds: “Even today … those civilian and military leaders responsible should be held accountable.”

The General also tells the New Yorker that he became a victim of his own dedication to finding the truth when he was subsequently forced to retire early. In early 2006, he said, he received a phone call from a higher-ranking colleague telling him he was expected to retire by January this year, after more than 30 years of service. His conclusion: he was being punished for that first investigation.

“They always shoot the messenger,” Maj-Gen Taguba told Seymour Hersh of The New Yorker. “To be accused of being overzealous and disloyal - that cuts deep into me. I was being ostracised for doing what I was asked to do.”

There is one passage in that piece that should be of absolute paramount importance to every person on the planet…

“Maj-Gen Taguba said that other material not yet publicly disclosed or mentioned in subsequent trials included a video showing “a male American soldier in uniform sodomising a female detainee”. The first wave of images he received also included images of sexual humiliation between a father and his son.”

So a US soldier sodomized a female detainee and a boy and his father were forced to conduct humiliating sexual acts? Now you tell me how the existence of that footage has been kept from the American people, let alone the world? And in saying that, what does the fact that it has say about the people refusing to release it? That it’s too graphic? That it’s unsuitable? Or that it is so utterly disgusting and damning that it should, as it should have in the first place, rocked the very foundations of the administration itself?

These are war crimes, plain and simple. And it is not only for those who conducted the acts to be held accountable, but for those that placed them in the position to do so. Because if that is not the case, then the sentences handed down at Nuremburg might as well be expunged because none of those men were physically involved in the war crimes for which they were tried. And spare me the you can’t use the German analogy because had the war in the Pacific gone the other way the US could very well have been tried for war crimes for the bombing of Japan and the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of civilians, and I’m not talking about the use of the atomic bomb either.

The US conveniently opted out if the ICC for this very reason, and that should be a telling gesture given what has gone on during the occupation of Iraq.

Were the United States not the world’s preeminent super power, characterizing the President and various members of his administration, past and present, as war criminals would not be thought absurd. For in the end, the supposed principles of the United States are only as useful as the military might that its federal government possesses to justify obliterating them.

When, where, who - these are merely peripheral questions surrounding our complicity in the transfer of detainees to Afghan authorities known for their use of torture.

The primary question should be, and should remain – why?

Despite the ambiguities of this affair, the answer to that question is the same one that one would get were they to question the rendition of detainees by the United States and its allies to countries known for their use of torture.

Why are detainees sent to Syria and Egypt? Why are they sent to Ethiopian jails where abusive techniques are known to be practiced? Why is any detainee, secretly or otherwise, transferred into the hands of known human rights abusers? The answer is quite simple, actually – intelligence.

Both sides of the House can spend all the time they’d like yelling at one another about this issue. The Opposition can demand to know why if the Harper government knew it was occurring that Parliament wasn’t informed, just as members of the Government can scream back at them things such as…

“Earlier, Van Loan said it is time for the opposition to show its support of Canadian troops in Afghanistan, instead of focusing on the detainee issue, a focus he suggested is undermining soldier morale.

“It’s time for the opposition to get onside,” he shouted.

“For once, for once!” he added, his voice rising and his face reddening. “Support the good work that they are doing.”

Be it the Opposition’s use of this issue to attack the government or the all too typical convolution of policy and service that Van Loan employs, the point is that there is a specific reason that detainees are transferred to Afghan authorities, and it is not simply to keep them comfortably secured in jails while NATO troops continue to fight the good fight. We, along with everyone else in the country operating in a military capacity, transfer detainees to the Afghan authorities because we can wash our hands of the responsibility of having to do the dirty work of using illegal methods to acquire intelligence. High level targets are, of course, disappeared into the US system, where they are denied every right under international law, including access to the International Red Cross. But with regards to acquiring intelligence regarding enemy operations, the use of the Afghan authorities, and their ability to ignore international standards, is a win-win.

Let’s say, for example, a farmer is detained under ‘suspicion’ of either aiding the Taliban or being affiliated with them in some way; perhaps through a family member, maybe through others. Given that that farmer may possess information about enemy movements, not to mention information that he may have inadvertently been exposed to, detaining him and allowing the Afghans to beat him senseless in a cell until he divulges information is, in truth, in the best interest of NATO forces.

Let’s not bullshit here, nor pretend ourselves so innocent not to face facts. This is the hard, cold, reality of what occurs when conventional forces are faced with combating an enemy that does not adhere to the use of conventional tactics. During Vietnam, the United States did the exact same thing, and used South Vietnamese ‘interrogators’ to do their dirty work while intelligence operatives stood in the corner of the room, looking on.

When the Abu Ghraib scandal broke, there were numerous reports of US intelligence, Israeli intelligence, and contractors routinely visiting the prison for purposes of extracting and gathering intelligence. They may have used the guards to do their dirty work, they may have used Iraqis. The point is that the commander of the prison acknowledged that such individuals were active at the prison, and they certainly weren’t there to use the shower facilities.

In the case of Afghanistan, even our demand to check up on detainees transferred to Afghan custody is basically meaningless primarily because we, the Canadian public, have absolutely no clue what those visits will entail. In the case of one detainee that was handed over by Canadian forces to Afghan authorities and then tortured, what occurred when he was ‘checked up on’ by the Canadian military was not surprising in the least. From Graeme Smith’s article published by the Globe And Mail on April 23rd…

“His tormentors were the Afghan police, he said, but the Canadian soldiers who visited him between beatings had surely heard his screams.

“The Canadians told me, ‘Give them real information, or they will do more bad things to you,’ ” Mr. Gul said.”?

Gul was a farmer and could very well have befallen the exact hypothetical that I detailed above. And let’s face it, the reaction of our representatives in his case was not to complain about his treatment or demand his release into their custody, but to urge him to divulge information so that the beatings would stop. We played the good cop to their bad cop, an arrangement that is not something that happens by chance, but rather one that is put in place by policy – even if not directed by ‘official policy’.

This issue isn’t about supporting the troops, nor is it about anything that could be construed as the deliverance of freedom to a beleaguered people. This is about something far darker, and something which the majority of Canadians do not understand. That we are at war against a highly skilled and highly motivated guerrilla force, and that it is a well known fact that conventional military might, by no means, infers success. In fact, the revitalization of the Taliban over the winter only proves that theirs is a cause that is attracting more than simply those that agree with their religious ideology, but those that agree with their military objectives.

You can drop all the bombs you want, ship as many tanks over there as you like, and send battalions of infantry into the foothills and mountains to your hearts content. Like it or not, these same people defeated the Soviet Union at the height of its power, and they did it with little more than RPG’s and Kalashnikovs. So you tell me what tactics are left us to combat such an enemy, one that is highly unrestricted in its movement and has the support of a great deal of the region’s civilian population?

Well, for starters, you’re going to try and play hardball with them, which is always the first mistake. Because while the torture of Afghans that have been handed over by Canadian forces has shocked the people of this country, it has done something much worse with regards to those that our armed forces have been tasked with confronting. It has extended their purpose and, in all likelihood, helped galvanize public support for their movement.

When you have the most advanced weaponry in the world and are a part of a task force that consists of others with similar attributes, military arrogance is the first blindfold willingly put on. History is replete with examples of it, from the Egyptians to US involvement in Vietnam.

As I have noted in the past, William Tecumseh Sherman once quipped that ‘war is all hell’ and that ‘there is no use in reforming it’. He was entirely accurate, of course. That being the case, there is no use pretending that the reality of what needs to be done in Afghanistan, given the context of Sherman’s words, requires us to either go all the way with it or abandon our position there in favour of protecting the principles of our nation. For if we are to go all the way with it, then there can be no half measures employed, nor quarter given. Given the context of the conflict, the Geneva Conventions might as well be tossed out the window and our fighting men and women directed to act with unrestricted impunity.

There is, in a war such as this, no middle ground, despite the revamping of engagement criteria over the last decade to supposedly deal with situations exactly like this. Either morality is sacrificed for the possibility of success, or we walk away with our morality intact. That is a lesson that the United States refused to learn in Vietnam, and in the end they sacrificed not only the lives of tens of thousands of Americans and millions of Vietnamese in the process, but the moral high ground which they had assumed in the post war era.

This issue is not a political issue, nor is it one about some self perceived duty of gifting troubled lands reflections of our own society. This is an issue of morality and how far this country is prepared to go with regards to abandoning it.