A season of cruelty

by Ken Coates

Cracks are appearing in the foundation stones of our civilisation. Long-
standing taboos about national sovereignty have already fallen. Apart from 
the sovereignty of the megapower, all other sovereignty is qualified, if 
not abrogated. The universal prohibition of torture is now another 
victim.

On January 11, the Economist opened its lead story with the 
question: "Is torture ever justified?"

With some diffidence, the magazine answered No. But perhaps, it thought, 
sleep deprivation, lengthy interrogations and the use of the truth serum 
might be defined as falling outside the domain of torture.

What provoked the Economist to think these thoughts? There has been 
a controversy in the Washington Post, triggered by an important 
article which appeared on December 26 last year.

The article alleged quite specifically that unjustifiable interrogation 
techniques were being used at the US bases of Bagram in Afghanistan and on 
Diego Garcia.

"Deep inside the forbidden zone at the US-occupied Bagram air base in 
Afghanistan, around the corner from the detention centre and beyond the 
segregated clandestine military units, sits a cluster of metal shipping 
containers protected by a triple layer of concertina wire", it said.

"The containers hold the most valuable prizes in the war on terrorism — 
captured Al-Qaeda operatives and Taliban commanders."

This valuable cargo seems to have been made for ill-treatment.

Non-co-operators are kept standing or kneeling for hours on end, hooded or 
clad in spray-painted goggles.

Deprived of sleep

At times, they are held in painful or awkward positions and deprived of 
sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights under "stress and duress" 
technique.

By contrast, co-operators are given modest creature comforts, friendly 
interrogators and, "in some cases, money".

Some of the non-co-operators are handed over to foreign intelligence 
services which are far less squeamish about torture than the United States 
is supposed to be.

This process of handover is called "rendering." Not all non-co-operating 
prisoners need to be "rendered" because the US maintains a number of 
detention centres where the due process which should rule in the rest of 
the US does not hold sway.

When I raised this question in the British press, Foreign Office Minister 
Baroness Amos denied that it was possible for Diego Garcia to be used for 
interrogation since the US forces had never asked permission for such use.

I sought a response from the Washington Post and was told by one of 
those responsible for the original article that they saw no reason to 
modify their story.

Further checking reveals that there is no British civilian administration 
on Diego Garcia.

The island usually has a small compliment of less than 50 naval personnel 
under a Royal Navy commander who also acts as the representative of the 
British Foreign Office.

According to the Washington Post, US officials superintend most of 
the interrogations, especially those of senior captives.

Smaller fry are handed over to less squeamish interrogators in Jordan, 
Egypt or Morocco, together with the lists of the questions to which the CIA 
requires answers.

These "extraordinary renditions" are subject to no legal controls, although 
the appointed torturers have frequently been the subject of angry 
denunciations by US human rights organisations.

"According to US officials, nearly 3000 suspected Al-Qaeda members and 
their supporters have been detained world-wide since September 11, 2001. 
About 625 are at the US military's confinement facility at Guantanamo Bay, 
Cuba. Some officials estimated that fewer than 100 captives have been 
rendered to third countries. Thousands have been arrested and held with US 
assistance in countries known for brutal treatment of prisoners, the 
officials said."

Cofer Black, who heads the CIA counter-terrorist centre, said: "There was a 
before 9/11 and an after 9/11.

"After 9/11 the gloves come off." Part of the glove stripping process is 
that of rendering. We don't kick the shit out of them. We send them to 
other countries so they can kick the shit out of them."

Mind altering drugs

Mind-altering drugs are by no means the only devices employed in the 
administration of such kickings.

Systematic deprivation of sleep, selective withholding of pain-killing 
drugs for wounded people and other more or less "acceptable" cruelties are 
among the other standard treatment for rendered victims.

Before they are rendered, reports the Washington Post, captives are 
often softened up by military police and US army special forces troops who 
beat them up and confine them in tiny rooms.

Commonly, they are blindfolded and thrown into walls, tied up in painful 
postures, exposed to loud noises and unremitting intimidation.

How does rendering proceed? Sometimes, for instance in Saudi Arabia, "we 
are able to observe through one-way mirrors the live interrogations," said 
a senior US official.

"In others, we usually get summaries. We will feed questions to the 
investigators".

The Saudis have been very helpful with US enquiries, as was acknowledged by 
CIA head George Tenet in his speech of December 11, 2002.

Rendition to Jordan is comparatively common because the Jordanians are 
considered very professional interrogators.

"The most frequently alleged methods of torture include sleep deprivation, 
beating on the soles of the feet, prolonged suspension with ropes in 
contorted positions and extended solitary confinement," said the 2001 
report of the State Department on Human Rights in Jordan.

Morocco is another popular centre for rendition, notwithstanding a recent 
official ban on torture, which human rights organisations believe to be 
more honoured in the breach than the observance.

Prominent among the contributors to this report was Professor Alan 
Dershowitz, who called for the legalisation of torture to enable it to be 
controlled.

Dershowitz is a civil libertarian who wishes to put an end to the blindfold 
culture of US interrogators, forcing them to apply for a torture order or 
warrant in each individual case where tortures are to be applied.

The argument for such control is based on the presumption that illicit 
torture has been widespread and continuing.

Since the CIA has, beyond doubt, been involved in training torturers in 
Latin America and further afield, what Dershowitz said will ring true for 
many people.

But Dershowitz fails to consider that the legitimisation of torture would 
undoubtedly mean an exponential increase in its use, given the present 
culture of rabid irrationalism.

What is known to everyone who has worked in the field of rehabilitation of 
victims of torture is that the torture is not about the pursuit of 
information but the humiliation of its victims.

Dehumanising the torturers

This purpose does not take account of or comprehend its result, which is 
the dehumanisation of the torturers themselves and those who employ them.

It would be unwise to say that no truthful information is ever extracted by 
the administration of pain.

But what is absolutely plain is that torture normally generates false 
confessions because people will say anything to stop the pain, even if only 
intermittently.

After the war on Iraq, there will be many more prisoners in line to be 
tortured, whether by "our own" specialists or by suitable foreign 
volunteers from among the lackeys who are willing to assist in rendition.

Cruelty will be in season. How will this conduce to the restoration of 
peace or the development of human rights or the growth of civilisation?

We are about to establish new schools of brutality, to which the only 
antidote known to us at this time is human sympathy and solidarity.

This will be generated in the peace movement or, failing that, nowhere at 
all.

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Acknowledgement to Morning Star