American Gulag

Red Cross accuses US of torture at Guantanamo

American Gulag, torture
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According to the Financial Times, the Red Cross has accused the US government of using torture methods at Guantanamo Bay:

The International Committee of the Red Cross has accused the US of using psychological and physical
pressure to interrogate prisoners at its detention centre in Guantánamo Bay in tactics tantamount to
torture.

Following a June visit to Guantánamo, the ICRC raised concerns that interrogators were using harsh
techniques which were affecting the health of the detainees, according to a person familiar with the
situation.

The ICRC report, which the Bush administration received in July, criticises the US military for allowing doctors at Guantánamo to facilitate interrogations by providing interrogators with detainees’ medical records. The report is also understood to criticise the military’s use of humiliation and solitary confinement for extracting information.

We already knew that this was going on from the moment the first detainees arrived at Guantanamo and even before, in Afghanistan itself. We even knew that medical personnell, like “doctor” Louis Louk were playing a less than savoury role. What I am wondering is why some people can support the US in their actions in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere knowing about this, yet can still call themselves leftists without feeling ashamed.

To me the Iraq war is a litmus test; if you are a true leftist, you oppose it. If you do not, you’re not.

The new Dr. Mengele?

American Gulag, torture
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In the camp’s acute ward, a young man lies chained to his bed, being fed protein-and-vitamin mush
through a stomach tube inserted via a nostril. “He’s refused to eat 148 consecutive meals,” says Dr. Louis Louk, a naval surgeon from Florida. “In my opinion, he’s a spoiled brat, like a small child who stomps his feet when he doesn’t get his way.” Why is he shackled? “I don’t want any of my guys to
be assaulted or hurt,” he says.

Operation Take Away My Freedom: Inside Guantanamo Bay On Trial, Vanity Fair January 2004

Torture

American Gulag, War on Iraq
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We’ve all seen the photos by now and been disgusted by them. US and UK soldiers torturing prisoners? Surely that’s something
that couldn’t happen, shouldn’t have happened. Surely it is only an isolated occurrence, done by a few psychopaths and this should not reflect on the UK or US military as a whole. Even Bush himself said:

“I share a deep disgust that those prisoners were treated the way they were treated,” Bush said.
“Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people. That’s not the way we do
things in America.”

Isn’t it?

I genuinely would like to believe that, but I’m not sure I can. I don’t think these were isolated incidents. Ever since the September 11 attacks, the US leaders have fostered an atmosphere in which civil liberties and human rights are to be shoved aside in the name of security. Guantanamo Bay, the way in which Josef Padilla and others are held indefinately without charge, the prisoners taken during the Aghanistan campaign and in Iraq who are still held in the region, the alleged transfer of prisoners from US custody to countries who don’t have great moral objections against torture, the support for dictatorial regimes who make the appropriate anti-terrorist noises, all of them point to the inescapeable conclusion that this is how “we do things in America”.

If their leaders give such sterling examples, can you blame these soldiers for being extra zealous?

Consider also the wider content. First, you have this atmosphere of fear drummed into us by the Bush administration, where we are told drastic measures are needed to keep us safe, that we don’t have time for legal niceties and where civil and human rights are luxuries. Second, there is the inevitable wartime dehumanisation of the enemy, combined with the US military’s emphasis on keeping its troops safe, no matter the cost in enemy or bystanders’ lifes. If nobody bats an eye at US snipers killing ambulance drivers during the battle for Fallujah, why the outrage about what happens after the battle is over?

Third, this is made worse by the framing of the war against Iraq and the wider War Against Terror, as a struggle between good and evil, where “we” are Good and the enemy is Evil and so anything “we” do is automatically right, while anything the enemy does is automatically wrong. Finally, this Manchurian worldview has always had a strong attraction for a lot of Americans; in a culture where quite a lot of people consider prison rape not as much an unfortunate excess as an integral and welcome part of the prison system, is it strange that enemy prisoners are sexually abused?

This is not to say that all or even most US and UK soldiers would do these things, but these are not “isolated incidents” either.