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Torture: US Policy or an Aberration?
Gary Sudborough - 11.05.2004 17:05
The torture of Iraqi prisoners of war is a part of a strategy of US counterinsurgency warfare and not due simply to a few deranged, sadistic American soldiers.
I wonder just how long it will take until the images of US torture of Iraqi prisoners disappear from the television screens of American viewers, compared to the months and months of seeing a dirty, bearded, disheveled and disoriented Saddam Hussein undergoing his degrading dental exam. They are still showing video clips of this exercise in humiliation every time a television commentator wants to relate a story about Saddam Hussein. Unless there is a lot of public pressure, the corporate media will eliminate this torture story very rapidly. It is not conducive to building public support for these wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The corporate media are a bunch of propagandists, although they will arrogantly claim they are objective, fair and balanced.
This torture of Iraqi prisoners of war will probably be portrayed mainly as the isolated acts of a few deranged, sadistic American soldiers. This is definitely not the case. Torture is an integral part of a strategy of counterinsurgency warfare, which the United States has been following for decades. Guerrilla warfare depends on popular support for its success, since the guerrilla fighters can't compete with the superior weaponry and technology of the occupying power or the government against whom they are revolting. The objective of torture and other methods of low-intensity warfare is to be so savage and shocking that people will be intimidated to an extent that they will no longer support the resistance.
A prime example of this counterinsurgency strategy was the Phoenix Program in Vietnam. This program involved torture, assassinations, mutilation of corpses, pushing prisoners out of helicopters, etc. In Guatemala the severed heads of guerrilla fighters were placed on pikes to intimidate anyone who might have thought about supporting or joining the guerrillas. In Argentina leftists were pushed out of airplanes over the Atlantic ocean. Presently, right-wing death squads in Colombia are using chain saws to slowly dismember peasants that they suspect of being guerrillas or guerrilla supporters. These are not just ideas that popped into the heads of these torturers. The School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia has trained some of the worst death squad leaders and mass murderers in Latin America. The CIA and the Office of Public Safety have been training the police and militaries in Latin America and supplying them with the torture equipment for a very long time. The CIA supplied the Contras with a counterinsurgency manual advocating assassinations, kidnappings, extortion and torture. An OPS officer named Dan Mitrione captured beggars off the streets in Montevideo, Uruguay to use as subjects for torture techniques to be applied to the Tupamaros guerrilla fighters. All these beggars died as a result of these demonstrations of torture techniques to the Uruguayan police. Political analyst Michael Parenti has a chapter in his book The Sword and the Dollar giving all the gruesome details of the various types of torture employed in Latin America and the US role in their perpetration.
I knew when the war in Iraq started that various methods of low-intensity warfare like targeted assassinations and torture were definitely going to be employed. What was surprising to me was that someone had the courage to reveal this information, while the war was still occurring without a successful resolution for the United States. Often, embarrassing events like this only come to light years later and are revealed on page 25 or so of one's local newspaper and in one paragraph in small print at the bottom of the page. The undeniable desire by the corporate media is that few people will notice or become outraged. As an example of their biased coverage, I would venture to say that the vast majority of Americans have never heard of anything called the Phoenix Program in Vietnam or the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Georgia.
Many Americans sincerely believe if any torture occurs involving the US military, it is either a mistake or an aberration and not actual government policy. This naive faith in the basic benevolence of the US government and ruling class has been inculcated into Americans' minds since childhood. Also, the limits of the debate in the corporate media exclude the idea that torture may have a logical purpose and be deliberately utilized in US counterinsurgency warfare. Finally, there are some Americans who have heard or read some information about the more unsavory aspects of US foreign policy and wars from the alternative media, but simply refuse to believe it, no matter how logical the arguments. They are in denial like alcoholics are in denial about their alcoholism. These people are unable to accept the idea that the US government and corporate elite are indeed that evil, although there is a tremendous amount of historical evidence confirming that they are really that evil, and even more so.
George W. Bush and Donald Rumsfeld are now attempting damage control over this scandal and claiming ignorance of what was occurring. This is a cover-up. They knew from the beginning of the savagery of the attacks on Afghanistan and Iraq. Jamie Doran made a video called "Afghan Massacre, the Convoy of Death," which was shown to the European parliament, about the massacre of Taliban prisoners of war. When thousands of Taliban fighters surrendered to American forces and the Northern Alliance, they were packed into sealed truck trailers for a long journey to Sheberghan prison in western Afghanistan. Along the way many suffocated to death and Northern Alliance soldiers simply shot holes in the sides of the trailers for ventilation at a level that killed and wounded others in the sealed trailers. No water was provided and the thirst of these Taliban prisoners was so severe that they were dying of dehydration as well as suffocation. Some were in such desperation they attempted to satisfy their thirst by licking sweat and blood off of other prisoners. Many of the surviving Taliban were in such bad shape when they arrived at the prison that they were transported to a site called Dashti Leile in the desert near Sheberghan and shot by Northern Alliance soldiers under the supervision of American Special Forces. The US corporate media at the time were not interested in this story. I wonder if they are now. It is corroborated by eyewitness testimony, although some of the eyewitnesses have become victims of death squads determined to silence this story.
Common forms of torture seen by many people from the very beginnings of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq were the placing of hoods over prisoners' heads and denying them any opportunity to sleep. Probably, this doesn't appear to the average person to be a particularly harsh or painful method of torture, but in fact, it is one of the worst, in my opinion. Denying light to the brain prevents the proper regulation of the body's circadian biorhythms and can lead directly to depression. Sleep deprivation also results in major depression, which is an exceedingly painful illness. Suicidal tendencies can easily result. The CIA and military intelligence may be very evil, but they are not fools. They realize how excruciating continual darkness and sleep deprivation can be to prisoners, and they were treating prisoners transported to Guantanamo Bay in this manner right from the moment of their capture in Afghanistan. In other words, torture was used from the very beginning in Afghanistan and Iraq and was extensive in nature, and we are supposed to believe in the ludicrous proposition that the US corporate media and the Bush administration were ignorant of all these facts for years. One thing is certain. They are all accomplished liars.
 E-Mail: IconoclastGS@aol.com  Website: http://www.theblackflag.org/iconoclast
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| Lees meer over: militarisme | | aanvullingen | | | Hoge leden van Saddam's regime extra hard aan | hans - 11.05.2004 17:13
Volgens het Rode Kruis worden voormalige hoge leden van de Baath partij extra hard aangepakt door de Amerikanen, zoals 23 uur per dag in een cel zonder licht, geen contact met anderen, zelfs geen familie e.d.
 http://www.rotterdamsdagblad.nl/
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