Clash of Civilisations
"[The war on terror] is not just America's fight. This is civilization's fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance and freedom"
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"Even as the young Afghan man was dying before them, his American jailers continued to torment him.
The prisoner, a slight, 22-year-old taxi driver known only as Dilawar, was hauled from his cell at the detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan, at around 2 a.m. to answer questions about a rocket attack on an American base. When he arrived in the interrogation room, an interpreter who was present said, his legs were bouncing uncontrollably in the plastic chair and his hands were numb. He had been chained by the wrists to the top of his cell for much of the previous four days.
Mr. Dilawar asked for a drink of water, and one of the two interrogators, Specialist Joshua R. Claus, 21, picked up a large plastic bottle. But first he punched a hole in the bottom, the interpreter said, so as the prisoner fumbled weakly with the cap, the water poured out over his orange prison scrubs. The soldier then grabbed the bottle back and began squirting the water forcefully into Mr. Dilawar's face.
"Come on, drink!" the interpreter said Specialist Claus had shouted, as the prisoner gagged on the spray. "Drink!"
At the interrogators' behest, a guard tried to force the young man to his knees. But his legs, which had been pummeled by guards for several days, could no longer bend. An interrogator told Mr. Dilawar that he could see a doctor after they finished with him. When he was finally sent back to his cell, though, the guards were instructed only to chain the prisoner back to the ceiling.
"Leave him up," one of the guards quoted Specialist Claus as saying.
Several hours passed before an emergency room doctor finally saw Mr. Dilawar. By then he was dead, his body beginning to stiffen. It would be many months before Army investigators learned a final horrific detail: Most of the interrogators had believed Mr. Dilawar was an innocent man who simply drove his taxi past the American base at the wrong time. "
posted by David Wearing at 6:54 PM
6 Comments:
This really sickened me as it turns out that the interrogators moved on to Abu Ghraib after they perfected their techniques at Bagram. Why it took the US authorities 2 1/2 years to bring this to light is a mystery, especially as President Bush says that this is being done in a transparent way.
what is worse though is that it was reported that senior officers toured the base during the period but made no comment or complaint. Why are there no senior officer prosecutions going on; it just seems to be another cover up.
This will have the effect of turning moderate muslims and non muslims against the USA and Britain; we will be assumed to be guilty by association. In fact I'm sure some of our people must have known about it, especially having read the Intelligence Committee's report earlier this year.
What can we do when our governments are in favour of legalised torture in the name of freedom?
Matt - thanks very much for your comments. Your first two paragraphs are based on the assumption that torture has been used in these US facilities by a few 'bad apples' and not as a matter of policy. I'm afraid we can probably dispense with that notion entirely. There's a wealth of written material now available, setting out how the use of torture by the US is systematic, ongoing and approved at the highest levels. The best, probably the central piece, is this from Seymour Hersh in the New Yorker last year. http://www.newyorker.com/printables/fact/040524fa_fact
As for moderate people being turned against US/UK foreign policy and holding us guilty by association - well firstly, we are guilty. Information on torture and other policies is widely available, and the policies are pursued by our democratically elected governments. That makes us directly responsible.
Secondly, many 'moderate' people have opposed US/UK foreign policy for some considerable time, and with good reason. Taking the Arab world as an example; President Eisenhower once asked the National Security Council to look into what he described as a "campaign of hatred against us" waged by people in the Middle East. The Council reported that this anger was based on a perception that the United States supports brutal and oppressive Arab regimes to help it secure access to and control over oil reserves. The council went on to say that it would be hard to counter that perception because it's correct. Well the perception was correct 50 years ago when the National Security Council advised President Eisenhower and its still correct today.
http://www.chomsky.info/interviews/20020126.htm
What can we do? Same as always. Raise awareness about the real nature and costs of policy, and take action that forces governments to change those policies.
I agree totally with your follow up. I don't believe that it's not been authorised from the top but from the american officers I've known they were a pretty sound bunch. I presumed there were still some like them in the US military prepared to stand up for real american values. Seems i was proven wrong.
As for British guilt I agree that we are guilty. We capture some of these people and hand them straight over to the american fully aware of what will happen to them. It seems that the UN convention on torture doesn't apply to us as its not part of British Law. It furthers annoys me that our government mouths on about their abhorence of toture but accept info from it and countenance it if practiced by allies.
I'd love to see prosecutions brought by someone - even the UN - against countries breaking these rules, but I understand that most Treaties and Conventions are all words and no substance, so don't believe that will ever happen.
thanks Matt
re.the US officers you've known - there are good and bad people in all walks of life. The orders are given by our elected officials so we'd do well to looking at our own responsibilities in the first instance. However, whilst being mindful of the fact of individual moral responsibility, what's really important is to look at the institutional structures that create outcomes such as war and torture.
My understanding is that if you're fully signed up to a treaty or convention then it forms part of your own laws (although moral responsibility applies whatever treaties you've signed). But if we're to ensure that such documents are more than a collection of words then the primacy of the rule of law has to apply in international affairs just as it applies domestically. The creation of the international institutions after WWII recognised the importance of this. That conflict brought us perilously close to a conclusion very different from the allied victory that in fact transpired. It demonstrated beyond doubt the fact that international trials of strength can have cataclysmic, even apocalyptic outcomes, and that the rule of a law arrived at by common consent must prevail on the global scene just as it does within democratic nations.
This was the true, historic significance of the Iraq war; beyond the disaster that befell that country. Though the great powers had never taken internationalism seriously beforehand, Iraq was all but an overt declaration that the law would be dispensed with and that the most powerful nation would now govern the world by force. Ignoring the lessons of the past and sending the world decisively in this direction would be a seminal disaster of history. John Bolton’s nomination, Norm Coleman's campaigning senate committee, etc are just as much a part of this assault on the international institutions that US imperialists have correctly identified have a potentially powerful constraint on their excesses. More here http://www.democratsdiary.co.uk/2005/05/strategy-of-weak.html
This being the case, its not hard to see where opponents of US hegemony should concentrate their efforts: in rallying round those institutions, strengthening them and using them as they were intended. Have a look at this report of a prosecution brought by bereaved military families, Iraqi civilians and anti-war groups against the government through the International Criminal Court. This is exactly the sort of action that's required http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,5187283-103685,00.html Such actions need to be mirrored wherever possible as part of a broader strategy to force governments to submit to and obey the rule of international law.
Thank you ...President Bush just blew off the Amnesty International Report on our prison in Cuba. "Just wasn't true".
Keep up the good work. I've just started a blog to share thoughts with Democrats...and I really appreciate what you are doing.
Val Smith
thanks very much, Val. I should point out that I'm a small 'd' democrat from the UK, as opposed to a member of the US Democratic Party. Although looking at your blog I think we have plenty in common politically. Likewise - keep up the good work.
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