Un-isolated Excuses

The changing of the guard has occurred in America, and with that, a new era has supposedly been ushered in. President Barack Obama vowed that he would handle these “wars” in Iraq and Afghanistan differently, and he’s already started making changes. But what has been making the most news recently is the debate over Guantanamo Bay detainees and Obama’s release of memos describing our treatment of such terror suspects. What these memos reveal is not just information about what was done to suspects; they virtually prove that we sanctioned the torture of detainees. They also allow us to judge ourselves against those who have preceded us, exposing a philosophy during the last administration that was highly imperialistic. So let’s see what the “news” we’ve learned in these memos tells us about what has actually been going on in these “wars.”

Perhaps the most infamous incidents in our “war on terror” were the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay. A phrase we heard numerous times from officials during that time was that the abuses at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo were “isolated” incidents. Yet, many pieces of evidence, including the recently released memos and the hundreds of photos Obama has ordered not to be released, disprove this claim.(1) For example, although former CIA officer John Kiriakou claimed in 2007 that terror suspect Abu Zubaydah was only waterboarded once—an isolated incident—it turns out that he was actually waterboarded at least 83 times and that suspect Khalid Sheikh Mohamed was waterboarded at least 183 times, according to the recently released memos.(2)

Even years ago, there was evidence suggesting that abuse of prisoners (or shall we say hostages) was widespread or even routine. Footage shot by Swedish journalist Urban Hamid in December 2003 which appeared in an extra feature of the DVD Fahrenheit 9/11 showed U.S. troops at Samarra sexually assaulting an old crippled man who had been captured—taunting him, and taking pictures with other hostages, much like the behavior of the Abu Ghraib prison guards. The journalist stated in the footage that such abuse of detainees appeared to be normal, and even the title of one of his articles, “The Story of A Raid on An Iraqi Neighborhood: Abuse of Detainees is Standard Practice by GIs” suggests so as well. The soldiers implicated in the Abu Ghraib scandal also admitted that their abusive actions towards prisoners were responses to orders from their superiors, and the Taguba Report suggested that the techniques used at Abu Ghraib may have been brought from Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan, further demonstrating that a culture and policy of abuse existed and continues to exist at such U.S.-run facilities.(3) In fact, although it’s only now during Obama’s presidency that these interrogation techniques are being seriously contested, memos released in December 2004 showed that FBI agents had complained to the head Army criminal investigator and the Defense Department about the very aggressive interrogation methods used by the U.S. military and intelligence task forces in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay in 2002 and 2003. Yet, nothing was done about it. According to executive director of the ACLU, “These documents tell a damning story of sanctioned government abuse—a story that the government has tried to hide and may well come back to haunt our own troops captured in Iraq.”(4) And this was back in 2004. As we have just discovered again, when military and State Department lawyers complained about the Guantanamo interrogation tactics—including waterboarding, "walling," sleep deprivation, forced nudity, et cetera— their complaints were ignored or even destroyed.(5) So much for the claim of “isolated events.”

Thus, the same way maltreatment of and disregard for colonial subjects defined European imperialism and not just an aspect of it, it is highly probable that maltreatment of Iraqi and Islamic civilians, hostages, captures, and prisoners by U.S. military personnel is ubiquitous in Iraq and elsewhere. And colonial governments also tried, as we have done, to excuse horrid actions committed under their control as “isolated.” After the infamous Amritsar Massacre of 1913 (see previous posts), the British government too tried to label the incident an “isolated” occurrence (6) though such an event was rather more the rule than the exception throughout European colonies. And according to Professor Elkins, during colonial Kenya’s Mau Mau situation that we discussed in previous posts, “The colonial government did report some one-offs, or incidents, as it called them, of brutality against the detainees but they insisted they were isolated occurrences.” (7) After the revelation of the brutal detentions and the Hola massacre, Kenya’s minister for defense, camp officials, and others were blamed for the wrongdoing that occurred, much the way Lynndie England and Officer Kevin Kramer were faulted in the Abu Ghraib incidents. But, just as England and Kramer argued in their cases, Kenya’s then Governor Baring likewise argued that the use of violence in Mau Mau-era Kenya was permitted at the “highest levels” through “Operation Progress.”(8) And like the FBI officers mentioned above who complained to no avail, Shirley Cooke, a representative of the European settlers in the Coast Province of Kenya, complained about the deportation of Kikuyu, stating that, “The reputation will live for years about these Transit Camps, and they will probably get the reputation of the concentration camps after the Boer war, memories of which live even to-day.” Cooke pushed for an investigation, but colonial officials opposed such actions and continued to oppose other demands for investigations of the transit and detention camps throughout the Mau Mau war.(9) More complaints and reports of abuse, torture, murder, and misconduct were made by other officials, members, and employees of the colonial government, but again these were discounted, and charges were reduced for officers who had killed Mau Mau suspects.(10) So it looks like we weren’t the first at inventing the “isolated incidents” excuse and shush-up the complaints act. We’re just re-inventing the wheel with that one.

As with virtually all scandals, crimes, and abuses, attempts are made by the perpetrators and criminals to cover up their misdeeds. During the days of European colonialism, colonial officials destroyed evidence and attempted to hide the abuses they committed. Such cover-ups reveal that colonial officials certainly were NOT unaware that what they were doing was wrong; it was not as if such behavior towards colonial subjects was acceptable. Rather, concealing the crimes proves that the colonial officials felt guilty of wrongdoing. For instance, in the Mau Mau example that we have been discussing, many people sent letters to the Queen and the government to complain about the abuse of detainees, similar to how FBI officials and State Department lawyers at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq tried to complain about what they had witnessed. However, the only government response was to try to stop the complaints. Moreover, the Hola massacre was at first covered up by reporting that the detainees had died from drinking contaminated water.(11) By the time independence was granted to Kenya in 1963, the colonial government had simultaneously ordered documents about the camps to be destroyed, and so documents detailing the torture and detention of Kikuyu detainees were burned.(12)

Today too, in the Iraq war situation, U.S. forces and officials have tried to conceal wrongdoing, and this is true of the cases of prisoner abuse. In December 2004, it was revealed that U.S. Special Forces who had abused detainees in Iraq threatened other Defense Intelligence Agency members who had witnessed and complained about the abuse in order to prevent them from reporting the abuse. Defense personnel were instructed not to tell anyone in the U.S. about what they had seen, and their e-mails were monitored. In order to prevent some of the defense personnel who had witnessed prisoner maltreatment from leaving the base, Special Forces took away some of their keys. In the case of the prisoner mentioned two posts ago whose face was punched and who required medical attention, the photographs showing the abuse were confiscated, and the medical care was not recorded. Although the ACLU released memos revealing that these cover-ups had occurred, the dates of the events and the names of those involved have not been released, further showing how a policy of secrecy continues to prevail in this “war,” as was discussed in the previous blogs. On December 7, 2007, it was also revealed that the CIA destroyed tapes showing the interrogations of two supposed “Al Qaeda operatives.” The material that was on the tapes was what the CIA called, “enhanced interrogation techniques,” but was likely incriminating evidence of prisoner abuse. Though information of the destruction of the tapes did not come out until December 2007, the tapes had actually been destroyed 2 years earlier.(13) And as previously discussed, an independent U.N. investigator of human rights has concluded that the destruction of the tapes suggests that torture occurred. And just when we thought it was all over, in March, President Obama made public the outrageous actions of members of the Bush administration and the CIA in relation to their so-called “war on terror.” Ninety-Two videotapes depicting interrogations and treatment of detainees and terror suspects were destroyed by the CIA—that’s right, count it—92. In the words of ACLU lawyer Amrit Singh, “The large number of videotapes destroyed confirms that the agency engaged in a systematic attempt to hide evidence of its illegal interrogations and to evade the court’s order.” The key word there is “systematic.” This is certainly not a case of “isolated events.”

In spite of the cover ups, when evidence of harsh treatment of suspects cannot be concealed, the Bush administration and Guantanamo interrogators have always excused such treatment by claiming that critical information needed to protect the U.S. can only be obtained in such a manner. When the waterboarding controversy first surfaced in 2007, a former CIA official claimed that the only way some of the crucial intelligence the U.S. has gathered was obtained was through the harsh interrogation methods used.(14) Even former Vice President Dick Cheney stated on Fox News last month and reiterated in his rebuttal to Obama’s speech on May 21st that these harsh interrogation techniques that many deem tantamount to torture were necessary to produce critical information for our national security.(15) This same type of excuse motivated, or rather was used to justify, the maltreatment of Kikuyu during the “screening” and detention processes of the Mau Mau war over 50 years ago. Only torture would urge Kikuyu suspects to admit to being connected with the Mau Mau movement.(16) But the ends don’t justify the means. The fact that torture produces a result does not mean that torture is not torture; the result is beside the point. Moreover, in the 1940s, we charged Japanese military and government officials with torture and war crimes for waterboarding captured U.S. military men.(17) So let me try to understand this: waterboarding is only a crime when other people do it to us, but not when we do it to others? Talk about double standards.

The plain truth is that abuse and torture do not yield reliable information. It’s obvious that torture often forces those who are victims of it to say anything and everything possible, even if it’s not true, to relieve their pain, often leading to false confessions. As retired FBI agent and interrogator Joe Navarro stated, “The only thing that torture guarantees is pain…It never guarantees the truth.”(18) So, while it’s clear that we have not learned from the past in terms of how we treat detainees, we apparently have not learned to come up with better excuses for our misdeeds or better ways to hide them. “The dog ate my homework” doesn’t work anymore. What history tells us is that when a country is in a position of occupying another country or imprisoning citizens of an opponent nation, it probably cannot be trusted. Its words are probably half-truths at best, and whatever is known is not the whole story; something is probably being hidden. What the U.S. has done in this war has proven that indeed, the words of occupying nations cannot be trusted. It’s enough that the world sees us as torturers and colonizers; now they also see us as liars.


(1) Jennifer, Lovin, “Obama Seeks to Block Release of Abuse Photos,” Associated Press, Yahoo News, "http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090513/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_pentagon_abuse_photos" , 13 May 2009

(2) Cole, Matthew, Brian Ross, and Joseph Rhee, “Waterboarding, Interrogations: The CIA’s $1,000 a Day Specialists,” ABC News, April 30, 2009.

(3) Associated Press, “England Pleads Guilty to Abuse” published in The Harvard Crimson May 3, 2005; Associated Press, “Soldier Gets 8 Years For Prison Abuse” published in The Harvard Crimson, October 22, 2004.

(4) Associated Press, “Memos Say Special Forces Threatened Iraq Torture Witnesses.” Published in The Harvard Crimson. December 8, 2004.

(5) NBC Nightly News April 22nd 2009.

(6) Sayer, 160.

(7) xii

(8) Elkins 349.

(9) Elkins, 59.

(10) Elkins, 274-310.

(11) Elkins 344-345.

(12) Elkins, xii.

(13) ABC News

(14) ABC News, December 2007

(15) Hess, Pamela, “Cheney Defends Bush’s National Security Policies,” Associated Press. Yahoo News, 21 May 2009, http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090521/ap_on_go_ot/us_cheney.

(16) Elkins, 63

(17) Wallach, Evan, “Waterboarding Used to Be a Crime,” The Washington Post, 4, Nov. 2007; Pincus, Walter, “Waterboarding Historically Controversial,” The Washington Post, 5 Oct. 2006.

(18) Associated Press, “Memos Say Special Forces Threatened Iraq Torture Witnesses.” Published in The Harvard Crimson. December 8, 2004.