This whole torture flop
Supposedly, some US soldiers were torturing Iraqi prisoners. Couple of things:
1 – Bear in mind that it was other soldiers who took the pictures and gave them to authorities. You won’t hear much about that in the press.
2 – Also, looking at the alleged torture: a guy with a dirty word written on him; a guy hooked up to non-electrified wires, standing on a box, and lead to believe if he fell from the box he’d be electrocuted; prisoners forced to simulate sex with each other; and a dog attacking a prisoner. The only of these that is physical torture is the dog attack. That is real pain and physically cruel. The other stuff is all mental and may well be designed to force submission or get information without physically harming anyone. The sex one is a bit creepy though.
Update: Barry opines in comments:
I wouldn’t want to be the one known for defending torture of prisoners. None of these looked as if they were intended to get vital information – indeed, they looked more like sport for the soldiers.
To be clear: It’s not my intent to defend torture. Torture is something we shouldn’t do. However, if vital information can be gained by using interrogation techniques designed to crack prisoners who have information via mental exhaustion and learned helplessness (sleep deprivation and climate control come to mind) without resorting to physical pain, then I’m not opposed to it.
As Barry says (and upon further reading) these incidents do look rather like sport for the soldiers and are therefore inexcusable.
April 30th, 2004 at 10:24 am
SU: I wouldn’t want to be the one known for defending torture of prisoners. None of these looked as if they were intended to get vital information – indeed, they looked more like sport for the soldiers.
Those involved should be punished accordingly. Humiliation is NOT what we should be seen doing to our prisoners.
You know I’m completely in favor of what the US is doing, but this is beyond rational. It’s little more than some guys who longed for the good old days of fraternity initiations.
April 30th, 2004 at 2:04 pm
I understand what you meant. And I agree, to some extent. If there’s information we have to have – where’s the location of the nuke in NYC? What time will the bioattack start? Those kind of things we absolutely have to know, to protect our citizens.
But what we saw (at least) did seem like it was mainly for humiliation adn degradation, not information.
May 1st, 2004 at 3:46 pm
There is no excuse for prisoners being stripped naked and humiliated. Whether its physical pain or mental pain that they are inflicting there is little difference. In terms of the vital information angle, it doesn’t hold water. It would legitimize torture/humuliation/whatever because anyone could say that we were trying to get information out of someone whether they were successful or not or whether they really thought the person had information or not.
As I see it, if its something that we wouldn’t condon in America, we shouldn’t be condoning it in Iraq. period. The greater damage in all of this is that it makes us look bad in the Arab world, makes people hate us, and makes people want to harm us. Meaning that any potential “help” (for lack of a better word) that going to war in Iraq does to stop terrorism against us is negated and then some by actions like this.
May 3rd, 2004 at 11:25 am
I disagree. Humiliation is a legitimate interrogation tool. What is out of line is taking pictures of it. You have a Geneva Convention privilege against being made a spectacle of, but not against humiliation. What is going to be the “humiliation” standard? Aren’t there cultures where simply being taken prisoner is humiliating? And I’m not talking some Afghani tribal custom — I’m talking cultures like the US Marines.
April 30th, 2004 at 5:25 pm
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