By Olivia Watt

Torture is clearly illegal by national and international law. The Geneva Conventions say that prisoners of war are to be fed, clothed, sheltered, given medical attention and in no way terrified or humiliated. CAT, the Convention Against Torture, and earlier, the Nuremburg laws, were all signed by the U.S. government, making every citizen — even citizen George W. Bush and his cabinent — liable for breaking any of these laws. The laws state that no war or any other event can nullify them or give amnesty to those who break them.

The apologists for torture, who in the U.S. today include a significant number of physicians, psychologists, lawyers, etc., claim that these “harsher” methods may be the lesser of two evils. That, if there is the threat of a bomb about to go off, you need to do anything to get the information out of the potential “terrorist.” But this has not happened. Torture is inflicted on prisoners who have already been incarcerated, many for years. Most people admit that under torture they would say anything to get relief.

When the pictures from Abu Ghraib hit the corporate papers, most Americans were horrified and wanted this kind of humiliation and sexual abuse stopped. They even wanted to know who was responsible. But the Bush administration quashed the release of any more pictures and the corporate media obeyed. The torture that has gone on for years at Guantanamo and for who knows how long in secret U.S. prisons in Iraq, Romania, Poland and Uzbekistan, involves far more ghastly and debilitating measures than were pictured.

According to former U.S. Army interrogator Tony Lagournis, who spoke on Amy Goodman’s Democracy Now! program, the severe torture methods used at Abu Ghraib prison did not result in reliable “intel” or useful information. However, it was clearly the policy handed down from the top U.S. officials. “Harsh” methods used while Lagournis was at Abu Ghraib included long, deep isolation; deprivation of food, blankets and mattresses in severely cold weather. At Mosul, prisoners were kept in packing crates in “stress” positions all night and subjected to deafening decibels of noise. Other sources say tapes of babies crying, cats yowling and American music were used. After being kept blindfolded all night, prisoners were seemingly attacked by vicious barking dogs jumping all over them. (They didn’t know that the dogs were muzzled.)

Lagournis admitted he used harsh methods he questioned but he had been trained to obey authority so that’s what he did. In the past, psychology tests have shown that ordinary Americans will inflict increasing pain on a subject if an authority is telling them that it is an experiment. Varying levels of obedience and trust in authority lead to different points at which an individual will say, “No, this is wrong.”

According to Lagournis, Navy SEALS brought in prisoners who were nearly frozen in ice cold water. “Ghost” prisoners (known as the disappeared in Central America) were sometimes held by the FBI or the SEALS, sometimes to hide the brutal treatment they suffered. Some prisoners came to Mosul prison with broken bones, smashed feet and severe burns. When harsh methods were no longer in use at Abu Ghraib, Marines stormed into people’s houses and tortured the suspects in front of their families. One prisoner came in with a giant third-degree burn after being forced to sit on an exhaust pipe of a Humvee. These prisoners were hit with axes, had bones broken and were burned after they were captured and handcuffed. They were not being interrogated at that time. Lagournis talked more in Arabic to prisoners whom he interrogated, concluding that 98 percent of them were not really terrorists.

Innocent detainees who were later released have testified that torture and humiliation tactics included deafening noise and extensive solitary confinement, being forced to drink their own urine, being pissed on and being forced to defecate on themselves. One man died from being beaten in the chest and then kept in a painful stress position until he died of asphyxiation.

Today, President Bush and his associates blatantly demand that torture, although illegal, be approved. First they deny it happens. Then when it happens, they pretend it is the aberration of a few “bad apples.” Then when legislation passes to make laws that are already laws, the president threatens to veto it. Last, he demands that the CIA be exempt from any restrictions.

Giving the CIA amnesty is not surprising because its use of torture goes back to the Vietnam War. Unfortunately for Democracy, most other government branches have aided and abetted policies regarding the CIA. The School of the Americas in Fort Benning, Ga. has training manuals that clearly instruct trainees how to use sophisticated torture methods that leave no marks. No government officials have investigated the school’s claims that those manuals were withdrawn. Many of us know by now that SOA trainees have gone back to El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras and other South American countries to inflict mass murder, carry out assassinations and torture people striving for justice. Jennifer Harbury struggled for years to find her captured “revolutionary” indigenous husband in Guatemala. He was tortured and dragged around by a Guatemalan colonel on the CIA payroll courtesy of the U.S. taxpayer. If there were Nuremburg trials about U.S. involvement in Central America, we would all be found guilty.

In the 1980s, a young U.S. nun, Diane Ortiz, was captured and held in a secret Guatemala City prison. She was stripped, searched, raped, punched and given 100 cigarette burns on her bare back. Then she was “rescued” by an American that her captors called “Boss.” In terror that he would disappear her forever, she escaped — bruised and tattered — while he was taking her away from the prison. Much later, she identified that man as CIA agent Randy Capistar. No one in any governmental capacity gave Ortiz or her family members any information about the CIA. Nor was anyone punished.
When I was in Honduras in 1985, our group met with numerous human rights groups. Their stories always had much in common. A loved one was captured, disappeared and sometimes found dead. The escaped or released always reported torture in the presence of an American who they believed was a CIA agent. It is a well-known fact by now that our CIA agents employ not only drug dealers, but torturers and assassinators to do their dirty work with U.S. money.

Bringing Tortures R Us even closer to our firesides, the abuses in the U.S. prisons and those in Iraq occur because of the same empire as Mumia Abu Jamal claims in his Prison Radio newsletter article. Race is a fundamental issue in both worlds. Moustafa Bayourni in his Dec. 26 Nation article, “Kisco Inferno,” addresses that issue. He states that the racist, outmoded book The Arab Mind is required reading for Middle East Studies at the JFK Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg. That author claims that Arabs understand only force, shame and humiliation.

The New York State prison near Attica exploded in the 1970s because of inhumane treatment of the inmates. Instead of talking or negotiating, government officials had the prisoners and their captured hostages shot down by state troopers. At least in that time the scandalous prison conditions were investigated and some efforts made to be more humane. We seem as a nation to have forgotten that human beings can usually be rehabilitated. As Lagournis stated, a war against terrorism can’t be won using bombs and force but by winning hearts and minds.

Obviously we are failing. We need to search for and root out torture in all corners of our society.

Olivia Watt is a longtime activist and member of WILPF.