Following orders that I believed were legal, I used military working dogs during interrogations. I terrified my interrogation subjects, but I never got intelligence (mostly because 90 percent of them were probably innocent, but that's another story). Perhaps, I have thought for a long time, I also deserve to be prosecuted. But if that is the case, culpability goes much farther up the chain of command than the Army and the Bush administration have so far been willing to admit.
When the chief warrant officer at our interrogation site in Mosul first told me to use dogs during interrogations, it seemed well within what was allowed by our written rules and consistent with what was being done at Abu Ghraib and other detention centers. The dogs were muzzled and held by a handler. The prisoners didn't know that, though, because they were blindfolded; if they gave me an answer I didn't like, I could cue the handler so the dog would bark and lunge toward them. Sometimes they were so terrified they'd wet their jumpsuits. About halfway through my tour, I stopped using dogs and other "enhancements" like hypothermia that qualify as torture even under the most nonchalant readings of international law. I couldn't handle being so routinely brutal.
2006-03-01
I was a paid torturer for the U.S. government
Linked above you'll find an Op-ed piece from yesterday's NY Times by Anthony Lagouranis, who served in the Army from May 2001 to July 2005. He served as an army interrogator in "many places" in Iraq, he writes, including Abu Ghraib. A pair of Army sergeants are now on trial, essentially for using dogs to terrify suspects during interogations. People much higher up the chain of command, Lagouranis implies, should be answering for this practice. Below is an excerpt from his piece, "Tortured Logic." Emphasis added.
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9 comments:
A very well-written statement by the soldier, a convincing case against all torture, and claims that the military command has utilized it as an instrument. I think this is a huge mistake, one that yeilds no benefits, but plenty of problems.
It is technically true that the captured people are not POWs, since they wear no uniform and do not operate under orders of a government. Howver, making that distinction serves only a single purpose I can see: to enable turture. And what does that get? It doesn't get good information. But it does ensure that captured US troops will not receive turture protection. And it creates incentives for enemy fighters to fight to the end and not get caught. Imagine the enemy morale if they perceived US troops as horrific in battle but who offered luxurious accomidations and short stays for those who got captured?
For one thing, this would drastically offset the problems of capturing innnocent people (which the writer puts at 90%). And imagine the affect on even guilty tyrantical muderers, if their experiance as prisoners of US troops entirely comprised healthful accomidations and a short stay. I believe that this would disrupt the culture of hatred. I read a book, "Soldier", as a teenager, by an Army Ranger in Vietnam who argued for such a policy.
What an awful mistake Bush has made here. One word in his favor: the "torture" described in this article is very tame compared to the torture inflicted by the tyrants. But it's still torture.
I have some problem with the criticism here. From the peacenicks and the isolationists, they would oppose the war even if it was indeed the first ever fought that was free of torture (which I advocate that it should be). But given that we do have US troops torturing, the administration directing the torture and lying about it it, is this now grounds for ending the war, or simply reforming the war? Nadir is an example of a peacenick who supports the Catro and Mugabe revolutions, which included lots of torture and executions by the the Castro and Mugabe forces, and then resulted in no attempt to establish free and open elected governments with guaranteed personal liberties and rule of law. I assume that Tom also supports those revolutions and their resulting governments. Yet they oppose the Bush revolution in Iraq, including amoung their objections the use of actions embraced by Mugabe and Castro.
I request that Tom and Nadir address this paradox. Surely they have something better than, "Bush is an outsider, whereas Castro and Mugabe are insiders." Or is this the best they can do? Accept torture committed by "insiders" seeking to institute a dictatorship, but not from outsiders seeking to institute a democracy.
To this paradox we can add the shock that Tom and Nadir have for how much "worse" Iraq is today versus 2000. Are we to hold this standard to their support for the revolutions in Cuba and Zimbabwe?
"The Bush revolution in Iraq"?
This is a complete misnomer. There is a big difference between a domestic revolution led by indigenous forces and the invasion of a sovereign nation by an aggressive foreign power.
I do not support the use of torture by Bush, Castro or Mugabe. I do support the revolution in Cuba in principle, and I recognize and understand the reasons Castro has used political suppression, but it is unfortunate that these tactics have been employed.
I support the people of Zimbabwe, and I believe Mugabe received unjust criticism a couple of years ago for the forced eviction of white farmers. I am disappointed, however, by the administrative failures that have followed. I now question the motives of the land seizures, though I don't question the principle.
In Iraq, however, the United States has no justification for an invasion of a non-aggressive nation that posed no significant threat to US national security. It was the international equivalent of a home invasion. Theft, burglary and murder. Nothing more. Nothing less.
"Those who serve in the prisons of Iraq deserve to know clearly the difference between legal and illegal orders. Soldiers on the ground need a commander in chief who does not seek strained legalisms that "permit" the use of torture."
So, your best argument does turn out to be that Bush is an outsider whereas Mugabe and Castro were insiders... plus your description only of the bush revolution as "murder and theft", but not that of Castro and Mugabe.
Your description of Hussein's Iraq as "non-aggressive" overlooks that govt's previous invasions of Iran and Kwait, then the still-applicable (and regularly violated) cease fire agreement that Iraq's govt entered in 1991 as a consequence of its Kwaiti invasion.
I expect that if Bush succeeds with his revolution in Iraq, the people there will be much better off than those living under the successful revolutions of Mugabe and Castro. The people in many regions of Iraq already are.
Nadir: Bush's war indeed is a revolution, as it aims to replace one form of govt with a totally different form. Castro and Mugabe's wars also qualify as revolutions, and I agree with you that theirs differ from Bush's Iraq revolution in that Bush's is a revolution imposed by an outside military force, whereas Castro and and Mugabe imposed theirs from within.
I also agree hypothetically with Cubans and Zimbabweans revolting when they did. Unfortunately for them, they squandered their glorious opportunity and erected dictatorships that imposed socialism, with the mathimatically predictable poverty and stagnation that followed. Sadly, few revolutions represent advances for the nations that experiance them.
Bush is determined to erect a constitutional democracy as the consequence of his revolution in Iraq. If he succeeds, Zimbabweans and Cubans will want to immigrate there. I see no evidence that Bush's Iraqi revolution has constituted "murder and theft," though it has indeed included murder on the part of US troops. But that hasn't stopped you from supporting Mugabe and Castro; why should it stop you from supporting Bush?
And we see how well Bush is succeeding in Iraq...
I don't have to submit a "best argument". Torture is wrong no matter who commits it. My argument with you is that Hussein's government was certainly "non-aggressive" after 12 years of bombing by the US. In reality, the 1991 war on Iraq never ended. But that's beside the point.
Murder and theft. "We're going to bomb (terrorize = "shock and awe") the bejeezus out of this country, invade with a huge force of arms (securing the oil wells first) and occupy the nation of Iraq. We will bomb the people of Iraq into submission and their own oil will pay for it.
"And what shall be our justification? Well, we think Hussein has chemical and biological weapons because we sold them to him a few years ago. Doesn't matter that the weapons inspectors can't find them. What about those metal tubes? And the semi-trucks? And the yellowcake from Niger? He could put those tubes with the yellowcake into those trucks and have nookular weapons in no time! Let's jack them muthafuckas for their shit!"
Sorry. Murder, theft and deceit.
Nadir: All you're doing here is inventing words that Bush never said. What kind of an argument is that? You for reasons I don't understand interpret the phrase "shock and awe" as a euphamism for terrorism, but it absolutely is not. Your other invented comments are ludicrious; nobody who supports the Bush invasion thinks or states such things, except in the fantasies of leftists. But I never tire of how sinister you guys think that "securing the oil wells first!" is. Yet if that wasn't done and the tyrants made good on their vows to sabatoge them, y'all would be among the first to criticize Bush for not having vouchsafed the invaded nation's most important resource.
Hussein for 12 years did not mount massive invasions, it is true. But his government openly paid people to perform acts of terror within the borders of the US ally, Isreal. Also, his government provided safe havens for people accused by the US govt of conducting various acts of terror against both Isreal and the US. Then there was the matter of attempting to assassinate Bush I.
If the neocons are correct that the key to stopping anti-US terror is to errect a modern democracy in Arabia, these reasons help identify Iraq as the best target.
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