'Obama's Normalization of Neo-Conservatism"

Part 2 of 4: "Continuing Cover-Up of Torture" Written By Robbie Martin

Read Part 1 - Obama's Normalization of Neo-conservatism: Drones

Photo provided by US Army Records Public Domain

October 30, 2012

With eight years of scandal, contempt and two illegal ground wars deep, a strong anti-bush sentiment was pervasive among American citizens leading up to the 2008 presidential elections. During Obama's campaign for President, he made it clear that water boarding was torture, and that Bush administration officials broke the law with their counter terrorism torture strategies.
 
But if there’s one thing that's clear from the last four years, it's that talk is cheap. And as the 2012 Presidential elections inch closer, Media Roots takes a look back at the Bush administration's illegal torture program, its exposure to the public with the Abu Ghraib scandal and what Obama's subsequent cover-up of Bush era war crimes did to erode the fabric of our society. 

The torture program was not some US foreign policy fluke gone awry. Instead, 'enhanced interrogation techniques' was architecture that was systematically instituted by the Bush administration at the highest levels. 

The policies that the Obama administration has been under fire for can be seen as trivial when compared to the ongoing cover-up of blatant war crimes by the former administration. Now that torture and war crimes have been normalized, both 2012 presidential candidates will be sure to continue the same trajectory of utter impunity for the rule of law.

ABU GHRAIB TORTURE

If US Army Staff Sergeant Sabrina Harman didn't take any pictures while serving as a guard at Abu Ghraib prison, it's possible that the world would have never known the extent to which our military and CIA implemented torture on a systematic level in their interrogations of suspected 'terrorists'. The ensuing witch hunt resulted in charges pressed against only low level military personnel, which backed up the White House's claim that they were 'bad apples' who went above and beyond 'standard operating procedure.' From the words of many who served sentences as a result of the leak, it was indeed 'standard operating procedure' to employ these techniques as a means of 'softening up' the prisoners.

As a brutal prelude to CIA interrogations, inexperienced 20-something soldiers were paired up with mostly innocent Iraqi males swept off the streets, and encouraged to do whatever they could to 'get them to talk.' What the Bush administration instructed the military to carry out was essentially a real life version of the Stanford Prison Experiment. The CIA would later torture these detainees, sometimes resulting in grave injury or death. The difference is that no video or photos have surfaced that depict what was in store for those detainees once they were in the custody of the CIA. 

Was this violence truly, as the White House claimed, the isolated work of a few 'bad apples' at Abu Ghraib? Did low-level soldiers independently conspire to dehumanize and torture detained suspects in the heat of battle? Looking at all of the available information makes it nearly impossible to accept the validity of the White House's claims. Taken together with statements and supporting legal documentation, it appears to illuminate a widespread policy of psychological and physical torture for supposed 'intelligence gathering.' At least two other scenarios outside of Iraq imply that it was an official policy, and the claims of 'gitmo-izing' other prisons also imply that Guantanamo Bay was a sort of testing ground for the implementation of these extra-legal policies.

While also conceivable that these practices were institutionalized long before the 'War on Terror' began, only after 9/11 were they put on paper in such vivid detail and validated by internal lawyers. It seems clear that it was never intended to be revealed to the public, but the torture memos enabled an internal military PR campaign to give the green light for allowing anything "short of killing them" (Army Reservist Lyndie England). In the end, since this is now public knowledge, the fear of potentially being detained without due process and tortured for being radically against American foreign policy (especially if you are a Muslim, or in the wrong place at the wrong time) is a realistic and valid fear that can no longer be minimized or attributed solely to anti-American paranoia. 

"Torture didn't happen in those photographs, that was humiliation, that was softening up, torture happened during interrogations, guys going into interrogation and they're dead, and they were killed, and they died, that's where the torture happened and we don't have photographs of that." (Sgt. Javal Davis)

As described by the American personnel involved, these photographs do not depict 'torture' per se, but rather 'softening up'. If this kind of extreme violence and humiliation was only an orientation phase for detainees, one can only imagine the horrors that awaited them behind closed doors after they were turned over to CIA interrogators. Firsthand accounts of so-called 'softening up' included both physical and psychological torture. Physically, detainees were subjected to the following, among other acts: simulating sexual positions (often nude), being handcuffed to one another, being handcuffed or bound into stress positions, being bitten by dogs, being dressed in women's undergarments, crawling and dragging their genitals along a freezing, wet concrete floor, being burned with cigarettes, repeated cold showers. Psychological stress was also increased by combining stress positions with threats: soldiers would have prisoners hold onto a set of overhead wires and instruct them to stand on a chair to the point of exhaustion. They were informed that the floor was electrified and that they would receive a deadly shock if they fell out of position. Bear in mind, this is not an exhaustive list of 'techniques'.

"If they want us to keep him up that's what we do, they say i want him to be awake, they say he's dirty i want him to shower a lot." (Specialist Megan Ambuhl)

"Did any of this seem weird to you?" (Errol Morris) 

"Not when you take into account that its helping to save lives, and you see people coming in from the other side of the wire with their body parts missing, and they need to see who's doing it so they can stop it, and these are your battle buddies." (Specialist Megan Ambuhl) 

It's not as simple as hoping people would 'follow orders' to start committing torture on their own. They used the propagandistic trick of implying that you're literally doing this for your survival and the survival of your companions so the apathy and amorality seeds are planted easily, their literal will to survive flight or flight instinct is overriding their normal moral compass.

"You could kill people off camera, you can shoot people you can blow their heads off, if it's on camera you're done." (Sgt. Javal Davis)

In one horrifying case, the CIA placed a hooded individual, Manadel al-Jamadi back into his prison cell after a prolonged sessi... He was already deceased, and the official cause was recorded as a heart attack and many years later deemed a homicide (the investigation is still ongoing).  The corpse was transferred to another room, put on ice and left for low level military personnel to deal with. A level of desensitization could be easily heard in the words of Sabrina Harman in a letter home after she took photographs of herself giving a thumbs up near the body, remarking "how fucking gross, he's been defrosting for 24 hours."  

She was brought up on charges of evidence tampering, but they were quickly dropped, possibly because "they didn't want to bring up the dead guy" … "they didn't want anyone to find out they covered up a murder."

Faced with public outrage over the leaked photos, the American government had no choice but to promise it would hold accountable those responsible for abusing detainees. The shameful fulfillment of that promise was a handful of  inexperienced young soldiers becoming scapegoats and serving sentences for carrying out what overwhelmingly appears to have become standard operating procedure. Punishing soldiers at the lowest levels is the absolute minimum response possible, and was likely intended to quell public anger and outrage over the incidents while protecting the lawyers, advisers and officials higher up in the chain of command, those who deserve investigation for authorizing and encouraging these practices of systematic abuse. 

"Sacrifice the little guys, thats how they cover it up." (Sgt. Javal Davis)

GITMO TORTURE 

Even before the Abu Ghraib scandal, rumors poured out of Guantanamo Bay that revealed the extreme and bizarre tactics used by the US military to 'break down' prisoners. British journalist Jon Ronson investigated the lengths to which US interrogators and military guards would psychologically torture prisoners via sensory deprivation and overload, e.g.,  opaque hoods, blackout goggles, solitary confinement boxes, and loud music repeated 24 hours a day. 60 Minutes, CBS news and the outlets later revealed that the prisoner abuses went much further than that. Coined 'sexing-up', Muslim prisoners were sexually humiliated by being forced to watch female personnel simulate masturbation and grope their own breasts.

In one instance red dye was placed in the underwear of a female interrogator who proceeded to rub it on the face of a detainee, claiming it was menstrual blood.  Since being used as a prison camp for 'enemy combatants,' at least 9 fatalities have occurred at GITMO, all deemed suicides or from natural causes, reminiscent of the 'heart attack' suffered by Manadel al-Jamadi in Abu Ghraib. And unlike Abu Ghraib, GITMO was staffed by a dedicated group of military personnel that were more hardened, experienced and loyal to their commanding officers. They were not inexperienced enlisted privates, suddenly thrust into a foreign warzone in a makeshift prison camp, but prepared and trained to deal with their difficult environment. Nevertheless, an alarming rate of suicides happened at Gitmo, in one instance three in one day. This seasoned climate and strong esprit de corps at Gitmo would also help explain why no embarrassing leaks in the form of photographs or video have been revealed. 

The practice of 'waterboarding,' wherein a detainee is subjected to simulated drowning, was made infamous through its use at Gitmo. It was admitted by authorities that Khalid Sheik Muhammad was water-boarded over 183 times. All of these 'interrogations' were videotaped by CIA personnel, though none have been made public. Do these videos only show 'water-boarding,' a technique already classified as torture, or do they show other horrendous acts, or possibly murder? Unfortunately there is no way of finding out, since the CIA has admitting to destroying these records, albeit with no explanation given. 

A familiar story was told by former Gitmo Commander Erik Saar, who worked there during many of the interrogation sessions. He said to 60 minutes:

"Interrogations were set up so the VIPs could come and witness an interrogation, and in fact the interrogation would be a mock interrogation, basically."

Echoed by Brigader General Janis Karpinski  who served as overseer to prisons in Iraq who speculated that the interrogations she was shown were staged to give the appearance that everything was normal and that no abuse was regularly taking place. When a relief organization like the Red Cross made a scheduled visit to check the prison's conditions, the environment was also artificially improved and normalized

Medical personnel who worked at Gitmo are also complicit in the cov... of detainee abuse and torture. Glaring symptoms of physical abuse like bone fractures, internal bleeding and contusions were never explained in medical reports, nor were psychological symptoms of psychosis due to prolonged isolation and mental abuse. If the medical staff itself was helping to coverup what went on, how can we trust any of the internal reports of official causes of death for the 9 detainees who died while in US custody? 

Detainees who have been released from Gitmo have also described being drugged and sedated before interrogations with unknown substa.... While this has long been banned by the US in regards to treatment of POWS, infamous "torture memo" author John Yoo wrote that drugs could be used as long as they did not inflict permanent or "profound" psychological damage. U.S. law "does not preclude any and all use of drugs," in essence rejecting the US ban of mind altering substances on prisoners, but more likely hinting that they should be used, basically an encouragement of the practice. 

If water-boarding, sexual humiliation, physical abuse, sleep deprivation and forced drugging weren't reprehensible enough, there is also the lawsuit of former Gitmo inmate Qahtani' and his disturbing testimony: he recounts having his genitals mutilated and cut with a straight r.... A monthly event during his imprisonment.

Accounts like this explain a lot of the possible impetus for the CIA to destroy video of interrogations.

Jay Bybee, author of another torture memo under Bush, wrote "Certain of the techniques [that we condemn other countries for] bear some resemblance to some of the CIA interrogation techniques." Bybee also describes in detail in his OLC memo that almost every suggestion could be directly compared to the torture regime of different dictatorships' gulag practices. 

No official internal investigations have ever been performed regarding the detainee abuse at Gitmo, probably because there isn't any glaring and embarrassing photographic evidence of abuse taking place. Abu Ghraib was unique in the sense that the military had to do an internal investigation to save face in light of the leaked photos.

The most direct admission in the case of Gitmo comes from Susan J Crawford, the Bush appointed convening authority over military commissions at Gitmo.

"We tortured Mohammed al Qahtnai."

"His treatment met the legal definition of torture and that's why i did not refer the case for prosecution."

You could dismiss the first hand account of Qahtani if one needs more evidence, but his statements hold even more impact when you take into account Susan Crawford's admission, that they couldn't even prosecute the guy because his torture was so extensive. 

Later in 2010, two years after Bush left office, a rather candid and startling revelation was made by Colin Powell's chief of staff Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson who asserted "many of the detainees were innocent of any substantial wrongdoing, had little intelligence value and should be immediately release." Quickly after he signed an affidavit attesting under oath that: 

"George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld covered up that hundreds of innocent men were sent to Gitmo prison camp because they feared that releasing them would harm the push for the war in Iraq and the broader war on terror."

To add insult to injury, not only were most of the inmates at Gitmo subjected to inhuman treatment, but hundreds of them were 'innocent' according to  a former high ranking Bush official. As of the date of the release of this article, Gitmo holds 167 prisoners. 

BUSH ADMINISTRATION ADMISSION OF LAWBREAKING

Normalizing Torture, my appearance on Breaking the Set with Abby Martin

When the photos of Abu Ghraib leaked to the press, the Senate reacted by forming a public hearing committee to get to the bottom of the scandal. Bush-appointed Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's appearance before the committee was the most anticipated of all, due to rumors and information that had came to light indicating that he had had a direct hand in 'enhanced interrogations,' AKA prisoner abuse up to and including torture. 

A White House memo leaked which described the legal limits the military would have to operate under if they modified the traditional Army Field Manual on Interrogations that had been in use since before 9/11. As the highest ranking member of the US military, Rumsfeld officially authorized its implementation. On the document, in Rumsfeld's own handwriting, he circled and enhanced the wording with vague, hinting statements such as "I stand 8-10 hours a day, why is standing limited to 4 hours?" in reference to time limits on the use of stress positions. Rumsfeld later stepped down, most would say as a result of the scandal that tarnished his reputation and effectively ended his military career (in combination with his role in the Patt Tilman death cover-up). 

John Ashcroft , Attorney General at the time of White House discussions of 'enhancing' our interrogation techniques, said in response to the discussions "Why are we talking about this in the White House? History will judge this kindly." He resigned not long after these enhancements were decided upon, and many say his resignation was due at least in part to his disagreement with the Bush administration for authorizing torture. 

Alberto Gonzales was his replacement, and he quickly became deeply involved in the quasilegal framework that the special team of Bush-appointed lawyers, Jay Bybee, John Yoo, and Steven G. Bradbury attempted to use to shield illegal torture from the official definition of a crime. In other words, these lawyers were specifically charged with the task of creating a series of elaborate arguments as to why committing torture under specific circumstances was 'legal'. Despite their valiant attempt, most law professors and lawyers agree that the arguments were highly flawed. John Yoo has become the public face of this scandal in part due to his de facto role as PR chief in charge of defending these memos on television and at conferences.In one instance he was asked:

Cassel: "If the President deems that he's got to torture somebody, including by crushing the testicles of the person's child, there is no law that can stop him?"

Yoo: "No treaty…"

Cassel: "Also no law by Congress -- that is what you wrote in the August 2002 memo…"

Yoo: "I think it depends on why the President thinks he needs to do that."

While Cassel's vivid example is not directly from the text of the torture memos, several sections of those same arguments imply that psychologically torturing someone by feigning the rape or death of a family member or friend to gain intelligence was within the law since it did not produce 'prolonged mental harm'.  The focus of much of these memos is on creating arguments for redefining extant terms, e.g., 'prolonged pain', which falls under the definition of torture in American law, applied only to pain that lasted months and years, rather than days or weeks.  Under these newly defined terms, the now-notorious practice of simulated drowning, better known as 'water-boarding,' creates no prolonged physical or mental harm because the subject 'will experience relief as soon as the process stops,' even though the repeated triggering of one's fight or flight instinct can cause psychosis or other severe mental impairment.

The memos themselves are legally very flimsy, and if they were ever used by the government to defend their use of practices water-boarding or sexual abuse there isn't much chance that  wouldn't be convince a court of law. However, as time went on it become very clear that no cases would actually be heard, and that these memos would be never used by a government defendant. This is because none of the cases have proceeded to trial, usually blocked by the government's claim that it would compromise national security. The government maintains that releasing classified evidence in order to conduct a thorough investigation and trial would put us in danger. We need to protect them from litigation for our own safety and ensured success in the ongoing War on Terror.

These memos were not created in a vacuum, but rather they were assignments from the highest level Bush White House officials. Based on the evidence that is now public, Bush, Rumsfeld, Rice, Cheney, Ashcroft, CIA director George Tenant and Paul Wolfowitz incepted this policy of enhanced interrogation. From there,it was passed on to lawyers who examined each suggestion and provid..., one by one. The Bush White House wanted and needed a legal shield, on paper and argued by lawyers, to get away with the crimes that he knew he and his administration had committed. 

Long after Bush left office, he openly admitted "Yeah, we water-boarded Khalid Sheikh Mohammed," and when asked if he would do it again, responded, "Damn right."  "I'd do it again to save lives." 

Around the same time period, a pale and gaunt Dick Cheney said in reference to the torture memos and the policy "I was aware of the program, certainly, and involved in helping get the process cleared." Clearly the former President and VP were admitting their actions with impunity, unafraid of any future repercussions. 

But rational voices came out in the form of two of the highest-ranking US government officials, now retired, who admitted on national television that they had indeed committed a felony by authorizing the use of water-boarding when they were well aware that it had been previously defined as torture and made illegal by the US government. Antonio Taguba, the retired 4 star General appointed to formally in... that "after years of disclosures by government investigations, media accounts and reports from human rights organizations, there is no longer any doubt as to whether the current administration has committed war crimes" and that "the only question that remains to be answered is whether those who ordered the use of torture will be held to account."

To most civil libertarians, it seemed like quite a risk to admit such a crime had occurred, and so publicly, even so long after the event. Still, as years passed with no progress, it became clear that neither Bush, nor Cheney, nor Rumsfeld, nor any other upper echelon official would ever face an investigation or criminal charges for their role in a systematic torture regime, regardless of how much they openly mocked the rule of law on the news with their criminal admissions. 

As the Bush administration did not seem concerned about the statements of Antonio Taguba or others, they remained equally unfazed by the new Obama-led administration arriving into office on campaign promises of substantive investigations and repeated condemnations of the former for violating the rule of law and the US constitution. 

NEXT...OBAMA'S IMMUNIZATION OF TORTURERS AND BUSH POLICY MAKERS

Additional detailed insights at: MEDIA ROOTS