wow...really makes me question mainstream media...
By Michael I. Niman, Coldtype 5/13/04
http://mediastudy.com/articles/av5-13-04.html
Suddenly, with the broadcast of images from the United States' Abu Ghraib
prison in Iraq, torture is a hot topic in the US media. This is new. It
wasn't such a hot topic over the last two years as neo-conservative pundits,
oblivious to the irony of their argument, filled newspaper op-ed pages with
columns justifying the use of torture in the "War on Terror." Editors gave
them a free ride, treating them as if they were parties to a civil debate,
and not the vile throwbacks to the dark ages that they actually are.
Anti Anti Torture
It also wasn't much of an issue in the summer of 2002, when the Bush
administration stonewalled the United Nations, trying to kill an
anti-torture protocol in committee. Nigeria, China, Iran, Pakistan and Cuba
were among those who backed the US position, but the protocol was approved
none-the-less, with strong support from Europe and Latin America. If the UN
eventually approves and ratifies the bill, the US has announced that it will
not be a signatory and will not abide by its provisions. Outrageous as this
position was, the American media aired hardly a peep about it, keeping it
under the public radar.
Torture also wasn't an issue for the last two years as the American
alternative press joined the world press in reporting well founded
allegations of torture in American run prisons in US occupied Afghanistan,
Iraq and Cuba. The mainstream media stayed mum.
And torture wasn't an issue back in late February and early March, when the
Army commissioned investigation reported "systematic and illegal abuse of
detainees" in Iraq at the hands of US mercenary and military forces. The
53-page report prepared under the supervision of Major General Antonio M.
Taguba termed the abuses as "sadistic" and "blatant" while adding that they
were well documented by photographs, confessions and witness statements.
Among the abuses cited in that report were rapes, sexual torture, nude
photography of male and female captives, holding prisoners naked, making
male prisoners wear women's undergarments, forcing prisoners to perform for
amateur pornographic videos, including forcing them to masturbate onto each
other. The report also cites instances where American guards and
interrogators sodomized prisoners and attacked them with dogs. More recent
revelations add pedophilia to the "interrogation techniques" employed by US
forces and associates in Iraq.
Rumsfeld Knew About Bush's "Rape Rooms"
The Department of Defense's immediate response was to classify the Army's
report. This was illegal since federal law clearly states that the
classification process cannot be used to cover up criminal acts. The report
also wasn't telling Pentagon officials anything that they didn't already
know. The Washington Post now reports that the US Viceroy to Iraq, Paul
Bremmer, had warned Donald Rumsfeld about widespread torture in American
detention centers as early as last fall. The Post also reports that
Rumsfeld found out back in January about the existence of photos documenting
this torture. So it seems that even if Rumsfeld doesn't read the European
press, listen to Pacifica Radio or surf AlterNet, he still knew what the
rest of the world knew - that something was radically amiss in America's
overseas Gulags.
Even with Pentagon issued evidence of barbaric abuse on their desks, torture
never was an issue for the Bush Junta. To the contrary. "Torture," as a
word, remained a rhetorical tool in their arsenal, used to condemn Saddam
Hussein's despotic regime, but not our own. With his "weapons of mass
destruction" and "support for al Qaida" myths debunked as Fox Newsisms, Bush
fell back on ridding Iraq of what he called, Saddam's "rape rooms" as his
justification for war.
Even after his administration learned that the "rape rooms" were back up and
operating, now under American control, Bush still chose to wage a frontal
assault on reality. On April 15th, six weeks after the Pentagon completed
its report on Bush's rape rooms (roundabout is fair play), the Commander and
Chief made this statement: "Our military is . performing brilliantly."
Shedding his native New England accent for a fake Texas drawl, he went on to
explain, "See, the transition from torture chambers and rape rooms and mass
graves and fear of authority is a tough transition. And they're [the US
forces] doing the good work of keeping this country stabilized as a
political process unfolds."
Donald Rumsfeld is also belligerently confronting the reality of torture
with the trickery of semantics. On May 4th, he responded to the unfolding
torture scandal by arguing that there really wasn't any torture, explaining,
"I'm not a lawyer. My impression is that what has been charged thus far is
abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture." He went on,
"I don't know if it is correct to say what you just said, that torture has
taken place, or that there's been a conviction for torture. And therefore
I'm not going to address the torture word." This isn't simple arrogance.
It's arrogance on an almost unfathomable level. When it comes to
accusations of torture, suddenly Mister Indefinite Detention Without Charges
is all about innocent until proven guilty.
The "C" Word
The Army report focuses on the Abu Ghraib prison, where the "C" word,
"contractors," appears yet again in the reportage of Bush's wars. In
defense of common English, I'd like to make one point clear: A contractor
is someone who builds you a new bathroom. A heavily armed person, who
threatens, tortures or kills people for a living, is a "mercenary." And
mercenaries seem to be at the heart of this situation.
According to the report, private "interrogators," working for the San
Diego, California based Titan corporation and the Arlington, Virginia based
CACI International Corporation, instructed military police officers to
terrorize detainees, while misleading investigators about the locations and
methods of these interrogations. The report also cites evidence of at least
one instance where a civilian mercenary raped a captive Iraqi child.
Technically, a Military Police officer confronted with a civilian felon
should arrest the felon. Or at the very least, there is no protocol by
which the police officer should fall under the command of the civilian. But
this is exactly what happened in Abu Ghraib, where military personnel fell
under the command of civilian mercenaries.
One of the soldiers named in the Army report claims that he complained to
his commanding officer about the "contractors," only to be told to go back
to his duty station and do as the contractors tell him. Specifically, he
claims he was ordered to "loosen" captives up for interrogation.
"Cutting Edge" Interrogators Wanted
CACI, the employer of the "contractor" in question, describes itself as
being "among the largest government information technology contractors,
providing a wide range of services." According to their website, their
"Intelligence Solutions" division boasts of an "attitude and culture of
commitment to customer satisfaction reflected in everything we do." Their
work "touch[es] on every facet of defense and law enforcement intelligence
needs." Their customers are the Department of Defense, the Central
Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency and the National
Reconnaissance Office, among other governmental agencies. Among the
services they offer is the acquisition of "human source intelligence." They
meet their goals by "featuring cutting edge technology." We might have seen
some of this cutting edge technology in the recently released photos.
As a business, CACI is doing quite well. Not even a major torture scandal
seems capable of taking the wind out of their sails, with their stock value
suffering only a minor ding with this latest controversy. Perhaps Wall
Street understands business-as-usual better than the American public. CACI
has satisfied their customer.
CACI is also hiring. Among the positions posted on their website is one for
"Interrogator/Intel Analyst Lead Assistant (requisition number BZSG308)" to
be stationed in "Baghdad, Iraq." The successful candidate will "Assist the
interrogation support program team lead to increase the effectiveness of
dealing with Detainees, Persons of Interest, and Prisoners of War (POWs)
that are in the custody of US/Coalition Forces in the CJTF 7 AOR, in terms
of screening, interrogation, and debriefing of persons of intelligence
value." The description goes on to explain that the new hire, "Under
minimum supervision, will assist the team lead in managing a multifaceted
interrogation support cell." The job posting makes no mention of any
requirement of familiarity with the Geneva Accords or any other protocols of
international law regarding treatment of POWs. This is the ultimate
frontier of privatization - outsourcing thuggary to contract rights
violation professionals accountable only to Wall Street. Isn't this a real
terrorist cell?
A Thug's Warden
If there was ever a place where contract thugs would feel at home, it's Abu
Ghraib. The American official recruited by John Ashcroft to supervise the
training of Abu Ghraib's guards, and oversee its conversion into an American
prison, was Utah's former Director of the Department of Prisons, Lane
McCotter. According to The New York Times, McCotter resigned from the Utah
post following a scandal regarding a schizophrenic prisoner who was tortured
to death under McCotter's watch. The inmate was shackled nude to a chair for
16 hours. Sound familiar? McCotter's last position was with a private
prison company recently criticized by the Justice Department for maintaining
unsafe conditions and failing to provide medical treatment to prisoners.
Yes, this would be the Justice Department led by the same John Ashcroft who
appointed McCotter to the Abu Ghraib post.
This is the point the media failed to make - that the Abu Ghraib prison,
like the entire American Gulag system ranging from Iraq and Afghanistan
across the ocean to Cuba, is functioning exactly as it was designed to
function. It's a private factory established to extract and refine
information mined from tortured human souls. That's why George W. Bush
incensed the world by initially refusing to apologize when he appeared on
Arab television. Nothing went wrong. Why should he apologize?
If something were wrong, it certainly wouldn't be clear to Bush. As
governor of Texas, he presided over a prison system condemned by the Federal
District Court after it determined that prison officials, according to The
New York Times, were knowingly "allowing inmate gang leaders to buy and sell
other inmates as slaves for sex."
The Scapegoat and the Spooks
The officer ultimately in charge of the Abu Ghraib guards is Brigadier
General Janis Karpinski, who is now suspended and facing court martial.
Karpinski, however, claims that the section of the prison where the torture
took place, was a "no-go area" under the control of intelligence officers.
This, in essence, would be the factory floor where interrogators plied their
trade. Karpinski said it was off-limits to anyone not involved with the
interrogations. Intelligence officers, she added, were there 24 hours per
day. The situation is more complex than that of a few sadists running wild.
Nothing happens in the intelligence community without a reason.
Keeping this in mind, we must also surmise that 1,000+ photos would not
leave such areas unless there was a reason as well. This is where things
get difficult to figure out - with only the seemingly most outlandish
theories making any sense. Almost every foreign policy move Bush has made
since entering office has succeeded in polarizing the world and nurturing
anti-American hatred. And by nurturing this hatred, Bush has recruited far
more terrorists for the al Qaida movement than bin Laden could ever hope to.
In recruiting and empowering this suicidal army while polarizing the Islamic
world against the West, Bush is pushing the world ever closer to the mother
of all battles - the apocalypse he believes is necessary before his homies
can be raptured into the kingdom of heaven.
Apocalypse or not, it's interesting to note that the current scandal would
never have surfaced if it wasn't for the photographic evidence. This is our
mediated society. Reality isn't real unless it's confirmed virtually.
Hence, investigative reports documenting American torture were never worthy
of mass media coverage until they were accompanied by images - in this case,
images could be classified as hard-core pornography. We've seen this time
and time again in both the US homeland and abroad. Police brutality, now
rampant in America, only becomes worthy of public attention when
complainants can provide Rodney King style photographs. Such photographs
are seldom available since photographers often fall victim to the very
police attacks they attempt to document.
"This is Not the America I Know" - G.W. Bush
Likewise, Abu Ghraib style abuses are common in American prisons. Recent
reports in The New York Times document such practices as forcing male
inmates to wear pink panties or black hoods or march nude, as being
sanctioned practices in American prisons. Tortures such as rape and sleep
deprivation, though officially unsanctioned, are also common. Hence, it
should come as no surprise that Lane McCotter, upon opening Abu Ghraib,
exclaimed that it was "the only place we agreed as a team was truly closest
to an American prison.," though I believe he had another context in mind for
his statement. It should also come as no surprise that two of the Abu Ghraib
torturers implicated in the Army report, are US prison guards fulfilling
Army Reserve duties in Iraq.
The systematic torture of American prisoners in stateside prisons is more or
less a non-issue due to the lack of photographic evidence. It's difficult
to get cameras into or out of secured areas - and felons seldom provide
photographic evidence of their crimes as they did in Abu Ghraib.
Also invisible are the abuses conducted by US forces in other Iraqi prisons
and in other theatres of combat. Recent reports, for example, document that
the CIA regularly houses detainees being held for interrogation in metal
shipping containers in Afghanistan. Then there are the actions of the Bush
administration's surrogate forces around the world. Recent reports from US
occupied Haiti (also occupied by French and Canadian troops) tell tale of
wholesale slaughter of supporters of that country's recently deposed
democratically elected government. Convicted death squad leaders from an
earlier coup, now playing key roles in Haiti's post-coup regime, appear
responsible for the deaths and disappearances of about 1,000 members of the
former ruling party, including 20 who were locked into a shipping container
and dropped into the sea. But there are no photos - only missing people and
sordid eyewitness accounts. And hence, there is no mainstream media
coverage.
Strange Fruit
In our image addicted world, it is photos more so than events that
ultimately consummate news - though it often is only by either chance or
perverse political engineering that some events are photographed and some
aren't, and some photos are made public, and some never will be.
There's also an issue of context. One person exclaimed to me in anger that
the Abu Ghraib photos lacked context. If we knew what had transpired before
or after these snapshots in time, he argued, they would tell a different
story. Normally I'm one of the first people to argue this truth - that
photos freeze time out of context and misnarrate reality. But in this case,
I can't imagine any context in which the actions depicted in these photos
would be acceptable.
They do, however, clearly fit into a historic context. This is their most
frightening aspect. Those smug happy smiling faces of Americans posing,
glistening with pride, over their victims, are not new. Pick up a history
book. Look at the classic lynching photos from the KKK era. It's the same
evil. We've seen it before. It's the worst of who we are, and as long as
we celebrate violence, vengeance and militarism, we'll keep seeing it. Only
now the perpetrators aren't a wink-wink "secret" underground hate group.
Today's lynchers are professionals - on the company clock. The ultimate
question is: Will the American people allow this strange fruit to grow?
Michael I. Niman's previous Columns are archived at www.mediastudy.com.