I noticed an article on The New York Times Online just now about the broad use of harsh tactics at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba.
The first question that leaps to mind is: why should anyone be in the least surprised or shocked by this? Why is this front page news? We knew for a long time that the Bush administration was struggling with the “proper” way to treat detainees at Guantánamo; the fact that officials there witnessed things akin to torture — in fact, things that are torture — should be in no way a revelation. Dictionary.com defines torture as the “infliction of severe physical pain as a means of punishment or coercion”, which was clearly going on here:
One regular procedure that was described by people who worked at Camp Delta, the main prison facility at the naval base in Cuba, was making uncooperative prisoners strip to their underwear, having them sit in a chair while shackled hand and foot to a bolt in the floor, and forcing them to endure strobe lights and screamingly loud rock and rap music played through two close loudspeakers, while the air- conditioning was turned up to maximum levels, said one military official who witnessed the procedure. The official said that was designed to make the detainees uncomfortable as they were accustomed to high temperatures both in their native countries and their cells.
[…]
The people who worked at the prison also described as common another procedure in which an inmate was awakened, subjected to an interrogation in a facility known as the Gold Building, then returned to a different cell. As soon as the guards determined the inmate had fallen into a deep sleep, he was awakened again for interrogation after which he would be returned to yet a different cell. This could happen five or six times during a night, they said. This procedure was described by those who participated as part of something called “Operation Sandman.”
This after Philip Reeker of the U.S. Department of State stated in a press briefing that “our [the United States] position on torture is unequivocal: we condemn torture in all its forms”, which is an interesting thing for someone from the Department of State to say. The text of this briefing was conveniently unavailable on the Department of State web site, which only carries press briefings from 2001 on. That’s nothing to read into, but certainly interesting.
Back in June, The Economist wrote on the U.S. and torture, specifically on an internal memo regarding torture:
What is new and more embarrassing for Mr. Bush is detailed evidence that the main source of legal opinion for his administration–the office of legal counsel in the Department of Justice–has been giving advice that Americans may (in the normal sense of the term) torture people abroad.
Last week, senators questioned John Ashcroft on this issue–and the attorney-general refused to hand over the memo in question. But in another sign that the administration’s power over its subordinates is slipping, somebody leaked the full text to the Washington Post. The details make ugly reading for any friend of America.
The memo, which dates from August 2002, looks at the sections of the legal code (2340-2340A) which implement the UN Convention against Torture. It claims torture can be justified on three grounds.
First, it narrows the definition of torture, saying American law “was intended to proscribe only the most egregious conduct.” It is not controversial to say torture should be defined strictly. The UN convention says the pain inflicted must be “severe”. And the memo correctly identifies an important legal difference between torture and cruel and inhuman punishment. For instance, the European Court of Human Rights said Britain had used cruel treatment in Northern Ireland–hooding, sleep deprivation and so on–but that these things did not amount to torture.
Constitutionally, its second argument is no less striking. This is that the president can do whatever he wants in war, or, as the memo puts it, “enjoys complete discretion in the exercise of his commander-in-chief authority.” Interrogators, the memo says, are a “core function of the commander-in-chief.” Hence, “we will not read a criminal statute as infringing on the president’s ultimate authority in these areas.”
[…]
The memo’s third argument is that, in rare cases when acts are so egregious that they amount to torture, and do not challenge presidential power, torturers are still able to claim immunity. They could only be prosecuted if it were shown their main intent was to inflict pain. If they intended to extract information (presumably the point for all but sadists), that would be a defence under American law according to the memo. It also says that they can use “self defence” to justify actions that might have prevented further attacks on America. International law admits the defence of “necessity” in the case of someone with information about, say, a ticking suicide bomber or imminent threat. But the memo goes far beyond that.
The Economist, June 19th, 2004
“The Bush administration and the torture memo: What on earth were they thinking?”, pp31-32
The above is a somewhat extensive quote from that article, but clearly shows that the U.S. has intentionally bent the definition of torture to the point where what the international community would call torture, the United States calls necessity. Admittedly, this quote also shows the possibility that the second reference to “common procedure” at Guantánamo Bay may not actually be defined as torture based on the example cited in the article, but there’s no real way of knowing. Something to think about as we go into the elections.