U.S. Decries Abuse but Defends Interrogations (washingtonpost.com): Deep inside the forbidden zone at the U.S.-occupied Bagram air base in Afghanistan, around the corner from the detention center and beyond the segregated clandestine military units, sits a cluster of metal shipping containers protected by a triple layer of concertina wire. The containers hold the most valuable prizes in the war on terrorism -- captured al Qaeda operatives and Taliban commanders. Those who refuse to cooperate inside this secret CIA interrogation center are sometimes kept standing or kneeling for hours, in black hoods or spray-painted goggles, according to intelligence specialists familiar with CIA interrogation methods. At times they are held in awkward, painful positions and deprived of sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights -- subject to what are known as "stress and duress" techniques. Those who cooperate are rewarded with creature comforts, interrogators whose methods include feigned friendship, respect, cultural sensitivity and, in some cases, money. Some who do not cooperate are turned over -- "rendered," in official parlance -- to foreign intelligence services whose practice of torture has been documented by the U.S. government and human rights organizations.
So apparently, human rights are dispensable luxuries. Well, nice to know how our government thinks.
While the U.S. government publicly denounces the use of torture, each of the current national security officials interviewed for this article defended the use of violence against captives as just and necessary. They expressed confidence that the American public would back their view.
Unfortunately, I suspect they're quite right in thinking that the American public would back this view.
This, of course, merely means that the American public is so desperate for security that it doesn't care how that security comes about or who has to pay ... as long as it's not them. Torturing a few (hundred) foreigners? Sure, why not? And, after all, it's not as if the CIA or other US agencies were doing the torture themselves. They're just handing these people over to other governments. They can't help it if those governments decide to use more forceful methods. (The fact that this is the only reason that the people are being handed over is, of course, tactfully omitted.)
The CIA, which has primary responsibility for interrogations, declined to comment. "If you don't violate someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your job," said one official who has supervised the capture and transfer of accused terrorists. "I don't think we want to be promoting a view of zero tolerance on this. That was the whole problem for a long time with the CIA."
The problem with the CIA was that they actually obeyed the laws of this land. Well. Yes. Quite.
..... According to Americans with direct knowledge and others who have witnessed the treatment, captives are often "softened up" by MPs and U.S. Army Special Forces troops who beat them up and confine them in tiny rooms. The alleged terrorists are commonly blindfolded and thrown into walls, bound in painful positions, subjected to loud noises and deprived of sleep.
But we don't engage in torture ourselves! Of course we don't! Because we are the shining beacon of human rights for the world to see!
I do love that the Bush administration official notes drily that they are no longer spending much time on the State Department's human rights annual report now. I suppose that the accusations of hypocrisy would have been a tad much to bear.
Posted by iain at December 27, 2002 01:59 AMComments
