American torture: Where the Pentagon's techniques originated

"I wouldn't join the International Criminal Court. It's a body based in The Hague where unaccountable judges and prosecutors can pull our troops or diplomats up for trial.

"And I wouldn't join it. And I understand that in certain capitals around the world that that wasn't a popular move. But it's the right move not to join a foreign court that could - where our people could be prosecuted." - George W. Bush 09/30/04

"Men without conscience are capable of any cruelty the human mind can imagine." - Dick Cheney 01/26/05

Gregg Bloche and Jonathan Marks have written about an important aspect of the torture methods that have been widely reported used by the Bush administration in the various extra-legal prison facilities they've set up in Guantánamo and elsewhere.   Which is that they were based on Vietnamese and North Korea Communist iterrogation techniques for which "truth was beside the point:  their aim was to force compliance to the point of false confession":  Doing Unto Others as They Did Unto Us International Herald Tribune 11/14/05.

As they explain, when the Pentagon decided to torture prisoners after the 9/11 attacks, the toture techniques they developed were based on an American training program known as SERE (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, Escape).  The training was used to prepare American servicemen to deal with the kind of interrogation techniques that had been documented from Korean and Vietnamese practice.

The practice of torture has been justified to the public based on the need for timely, actionable intelligence.  We've heard over and over the "ticking nuclear bomb" scenario, in which a captive knows where a nuclear bomb is hidden in New York and the captor tortures him to get the information to save the city from imminent doom.

But these torture techniques were designed for something very different.  Their purpose was to make the victims compliant over a longer period of time so that they would agree to false confessions.

And using an example of one of the people tortured to death in Iraq, they explain how the practice of torture, once its applied as a terror technique rather than as a defensive training exercise, becomes something very different:

Within the SERE program, abuse is carefully controlled, with the goal of teaching trainees to cope. But under combat conditions, brutal tactics can't be dispassionately "dosed." Fear, fury and loyalty to fellow soldiers facing mortal danger make limits almost impossible to sustain.
 
By bringing SERE tactics and the Guantánamo model onto the battlefield, the Pentagon opened a Pandora's box of potential abuse.
 
On Nov. 26, 2003, for example, an Iraqi major general, Abed Hamed Mowhoush, was forced into a sleeping bag, then asphyxiated by his American interrogators. We've obtained a memorandum from one of these interrogators - a former SERE trainer - who cites command authorization of "stress positions" as justification for using what he called "the sleeping bag technique."
 
"A cord," he explained, "was used to limit movement within the bag and help bring on claustrophobic conditions." In SERE, he said, this was called close confinement and could be "very effective." Those who squirmed or screamed in the sleeping bag, he said, were "allowed out as soon as they start to provide information."
 
Three soldiers are to stand trial for Mowhoush's death. Yet the Pentagon cannot point to any intelligence gains resulting from the techniques that have so tarnished America's image. That's because they were designed by Communist interrogators to control a prisoner's will rather than to extract useful intelligence.  (my emphasis)

There's that "Pandora's box" metaphor again.  It seems to be popping up a lot lately.

"The primary goal of torture or the threat of torture is not to obtain convictions for crimes, but to engender and maintain fear." - Jimmy Carter, Our Endangered Values (2005)

Remembering the Republicans' happy days of warmongering over Iraq

SusanG at Daily Kos is not feeling especially charitable to the conservative Iraq hawks.  Given the level of fanaticism that's become standard operating procedure in the Republican Party today, the party that Kevin Phillips says that Bush has made into "the first American religious party", I'd have to say it's not a bad thing for Bush true believers to hear stuff like this.

Not that it will change the minds of more than 1 in 1000.  But, hey, 0.001% is better than nothing, right?

From Getting It Straight with the Wrong-Headed Right 03/23/06

I also find it disingenuous that the right claims sole ownership of the "Saddam is a bad, bad man" banner. Please. Compared to the liberal left, they are decades late to that particular party. Progressives were screaming into the void about Hussein's human rights violations, his gassing of the Kurds, his terrorizing of political opponents long, long, long before it conveniently bubbled up into the consciousness of the neocon right. While Donald Rumsfeld was famously shaking hands with and arming Hussein, we were saying: Bad idea. Bad man. This is gonna come back and bite us in the ass.

For this, we were labeled too "sensitive," not reality-based enough to operate in the real world, where sometimes you have to arm a strongman to keep a worse scenario at bay.

Well, shove it. We were right. You were wrong. Period.

And you were wrong because - it pains me to say this - you lost your minds in the aftermath of 9/11.

No need to be "pained" to say it, SusanG.  That's what happened.

Maverick McCain on the Iraq War

"I think we are winning.  Okay?  I think we're definitely winning.  I think we've been winning for some time." - Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, on the Iraq War 04/26/05

"I just wonder if they will ever tell us the truth." - Harold Casey, Louisville, KY, October 2004.

Here's a speech that the marvelous Maverick McCain gave last year at Neocon Central, the American Enterprise Institute (AEI):  Winning the War in Iraq 10/10/05.

In this passage that is identical to one that appears in his "Stay to Win" article in January 2006 print issue of Current History (most of the article is very similar and in many places exactly the same), the great Maverick repeats stock Bush administration happy-talk:

Despite the daily bombings and attacks, the terrorists have not achieved their goals. They have failed to incite a civil war, because Kurds and Shia still have faith in the future and in American and Iraqi security efforts. The insurgents have not prevented Iraqis from joining the military and police, in spite of horrific attacks at recruiting centers. Oil exports continue, despite concerted efforts at sabotage. And the insurgents have not stopped the political process, even while they assassinate government officials and attack polling places.

The bold Maverick may have been indulging in some wishful thinking here.  It wouldn't be the first time.  After all, the old "straight-talker" cheered Bush's preventive war on Iraq based on fake claims about WMDs from the start.

Let's see: civil war, incipient civil war, the "brink" of civil war.  But it don't look very good right now.  Kurds and Shi'a still have faith in US and Iraqi security efforts?  Well, at least the Shi'a did then because the US was still backing them in their sectarian non-civil-war against the Sunnis.  Later the Americans started tilting a bit toward the evil, evil Baathists and vicious Sunni terrorists we've been fighting the last three years.  So the Shi'a aren't so thrilled with Bush and his friends at the moment, it seems.

Teh insurgents have actually caused a lot of trouble for Iraqis joining the military and police.  But there were plenty of sectarian militias who have been willing to sign up.  And lots of spies for resistance groups, too.

And, yeah, oil exports continue.  It's just that oil production is still far below prewar levels.  And, no, the insurgents haven't stopped the political process.  Not exactly.  I mean, the parliament elected last December is still trying to form a government.

The Maverick back in November was saying that if the US withdraws soon, "the most likely result would be full scale civil war".  It seems like the most likely result of the US staying is civil war, too.

The bold Maverick is fond of the testosterone argument for "staying the course".  That's the one that says if the US withdraws, The Terrorists will brag to their buddies about how the United States is weak and we can't let them do that.  That doesn't exactly explain why the US should continue with a disastrous policy that's badly damaging the country's interests.  But, hey, we can't let The Terrorists get away with strutting in their caves about how they're superior to the Americans!  So says the Maverick:

If we leave Iraq prematurely, the jihadists will interpret the withdrawal as their great victory against our great power. Osama bin Laden and his followers believe that America is weak, unwilling to suffer casualties in battle. They drew that lesson from Lebanon in the 1980s and Somalia in the 1990s, and today they have their sights set squarely on Iraq. The recently released letter from Ayman al-Zawahiri, bin Laden’s lieutenant, to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, draws out the implications. The Zawahiri letter is predicated on the assumption that the United States will leave Iraq, and that al Qaeda’s real game begins as soonas we abandon the country. In his missive, Zawahiri lays out a four stage plan – establisha caliphate in Iraq, extend the“jihad wave” to the secular countries neighboring Iraq, clash with Israel – none of which shall commence until the completion of stage one: expel the Americans from Iraq. Zawahiri observes that the collapse of American power in Vietnam, “and how they ran and left their agents,” suggests that “we must be ready starting now.”

Most of the arguments that the Maverick makes here are the same as the Current History piece.  In fact, much of the language is identical.  It's worth checking out what the Maverick has to say about staying in Iraq while the country goes to pieces around our soldiers.

Among other peculiar things is this argument, in which the famous Maverick seems to assume that the Afghan government of Hamid Karzai actually controls the country outside of Kabul, and that he's doing it on the strength of his own army:

The lesson of Afghanistan is instructive. There, the United States insisted – over initial objections from the Afghan Ministry of Defense – that each new military unit be carefully calibrated to include Pashtuns, Tajiks, Uzbeks, and others. This diversification within units serves three important functions: first, over time, it helps build loyalty to the central government; and second, it makes it more difficult for militias to reconstitute, should any decide to oppose the government. More broadly, the multiethnic Afghan National Army has provided a powerful psychological boost in a deeply divided country. Simply seeing Pashtuns and Tajiks and Uzbeks, in uniform and working together, has had a great impact on Afghan public opinion and the way Afghans imagine their country.

Does "straight-talk" mean "straight-out silly"?  That would explain that colorful notion.

I talked about the Maverick's, uh, imaginative idea of how to reorient the American military effort in Iraq in a post at The Blue Voice.  The bold Maverick's idea seems to be based on the famous line from the Vietnam War, "we had to destroy the village in order to save it".

Wars are easy to get into, but hard as hell to get out of." - George McGovern and Jim McGovern 06/06/05

More European troops to Afghanistan

The involvement of the EU countries in Afghanistan is deepening.  The plans for augmenting the NATO force in Afghanistan (known as ISAF) is proceeding:  Más soldados para apuntalar Afganistán:  La OTAN amplía los efectivos a partir de julio y extiende su control hasta la frontera con Pakistán de Georgin Higueras El País 22.03.06.  Higueras reports:

La presencia militar extranjera en Afganistán se enfrenta a un año decisivo tanto para su misión como por la reestructuración puesta en marcha. La OTAN ha llegado a un compromiso con Estados Unidos de aumentar sus efectivos a partir de julio en 6.000 hombres y, lo que es más importante, de extender su misión por todo el sur del país, donde el Pentágono está empeñado en acabar con los restos del régimen talibán.

[The foreign military presence in Afghanistan is entering a year just as decisive for its mission as for the restructuring process in progress.  NATO has come to a agreement with the United States to augment its forces by 6,000 men starting in July and, most importantly, to extend its mission over the entrie southern part of the country, where the Pentagon is engaged in finishing off the remnants of the Taliban regime.]

But Higueras is also clearly aware that the "remnants" are more than a few scattered war criminals hiding out in obscure villages:

Todo apunta a que el aumento en los últimos seis meses de la violencia en esa zona obedece al intento de la insurgencia de minar a la OTAN y advertirle de que no le hará la estancia fácil. En estos años, los talibanes han tenido tiempo de reorganizarse y aprender las tácticas del terrorismo iraquí con las que hostigar a las fuerzas extranjeras. ...

La ISAF, que ahora mismo tiene algo más de 9.000 efectivos en Afganistán, espera contar para finales de año con al menos 29.000 miembros, incluyendo a los estadounidenses, que en la actualidad suman 18.500 efectivos. El Pentágono, a partir de julio y conforme la OTAN se vaya haciendo con el control del sur del país, tiene la intención de reducir en varios miles el número de sus hombres.

[All note that the increase in violence in the last six months in this zoneis due to the intent of the insurgency to undermine NATO and warn it that they will not make it an easy stay. In these years [since 2001], the Taliban have had time to reorganize and learn the tactics of Iraqi terrorism with which to harass the foreign forces.

[ISAF, which currently has a little more than 9,000 soldiers in Afghanistan, expects by the end of the year to number at least 29,000 members, including the Americans, which in reality total 18,500 forces.  The Pentagon has the intention to reduce the number of its forces by several thousand beginning in July and assuming that NATO takes control of the south of the country.]

This could turn out to be a turning point for European forces in Afghanistan.  ISAF has been sustained by European governments concerned about Afghanistan as a source of terrorists and opium.  Most of its duties have been confined to Kabul, and the mission has not been especially violent, though some ISAF troops have been killed.  But it's been a peacekeeping mission that has not been the target of major assaults like American and British forces in Iraq.

This effort was also a way that European NATO allies could should their support to the American GWOT (global war on terror) in a concrete way at relatively little political cost at home.  US forces have been supposedly tracking down Al Qaeda and Taliban targets.  But how effectively is certainly in question.

Higueras is putting the number of US troops in Afghanistan now at 18,500, which would make it about as big as it's ever been.

The idea behind this NATO deployment is to free up US troops to go to Iraq.  But it also represents a significant escalataion of the role of European forces.  They will be in considerable more dangerous situations under this arrangements.  I have to wonder how long the European public will be willing to put up with a slowly escalating military presence in Afganistan if it starts to look like a hopeless task with minimal positive benefits.

It will also be important to watch whether the drawdown of US troops in Afghanistan really occurs.

Meanwhile, the Afghan government is putting an Afghan Christian convert who lived for years in Germany on trial for his life for having abondoned Islam.  This has to raise more questions for both Americans and Europeans about just what our presence is actually accomplishing in Afghanistan right now.

Germany's government and opposition parties are paying attention to that case (Kabul verärgert über Kritik an Prozess gegen Christen Der Spiegel Online 22.03.06):

Außenminister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) mahnte in der "Frankfurter Rundschau" die Regierung in Kabul zur Achtung der Religionsfreiheit. Die afghanische Regierung wies die Kritik an dem Prozess zurück. Rahman hatte einige Jahre in Deutschland gelebt. Steinmeier sagte, die Religionsfreiheit sei sowohl in der afghanischen Verfassung als auch in der internationalen Menschenrechtskonvention garantiert, die das Land unterzeichnet habe.

Er verfolge den Fall mit großer Sorge. Die deutsche Botschaft stehe in engem Kontakt mit der afghanischen Seite. Er werde sich falls nötig auch persönlich einschalten. Deutschland vertraue darauf, dass Menschenrechte und Religionsfreiheit in Afghanistan nicht nur auf dem Papier stehen.

[Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier (SPD) in the Frankfurter Rundschau called on the government in Kabul to respect freedom of relgion.  The Afghan government rejected the criticism of the trial.  Rahman [the Christian threatened with death] lived for a few years in Germany.  Steinmeier said that freedom of religion garanteed not only by the Afghan constitution but also by the International Convention on Human Rights.

[He said his is following the case with great concern.  The German embassy is in close contact with the Afghan side.  He said he would also intervene personal if necessary.  He said Germany is confident that human rights and freedom of religion in Afghanistan do not exist merely on paper.]

I may have mentioned before, I find the Afghan War even more confounding than the Iraq War.  On the one hand, I think that to the extent that US forces in Afghanistan are making operations more difficult for Al Qaeda, there's real reason to keep up the pressure there.  But, on the other hand, if we're trying to draw down American troops to send them to Iraq because the Army and Marines are hard-pressed to keep the 130,000 troops in Iraq due to recruitment and retention issues, I have to seriously wonder whether the mission in Afghanistan is really meaningful at this point.

And on top of that, actual reporting on the military operations there has been less than thorough.

Negotiating with Iran about Iraq

Gareth Porter has a very informative article on the hopes and assumptions behind the talks between the US and Iran on stabilizing Iraq.  And he makes a credible case that the US-Iran negotiations over Iraq have revealed a distinct split on Iran policy between Condi-Condi on the pro-negotiation side and the hardline neoconservatives on the other.  The article is Iran, Iraq Crises Converge Despite U.S. Hardliners Inter Press Service 03/21/06.  He writes:

Although the administration seeks to keep cooperation with Iran over the crisis in Iraq separate from its strategy of isolation of Iran, the evolution of the Iraq crisis may make such separation impossible. The discussions on Iraq will have to involve various political formulas which the United States and Iran could both support. Iran would be asked to help sell the militant Shiite parties on a settlement plan with unpalatable compromises for those same parties.

If the Iranians become more deeply involved in the internal negotiation in Iraq, and the usefulness of their role becomes widely recognised, it will certainly be more difficult for the United States to resist political-diplomatic pressures to talk with Tehran about the larger issues threatening the peace of the region - Iran's nuclear programme and the U.S. efforts to isolate and destabilise the regime.

The US, especially the hardliners, have wanted to avoid these negotiations over Iraq for fear that they might lead into broader diplomatic compromise to defuse the confrontation over Iran's nuclear power program.  Describing how Rice publicly declared an openness to negotiations with Iran over stabilizing Iraq, he relates how National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and another anonymous "senior administration offcial" tried to shoot down the idea:

The attacks by those associated with the administration's hard-line policy toward Iran revealed sharp differences over which is more important -- isolating Iran diplomatically, or taking advantage of its influence within the Shi'a political leadership in Iraq to help settle the crisis there.

The Dick Cheney-Donald Rumsfeld group, whose views were expressed by Hadley and the anonymous officials minimising the importance of talks with Iran, clearly careless about what happens in Iraq than they do about maintaining the policy of implicit, if not explicit regime change in Tehran.

Iran, on the other hand, is hoping that the talks on Iraq will lead to wider negotiations:

In agreeing to help the United States on Iraq, the Iranians are primarily interested in the possibility of using talks on Iraq as a bridge to broader diplomatic negotiations with Washington. The Iranian intelligence official told Hilsum that Tehran would accept the U.S. offer for talks but wanted them to be in a neutral country, hoping they would eventually lead to a dialogue on the nuclear issue as well.

And, if Iran shows itself to be helpful in this situation, as it was previously in Afghanistan, there's always the possibility that cooler heads will prevail in applying the brakes on the buildup to war with Iran that's been going on.  The hardliners are driving for that goal.  But the current Iraq-related negotiations represent, in Porter's judgment, a setback for the "Iran hawks":

But they have already lost the battle against talks with Iran on the stabilisation of Iraq. Those negotiations are likely to increase the pressure for bilateral negotiations on Iran's nuclear programme and Iranian security concerns.

The convergence of the two issues is being driven both by the need of the United States and Iraqi political factions for Iranian help in resolving the sectarian violence and political deadlock in Iraq, and by Iran's desire to reach a broader settlement with Washington.

Interagency cooperation in the Afghan War and beyond

Mitchell Thompson describes one of the experiences of the Afghan War that he hopes will produce some positive lessons for improvement in Breaking the Proconsulate: A New Design for National Power Parameters (US Army War College) Winter 2005-6:

Interagency cooperation in Afghanistan was less impressive. The CIA was virtually an independent actor, and often did not bother to coordinate its operations with military forces in the field, causing great confusion among both the US military and Afghanis. Numerous smaller agencies, such as the Centers for Disease Control, actually had personnel on the ground in Afghanistan with no means of communication with the US military. USAID personnel could not effectively perform their missions outside of Kabul, as they fell under State Department responsibility but the department had no means of safeguarding them. The Combined Forces Land Component Command (CFLCC), which obviously did have those means, did not have any organizational responsibility for such a mission. Non-DOD agency interest, and their perceived benefits, in coordination with CENTCOM quickly waned in the aftermath of the fall of the Taliban regime. This assessment of diminishing returns appears to have been mutual; USAID officials stated that access to the senior CENTCOM staff decreased markedly. In the absence of any legislative or National Security Council-imposed interagency guidelines, both the State Department and USAID withdrew their representatives from CENTCOM in early 2002.

If the war in Afghanistan was characterized by a regression in interagency coordination, Operation Iraqi Freedom represented a headlong retreat.  (my emphasis)

Presumably Thompson here is referring to the early months (2001-2) of the Afghan War, which of course is still going on.

The jihadist training camps in Pakistan

Mark Kukis, author of My Heart Became Attached: The Strange Odyssey of John Walker Lindh, wrote in Camp Fire: With Friends Like These... The New Republic 02/13/06 (behind subscription) about the likely role of Pakistani training camps in preparing the London subway bombers of last year for terrorist acts:

After September 11, Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf vowed to crack down on militant groups in his country, and a number were outlawed. But, since then, some camps have reemerged. To what extent the government remains involved is murky. But experts say the camps operate under the eye of the Pakistani military. "There is no way the camps can run without the military knowing about it," says Vali Nasr, a political scientist specializing in Islamic extremism.  

One of the places would-be jihadis go is Mansehra, a small town about 40 miles north of Islamabad. That is where, in the spring of 2002, I found Hamid. He was one of about ten trainers at a militant camp run by the Harakat ul-Mujahidin, or Movement of Holy Warriors, one of many groups in Pakistan that school guerrilla hopefuls. As we sat talking outside the group's three-story red brick guest house on a quiet hilltop in the center of town, Hamid told me how his group had drawn insurgent volunteers from recruiting offices all over Pakistan. The basic introductory course ran roughly three weeks. Each day started before dawn with prayers and recitations from the Koran by the roughly 100 trainees in each class. After that, the recruits ran and exercised for about two hours. Combat training came after breakfast, with instructors schooling jihadi cadets in small-arms and ambush tactics. 

Most of the volunteers were Pakistanis, though foreigners sometimes signed up, too - including American Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh. Before journeying to Afghanistan, Lindh underwent three weeks of Harakat ul-Mujahidin training in Mansehra in the hopes of doing his jihad in Kashmir. But Hamid said the militant trainers who worked with Lindh decided he wasn't good enough to fight in Kashmir, where guerrillas face the formidable Indian army on difficult terrain. Hamid said the more promising volunteers for Kashmir continue where Lindh left off, doing further intensive training either at one of the camps around Mansehra or at many others like it in the area. But, while Hamid and other members of the Harakat ul-Mujahidin liked Lindh, they felt he couldn't hack their advanced courses; he wasn't in very good shape. So they suggested he consider joining the Taliban in Afghanistan, where he could fulfill his jihad against the then-withering Northern Alliance resistance.  (my emphasis)

This is another instance showing that Lindh was involved with some seriously bad people who were focused on jihad of the military and terrorist kinds.

But the main point Kukis is making is that the continuing activity of the camps raises some difficult questions about just how committed the current Pakistani government is Bushs' global war on terror (GWOT):

Even so, some camps remain open, and militants continue to gather in places like Mansehra. At worst, the Pakistani military is actively involved in the training of men like [London bombers] Tanweer and Khan. At the very least, the military rulers in Islamabad allow militants to carry on terrorist training in territories they control. Last July, a Pakistani news magazine, the Herald, reported that 13 militant camps were active around Mansehra. At the same time, the head of the Indian army, General J.J. Singh, estimated that between 2,000 and 2,500 militants were training in 53 different Pakistani camps. All of which makes Pakistan far from an innocent actor - and raises the question of how much longer we will look the other way while an ally sponsors terrorism.  (my emphasis)