A German torture scandal

I'm surprised this story from late last year didn't get more play in the American press.  But I suppose its silly to be surprised by the fecklessness of our press corps.

There was a torture scandal in Germany last year.  It turns out that some Bundeswehr (Army) trainers had subjected ordinary recruits to Abu Ghuraib type torture situations, allegedly as part of their training.  Similar practices emerged with Austria's Bundesheer.

Both seem to have been limited in scale.

But the responsible officers immediately condemned the conduct, and Defense Minister Peter Struck insisted that all those responsible be prosecuted.

Imagine that.  Criminal torture comes to light being practiced by the Army.  Instead of ordering and tolerating it, the defense minister and senior officers see it as their responsibility to enforce the law and stop it.  The German media aggressively pursued the story.

So far as I've seen, no national commentator that the Chancellor had called a "national treasure" (as Bush did for Rush Limbaugh) went on the radion to excuse the conduct as just fun fraternity-style pranks.  It seems that respectable conservatives didn't feel any need to justify the conduct, nor did members of the governing parties.  Parliamentarians freely criticized the practicies.

I guess the "lessons of history" have been interpreted differently there than by the US Republican Party.

Here's an English-language story on the scandal from the (editorially conservative) Army Hit by Abuse Scandal by Aaron Kirchfield Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 11/26/04

Struck and a number of politicians expressed shock that abusive training tactics had not come to light earlier. ”What disturbs me most is that those who were apparently subject to physical violence, namely the recruits, did not immediately speak out,” Reinhold Robbe, chairman of the defense committee in the Bundestag parliament, said in a television interview with public station ZDF. Struck, who appeared before this committee on Wednesday to discuss the abuse, said those found guilty ”would never put on a Bundeswehr uniform again.”

In its story on Monday, Spiegel newsmagazine said the recruits had ”apparently been maltreated in similar ways” as Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison. And on Monday, the Süddeutsche newspaper titled its editorial ”Abu Coesfeld,” in reference to the town of 36,000 in North Rhine-Westphalia where the military base is located.

The subhead on that story ("German Defense Minister said cases of mistreatment did not amount to torture") is misleading.  That refers to this part of the story:

Struck said the officers used ”intolerable training methods” but that they did not involve ”torture in the sense that prisoners were forced to divulge information.”

This is not the first time this year that the Defense Minister has been confronted with the issue of torture. In May, he reprimanded Michael Wolffsohn, a history professor at a military university in Munich, for saying in a television interview that torture was sometimes a legitimate tool in the war on terror. Wolffsohn was asked about his opinion because of the shocking events in Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, where U.S. soldiers abused Iraqi prisoners. Immediately afterward, Struck said, ”German soldiers do not torture.”

If Struck's statement can be taken as any kind of excuse-making, what a contrast it is to such statements by American officials!  When Bush administration officials deny that particular practices of cruelty that have come to light are not torture, they are trying to justify the practice and avoid legal responsibility for their actions.  There doesn't seem to be any indication that senior German officials and officers were condemning the practices that came to light and clearly considered them as illegal and unacceptable.

I wish our current American official and officers were that responsible about the torture scandal here.  No wonder today's Republican's are anti-Europe.

German-language references:

Folter-Exzesse in der Bundeswehr? Süddeutsche Zeitung 20.11.2004
"Realitätsnahe Ausbildung" mit Stromstößen Süddeutsche Zeitung 22.11.2004
"Das kann in keiner Weise von uns toleriert werden" Süddeutsche Zeitung 22.11.2004
Bundeswehrverband berichtet von fünf Haupttätern Süddeutsche Zeitung 23.11.2004
Hinweise auf weitere Fälle Der Spiegel 25.11.04