Shock and Awe - Torture and the 'Civilised' West

By Adam Ford

In the past few months, images of torture have emerged from Iraq and triggered waves of revulsion around the world. The US and UK forces - having "liberated" the country - have used torture and humiliation techniques on Iraqi prisoners.

As politicians continue to pass the buck, more and more details are emerging about the extent of torture and murder in Iraq. On 5th May, the Pentagon admitted that a US soldier and a CIA interrogator killed Iraqis in their custody, and that investigations had been launched into ten assaults and 25 deaths in Iraqi military prisons. But it seems the abuse runs deeper than this. A leaked report by Major General Antonio M. Taguba alleges that Abu Ghraib prison - once the feared epicentre of Saddam Hussein's atrocities - is a place of "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" in US hands. At the centre of many allegations is Staff Sergeant 'Chip' Frederick, who is documented as having overseen many of the most brutal assaults. However, Frederick's attorney, Gary Myers, claims that his client was merely following the orders of his superiors - especially those in military intelligence - who wanted prisoners "softened-up" for questioning:

"Do you really think a group of kids from rural Virginia decided to do this on their own? Decided that the best way to embarrass Arabs and make them talk was to have them walk around nude?"

Indeed, in the aftermath of the Afghanistan war, it was established that military police had worked to "set favourable conditions for subsequent interviews" - a chilling euphemism for breaking the will of prisoners. For their own part, British soldiers also face torture charges. Speaking to the Daily Mirror, 'Soldier C' described a catalogue of abuses, including prisoners having "ten kinds of crap" beaten out of them, and a prisoner having fingers poked into his eyeballs.

Whilst such stories are gruesome and disturbing, they are historically characteristic of US and UK forces. Despite the wringing of hands from those in power, and the promises to "stamp out" such behaviour, humiliation and intimidation of foreign prisoners has been happening since the birth of the two countries. Since World War Two in particular, the United States has underpinned its self-appointed role as global policeman by using and approving the use of torture on a global scale. Most (in)famously, there were thousands of cases during the Vietnam War, where US soldiers (including the elite 'Tiger Force') and intelligence agencies used psychological and physical techniques to intimidate the native population. In cataloguing these atrocities, State Department official turned investigative journalist William Blum described torture as being "as American as apple pie". For example, Blum lists Greece, Iran, Germany and Bolivia as employing CIA-trained or assisted violent interrogators. Furthermore, a 1998 Amnesty International report alleged the US supplied torture equipment such as bludgeons, thumbscrews and stun guns to regimes it officially labelled 'rogue states' during the 1990s. Despite a diminishing presence on the world stage, Britain has been far from inactive in this area, supplying military and other equipment to Indonesia's Suharto as recently as 1997, flying in the face of New Labour's supposedly "ethical" foreign policy. In the 1950s, Britain incarcerated thousands of the native Mau Mau people in Kenya. Torture, flogging, and abuse of women was commonplace, and imperial historian V.G. Kiernan labelled conditions "as bad as similar Nazi or Japanese establishments".

Despite this litany of atrocities, perhaps the darkest secret kept by US governments of both shades is that of the 'School of the Americas'. At this base in Fort Benning, Georgia, some of the world's most brutal dictators have learned how to impose their iron will. Manuel Noriega and Omar Torrijos of Panama, Leopoldo Galtieri and Roberto Viola of Argentina, and Hugo Banzer Suarez of Bolivia all learned their craft at the school. Lower level graduates also organised massacres throughout Latin America, setting-up fascist death squads to make the ground safe for US corporations. Though the school's very existence was denied for many years, the Pentagon was forced to release training manuals in 1996, which advocated the use of torture, extortion and execution. In 2001, the School was renamed the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation, but did not substantially change its curriculum.

If we keep all this in mind, it is not surprising that torture has been used by the Coalition in Iraq. After all, though most Iraqis are glad to see Saddam Hussein out of power, more than seven out of ten regard coalition forces as 'occupiers' rather than 'liberators' according to a Gallup poll, To maintain their authority, these neo-colonialists must therefore use every trick in the book, and as we have seen they have decades of experience to draw on. Historically speaking, the problem for the politicians has never been that abuses take place, but that their thin veneer of 'civilisation' is shattered when word gets out.