Old ghosts

There seems to be explicit reasons why Obama backtracked  and planned not to release the additional torture photos from Abu Ghraib... 

At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee. Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube. Another apparently shows a female prisoner having her clothing forcibly removed to expose her breasts.

.. Among the graphic statements, which were later released under US freedom of information laws, is that of Kasim Mehaddi Hilas in which he says: “I saw [name of a translator] fucking a kid, his age would be about 15 to 18 years. The kid was hurting very bad and they covered all the doors with sheets. Then when I heard screaming I climbed the door because on top it wasn’t covered and I saw [name] who was wearing the military uniform, putting his dick in the little kid’s ass…. and the female soldier was taking pictures.” The translator was an American Egyptian who is now the subject of a civil court case in the US. Three detainees, including the alleged victim, refer to the use of a phosphorescent tube in the sexual abuse and another to the use of wire, while the victim also refers to part of a policeman’s “stick” all of which were apparently photographed.

It is slowly becoming clear that we have moved from a 'gut based, touchy feely' policy and decision making apparatus to a more rational, 'brain oriented' policy and decision making...

From here: President Obama is expected to sign executive orders today directing the Central Intelligence Agency to shut what remains of its network of secret prisons and ordering the closing of the Guantánamo detention camp within a year. This will also prohibit the C.I.A. from using coercive interrogation methods, requiring the agency to follow the same rules used by the military in interrogating terrorism suspects.

Comment

When the invasion of Iraq was underway in full force and things were just starting to go south, a popular refrain among people that I met was the following: 'Let our boys finish what they started', which I thought was a callous and flippant response. A similar situation unfolds today with Russia riding shotgun over Georgia. I wonder how many people would say things like 'Let the ruskie boys finish what they started' in reference to this conflict that is slowly starting to mirror the quagmire in Iraq.

Signs of our times...

A new video game named “The Torture Game 2” has debuted recently. It is available for free and it allows you to... well, torture the lead character to death. The player may use any of the following to commit the torture: chainsaw, razor blade, spikes, pistols and a variety of other devices.

In the words of the reviewer: Sure, it’s a computer game in which you, the player, are asked to do horrible, unspeakable, and totally sick, sick, sick things to a defenseless man-like person tied up in some dark room from which he has absolutely no hope of escape. And, sure, one of the horrible, unspeakable, and totally sick, sick, sick things you might, perhaps, do to this man is put a chainsaw to his neck until his head falls off. And while you could choose to do nothing worse than splatter him with paint, most players probably won’t stop there. I didn’t. Curiosity got the better of me and before I knew it I was jabbing giant spikes into his belly, peeling back his face to the bone, and sawing the poor guy’s head from his neck. Because I could.

On torture by Dr. Inge Genefke (Founder of Copenhagen's Rehabilitation Center and Council for Torture Victims) in Vol 74 No. 2 of the New Letters magazine. Translated from the Danish by Thomas E. Kennedy.

The problem with torture is that when you even open the door an inch and say it is acceptable to torture a terrorist to get information about plans that will lead to deaths, it is soon impossible to shut that door again. How much torture can we use on terrorists? Is it also permissible to also threaten their families? And in which cases is torture permissible? The answer is that when you begin to use torture, it will automatically spread, and suddenly we have betrayed all those rights which belong to civilized society.

I remember two brothers who were ordered to beat one another in prison. The torturers knew that the one who hit hardest loved less. The one who hit least was trying to protect the other. Later, they tied the gentler brother to a chair and forced him to watch while the torturers poked out the eyes of the brother who had hot the hardest. They knew that for the sensitive brother, it would be a trauma he would never get over. I met that man, the one who had been forced to witnessed this atrocity, and it was as though he had turned to stone. He only sat there, staring.

Trevor Paglen: KEYHOLE/IMPROVED CRYSTAL Optical Reconnaissance Satellite (USA 129) near Scorpio, 2007; C-print; image from Bellwether Gallery, New York.