TORTURE BY ANY OTHER NAME

Two from the London Guardian courtesy of Eschaton:

UK forces taught torture methods

The British former officer said the dissemination of R2I techniques inside Iraq was all the more dangerous because of the general mood among American troops.

"The feeling among US soldiers I've spoken to in the last week is also that 'the gloves are off'. Many of them still think they are dealing with people responsible for 9/11".

When the interrogation techniques are used on British soldiers for training purposes, they are subject to a strict 48-hour time limit, and a supervisor and a psychologist are always present. It is recognised that in inexperienced hands, prisoners can be plunged into psychosis.

The spectrum of R2I techniques also includes keeping prisoners naked most of the time. This is what the Abu Ghraib photographs show, along with inmates being forced to crawl on a leash; forced to masturbate in front of a female soldier; mimic oral sex with other male prisoners; and form piles of naked, hooded men.

The full battery of methods includes hooding, sleep deprivation, time disorientation and depriving prisoners not only of dignity, but of fundamental human needs, such as warmth, water and food.

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General Told MPs to 'soften Up' Prisoners

The Guantanamo Bay prison complex was run by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller. In late August 2003, Miller conducted an inquiry on interrogation and detention procedures in Iraq and suggested that prison guards could help set conditions for the interrogation of prisoners, according to the Taguba report.

Most of the alleged abuses at Abu Ghraib took place from October to December 2003.

A November 2003 report by Maj. Gen. Donald Ryder, the Army's provost marshal, concluded that the Army Reserve's 800th Military Police Brigade, which was running Abu Ghraib, was not given official orders to get involved in setting conditions for interrogations.

Taguba, however, offered a different view.

"It is obvious,'' he wrote, that at least some at lower levels of the 800th did get involved.

Interrogators from military intelligence and other government agencies, believed to include the CIA, actively requested that MPs guarding prisoners at Abu Ghraib set the conditions for interrogations, Taguba reported. This is in violation of Army Regulation 190-8, he said.

That regulation states: "All persons captured, detained, interned or otherwise held in U.S. armed forces custody during the course of conflict will be given humanitarian care and treatment from the moment they fall into the hands of U.S. forces until final release or repatriation.''

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I have felt disgusted countless times over the past four years or so--the Bush administration in cahoots with corporations, Christian fundamentalists, and empire-eyed neo-conservatives have so utterly soiled everything for which this nation supposedly stands that I really believed that nothing could make me feel any worse. But now...

I thought I was disgusted with Bush, but the truth is that I was just angry. Extremely angry, to be sure, but not truly sick-to-my-stomach disgusted. The more I learn about this torture business in Iraq, however, the more I learn about what it means to be disgusted.

I suppose that some people believe that, because the prisoners aren't physically harmed, most of these "interrogations" are civilized. That's total bullshit. Humiliation, especially sexual humiliation, is immoral. Sleep deprivation is immoral. Depriving helpless prisoners of food, clothing, and heat is immoral. This is not something that would be done by the America that I love. This is not something that any humane person would do.

Is it now time to say that I am ashamed of my country?

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