abu angel

(Image from the darkblack blog)

Abu Ghraib was the work of "a few bad apples", right?  Just an isolated band of poorly trained kids "blowing off steam" and engaging in a form of "frat house hazing".  There's no way that there's any truth to allegations that the torture techniques practiced there were instituted from the top down by a systemic subversion of the Geneva Conventions on executive order from the BushCo Axis of Weasels, right?  Right?

According to former Iraq interrogator Eric Fair, wrong:

American authorities continue to insist that the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib was an isolated incident in an otherwise well-run detention system. That insistence, however, stands in sharp contrast to my own experiences as an interrogator in Iraq. I watched as detainees were forced to stand naked all night, shivering in their cold cells and pleading with their captors for help. Others were subjected to long periods of isolation in pitch-black rooms. Food and sleep deprivation were common, along with a variety of physical abuse, including punching and kicking. Aggressive, and in many ways abusive, techniques were used daily in Iraq, all in the name of acquiring the intelligence necessary to bring an end to the insurgency. The violence raging there today is evidence that those tactics never worked. My memories are evidence that those tactics were terribly wrong.

And not only are these techniques not working against the insugency, they are taking a terrible toll on our own men and women in uniform.  Take the case of Specialist Alyssa Peterson:

10/31/06 (2006-10-31) Army specialist Alyssa Peterson was an Arabic speaking interrogator assigned to the prison at the Tal-afar airbase in far northwestern Iraq near the Syrian border. According to the Army's investigation into her death, obtained by a KNAU reporter through the Freedom of Information Act, Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed.

Instead she was assigned to the base gate, where she monitored Iraqi guards. She was sent to suicide prevention training. But on the night of September 15th, 2003, Army investigators concluded she shot and killed herself with her service rifle. [KNAU]

More from Eric Fair:

Some may suggest there is no reason to revive the story of abuse in Iraq. Rehashing such mistakes will only harm our country, they will say. But history suggests we should examine such missteps carefully. Oppressive prison environments have created some of the most determined opponents. The British learned that lesson from Napoleon, the French from Ho Chi Minh, Europe from Hitler. The world is learning that lesson again from Ayman al-Zawahiri. What will be the legacy of abusive prisons in Iraq?

We have failed to properly address the abuse of Iraqi detainees. Men like me have refused to tell our stories, and our leaders have refused to own up to the myriad mistakes that have been made. But if we fail to address this problem, there can be no hope of success in Iraq. Regardless of how many young Americans we send to war, or how many militia members we kill, or how many Iraqis we train, or how much money we spend on reconstruction, we will not escape the damage we have done to the people of Iraq in our prisons.

I am desperate to get on with my life and erase my memories of my experiences in Iraq. But those memories and experiences do not belong to me. They belong to history. If we're doomed to repeat the history we forget, what will be the consequences of the history we never knew? The citizens and the leadership of this country have an obligation to revisit what took place in the interrogation booths of Iraq, unpleasant as it may be. The story of Abu Ghraib isn't over. In many ways, we have yet to open the book.

May god forgive us for what has been done in our name. 

Digby says:

I'm sure there are those who have no such self-awareness, or who truly believe that such sadistic treatment was warranted and correct. But it will blow back on them too, in some way, somewhere. Because it is a simple truth that when you treat human beings like animals, you become one yourself. And on some level, there is a part of every person that howls in protest against such debasement whether they are the perpetrator or the victim.

This man knows what he did and is speaking out as a way to redeem himself. Others will likely use far less positive means to exorcize themselves of this pain and degradation. And everyone will pay the price.

Unfortunately, the cover-up continues.

I had finished this post and put it in for publication when I went over to Digby's and read what I meant to say said better.  We need a verb for that.  "D'oh!  I got Digby'd!" which means, "I felt I had something terribly important to impart, but then Digby said it so much more eloquently that I am forced hang my head in shame and go back to eating pudding cups on the couch."

Oh, sagacious Digby.  You are the most emphatic Still Small Voice I've ever heard.

When compelled I am
To try an epigram,
I never take the credit.
I simply say that Digby said it. 

(Apologies to Dorothy Parker.) 

Related posts:

  1. McChrystal: Detainee Abuse Initially Informed by Rumsfeld Memo
  2. Abuse Photos: Pentagon CYA with Oak Leaf Clusters
  3. Torture’s Very Answerable Questions
  4. BREAKING: Obama Does 180 on Release of Abuse Photos
  5. Ali Soufan Claps Back at Dick Cheney