The picture that emerges is of a brass-knuckled
quest for information . . . in which the traditional lines between
right and wrong, legal and inhumane, are evolving and blurred. —The Washington Post, December 26 U.S.
officials who take part in torture, authorize it, or even close their
eyes to it, can be prosecuted by courts anywhere in the world. —Kenneth Roth, Human Rights Watch
On December 26, Kenneth Roth, executive director of Human Rights
Watch, which reports on human rights abuses in some 70 countries, wrote
a letter to George W. Bush, with copies to Colin Powell, Donald
Rumsfeld, and Condoleezza Rice: "Human Rights Watch is deeply concerned
by allegations of torture and other mistreatment of al-Qaeda detainees
described in The Washington Post ('U.S. Decries Abuse but Defends Interrogations') on December 26.
The allegations, if true, would place the United States in
violation of some of the most fundamental prohibitions of international
human rights law. . . . Torture is never permissible against anyone,
whether in times of peace or war." I have been collecting fragments of
press reports of torture by American intelligence agencies over the
past year, but the Washington Post story was the first extensive, detailed account of what is going on at CIA facilities in the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan.
>From the front page of the December 26 Washington Post,
about the Bagram air base: "Those who refuse to cooperate inside this
secret CIA interrogation center are sometimes kept standing or kneeling
for hours, in black hoods or spray-painted goggles, according to
intelligence specialists familiar with CIA interrogation methods. At
times, they are held in awkward, painful positions and deprived of
sleep with a 24-hour bombardment of lights—subject to what are known as
'stress and duress' techniques."
These CIA facilities are closed to the press and other outsiders, including some other government agencies, the Post
reports. Moreover, "According to Americans with direct knowledge and
others who have witnessed the treatment, captives are often 'softened
up' by MPs and U.S. Army Special Forces troops who beat them up and
confine them in tiny rooms. "The alleged terrorists are commonly
blindfolded, and thrown into walls, bound in painful positions."
Medication to alleviate pain is withheld. Or, as a source in the
story notes "in a deadpan voice, 'pain control for wounded patients is
a very subjective thing.' " Says "an official who has supervised the
capture and transfer of accused terrorists, 'If you don't violate
someone's human rights some of the time, you probably aren't doing your
job.' " Another official is quoted: "We don't kick the [expletive] out
of them. We send them to other countries so they can kick the [expletive] out of them."
The term for these transfers is "extraordinary renditions." There
is, of course, no legal process; and among the foreign intelligence
services who lend a brutal hand are those of Jordan, Egypt, and
Morocco. At least once, torturers in Syria have been enlisted. The Washington Post
report by Dana Priest and Barton Gellman dutifully quotes National
Security Council spokesman Sean McCormack: "The United States is
treating enemy combatants in U.S. government control, wherever held,
humanely and in a manner consistent with the Third Geneva Convention of
1949." (Emphasis added.) Note the phrase "wherever held." Prisoners
shipped to torturers in other countries remain under American control.
One official directly involved in these "renditions" to foreign torture
chambers said in The Washington Post, "I do it . . . with my eyes open."
According to the Post, another "Bush administration
official said the CIA, in practice, is using a narrow definition of
what counts as 'knowing' that a suspect has been tortured. 'If we're
not there in the room, who is to say?' said one official conversant
with recent reports of renditions."
The December 26 story was followed the next day by an editorial,
"Torture Is Not an Option." It ended: "The critical first step for the
administration is to clarify what tactics it is using and which are
still off limits. . . . The American people ought to know and ought to
be able to respond through their representatives and through individual
and organizational voices. It shouldn't be the administration's
unilateral call." After all, "there are certain things democracies
don't do, even under duress."
There has been only a scattered, brief follow-up in the press on this torture story, even though, as The Economist notes, "there seems little reason to doubt [its] veracity." Moreover, The Economist, which I read with care every week, adds: "Although well documented, the account has produced official denials and only
a desultory discussion among American commentators, who seem no keener
to discuss the subject than the British and French were when the issue
arose in Northern Ireland and Algiers." (Emphasis added.)
There has been no quick, independent coverage, for example, in The New York Times, which reminds me of when the Post's Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein broke the Watergate story and the Times lagged far behind.
The Times recovered then, but the recent "paper of record"
is not living up to its legendary past importance. It misses such
stories as the Post's on torture, and its editorials have
become utterly predictable. The fault is not with the reporters. (See
Dexter Filkins on Arafat, January 12.) The decline began with the
ascension of publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and has quickened under
executive editor Howell Raines. It's too bad the New York Herald Tribune
isn't still around. But as for the American way of torture, Human Rights
Watch is on the job, and Kenneth Roth will not let go.