ReThinking Standard Operating Procedure: Yes, Virginia, We Really Do Torture

A new report set to be released today from the CIA inspector general has even more details about the tactics the CIA and military intelligence used (and probably still use) to torture confessions out of prisoners. The report describes how at least one prisoner, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, was threatened with a power drill as well as a pistol if he didn't cooperate. Tapes of al-Nashiri's interrogations were destroyed by the CIA in 2005. In another incident, CIA officers conducted a mock execution in a nearby room to convince a prisoner that he would be killed if he didn't confess. Threatening a prisoner with imminent pain or death is a violation of the federal torture statute.

So I thought I'd take another look at Standard Operating Procedure, Errol Morris' excellent 2008 documentary about daily life and torture at Abu Ghraib. The film features interviews with nearly all of the soldiers who were tried during the investigation. Watch my ReThink Review below.

To see me on Cenk Uygur's XM/Air America show, The Young Turks, discussing Standard Operating Procedure, click here.

While doing research for this post, I came across this interesting bit of info on Wikipedia:

In military terminology [standard operating procedure] is used to describe a procedure or set of procedures to perform a given operation or evolution or in reaction to a given event. There is a popular misconception that SOPs are standardized. However, the very nature of an SOP is that it is not standardized across a large military element (such as a corps or division) but rather describes the unique operating procedure of a smaller unit (such as a battalion or company) within that larger element. That the operating procedure in question is said to be "standing" indicates that it is in effect until further notice, at which time it may be amended or dissolved. Therefore, the military more correctly uses the term "standing operating procedure" in lieu of "standard operating procedure."

In Standard Operating Procedure, it's revealed that the tactics shown in the Abu Ghraib photos -- forced nudity, stress positions, sexual humiliation, etc. -- were already being used at AG when the soldiers interviewed in the film arrived there. That would have made them standing operating procedure, meaning it was simply the way things were done at AG. And with soldiers being told that these techniques were not only legal but effective in saving American lives, there would be no reason to stop using them.

It's also important to note that standing operating procedures often develop as an "evolution or in reaction to a given event." So if slapping a prisoner in the head was deemed legal by the Bush administration to extract information, wouldn't it follow that a punch to the head would be justified in the face of escalating violence? If "walling", where a prisoner is thrown into a fake wall in a "safe" way, is deemed effective, wouldn't throwing a prisoner into a real wall be even more effective? And if threatening a prisoner like al-Nashiri with a power drill is useful during a lull in violence, wouldn't actually drilling a hole in someone be called for during a spike in attacks? It's pretty easy to see how the torture slope can get awfully slippery awfully fast.

Seems like only yesterday that the US was not a nation that tortured. We knew that because, well, everyone in the Bush administration right up to the president kept saying that we didn't torture, often by trying to confuse the definition of what torture is. (Here's a simple, easy-to-remember definition of what torture is: if you think it would be unreasonable and/or harmful (mentally or physically) if it was done to you or a family member, it's probably torture.)

The US is not a nation that "uses techniques that some consider torture", as the media continues to phrase it. The US is a nation that tortures. It can no longer be denied, and we need to think about what that means. And unless we bring to justice those responsible at the highest levels for this tragic transformation, we will continue to suffer the consequences for our horrific new identity.

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Comments

[silverball]

...it's simply stunning...and a credit to the dark side forces (last administration) that they were, and continue to be so successful in raising so much doubt about what constitutes torture.....but, to give the most acceptable starting point about what the definition includes, it was wwII and the geneva convention­....rememb­er, japanese interrogators were EXECUTED for the techniques we have used...so how did the definitions change for us to use it???...they DIDN'T....we just had an administration that had people willing to write a few legal memos with enough legal bs (some might, and have, actually called it BULLS**T....which it is) to "support" their "cause"....it's is ILLEGAL by international law and us law and has been for over 50 years....and why are the subordinates ALWAYS the ones to be punished...this came down from the TOP, people....if you wouldn't want it done to your son or daughter in a war time situation, WHY and HOW could you ever believe it to be ok to use on another human being...no matter how despicable they are....that's the bottom line....we are (supposed to be) a nation of laws....

[SantaFeConservative]

Maybe if we ask the terrorists real nice they will tell us everything they know.

[deebles]

Exactly Santa fe. Not that you have to treat them real nice but if you treat someone real bad you usually get nothing. Interrogation is an art of psychological manipulation. In the documentary there was an interesting point about a professional interrogator needing important information from someone capable of providing it and that by the time he got to the guy the untrained, incompetent MPs has shaved his eyebrows off--something which shut him down. This is about doing things correctly or as with the entire fiasco of after the initial invasion doing everything without training or expertise and thus killing soldiers everyday because of the administration's inability to accept that rules and guidelines exist not because they are wimpy--rather that they work. When Churchill decided that the many were more important than the few he sent compromised Jedburg Teams--women with false information to be tortured so that the Germans would believe D-Day was at Calais. Anyone will say anything when you are torturing them. And killing them. Hitler so believed that the British couldn't be so monstrous that when Rommel begged him to increase the defenses at Normandy--Hitler stuck with Calais.

[SonnyBono]

And just what would be our stand when American servicemen and women get captured? Not to mention that item known as the 8th Amendment - you know the part that reads - "Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted."

If we act like terrorists, we are no better than they are and all the fine and noble words about liberty and freedom are just words that mean nothing.