Sex Crimes in the White House
NEW YORK - Sex crime has a telltale signature, even when those directing the outrages are some of the most powerful men and women in the United States. How extraordinary, then, to learn that one of the perpetrators of these crimes, Condoleezza Rice, has just led the debate in a special session of the United Nations Security Council on the use of sexual violence as a weapon of war.
I had a sense of déjà vu when I saw the photos that emerged in 2004 from Abu Ghraib prison. Even as the Bush administration was spinning the notion that the torture of prisoners was the work of "a few bad apples" low in the military hierarchy, I knew that we were seeing evidence of a systemic policy set at the top. It's not that I am a genius. It's simply that, having worked at a rape crisis center and been trained in the basics of sex crime, I have learned that all sex predators go about things in certain recognizable ways.
We now know that the torture of prisoners was the result of a policy set in the White House by former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Rice -- who actually chaired the torture meetings. The Pentagon has also acknowledged that it had authorized sexualized abuse of detainees as part of interrogation practices to be performed by female operatives. And documents obtained by the American Civil Liberties Union have Rumsfeld, in his own words, checking in on the sexualized humiliation of prisoners.
The sexualization of torture from the top basically turned Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay into an organized sex-crime ring in which the trafficked sex slaves were US-held prisoners. Looking at the classic S and M nature of some of this torture, it is hard not to speculate that someone setting policy was aroused by all of this. And Phillipe Sands' impeccably documented Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values, now proves that sex crime was authorized and, at least one source reports, eroticized: Diane Beaver, the Staff Judge Advocate at Guantanamo who signed off on many torture techniques, told Sands about brainstorming sessions that included the use of "sexual tension," which was "culturally taboo, disrespectful, humiliating and potentially unexpected."
"These brainstorming meetings at Guantanamo produced animated discussion," writes Sands. "'Who has the glassy eyes?" Beaver asked herself as she surveyed the men around the room, thirty or more of them. She was invariably the only woman in the room, keeping control of the boys. The younger men would get excited, agitated, even: "You could almost see their dicks getting hard as they got new ideas" [reported Beaver]. A wan smile crossed Beaver's face: "And I said to myself, you know what, I don't have a dick to get hard, I can stay detached."' [Sands, p 63]
The nonsexual torture that was committed ranged from beatings and suffocation, electrodes attached to sensitive areas, and forced sleep deprivation, to prisoners being hung by the wrists from the ceiling and placed in solitary confinement until psychosis was induced. These abuses violate both US and international law. Three former military attorneys, recognizing this blunt truth, refused to participate in the "military tribunals" -- rather, "show trials" -- aimed at condemning men whose confessions were elicited through torture.
Though we can now debate what the penalty for waterboarding should be, America as a nation, maintaining an odd silence, still cannot seem to discuss the sex crimes involved.
Why? It's not as if the sex crimes that US leaders either authorized or tolerated are not staring Americans in the face: the images of male prisoners with their heads hooded with women's underwear; the documented reports of female US soldiers deployed to smear menstrual blood on the faces of male prisoners, and of military interrogators or contractors forcing prisoners to simulate sex with each other, to penetrate themselves with objects, or to submit to being penetrated by objects. Indeed, the Military Commissions Act of 2006 was written deliberately with loopholes that gave immunity to perpetrators of many kinds of sexual humiliation and abuse.
There is also the testimony by female soldiers such as Lynndie England about compelling male prisoners to masturbate, as well as an FBI memo objecting to a policy of "highly aggressive interrogation techniques." The memo cites a female interrogator rubbing lotion on a shackled detainee and whispering in his ear -- during Ramadan when sexual contact with a strange woman would be most offensive -- then suddenly bending back his thumbs until he grimaced in pain, and violently grabbing his genitals. Sexual abuse in US-operated prisons got worse and worse over time, ultimately including, according to doctors who examined detainees, anal sodomy.
All this may sound bizarre if you are a normal person, but it is standard operating procedure for sex offenders. Those who work in the field know that once sex abusers control a powerless victim, they will invariably push the boundaries with ever more extreme behavior. Abusers start by undressing their victims, but once that line has been breached, you are likely to hear from the victim about oral and anal penetration, greater and greater pain and fear being inflicted, and more and more carelessness about exposing the crimes as the perpetrator's inhibitions fall away.
The perpetrator is also likely to engage in ever-escalating rationalizations, often arguing that the offenses serve a greater good. Finally, the victim is blamed for the abuse: in the case of the detainees, if they would only "behave," and confess, they wouldn't bring all this on themselves.
Silence, and even collusion, is also typical of sex crimes within a family. Americans are behaving like a dysfunctional family by shielding sex criminals in their midst through silence.
Just as sex criminals -- and the leaders who directed the use of rape and sexual abuse as a military strategy -- were tried and sentenced after the wars in Bosnia and Sierra Leone, so Americans must hold accountable those who committed, or authorized, sex crimes in US-operated prisons. Throughout the world, this perverse and graphic criminality has added fuel to anxiety about US cultural and military power. These acts need to be called by their true names -- war crimes and sex crimes -- and people in America need to demand justice for the perpetrators and their victims. As in a family, only when people start to speak out and tell the truth about rape and sexual assault can the healing begin.
© Project Syndicate
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Condoleezza Rice is a disgrace to women, african americans & all Americans.
Oh, wait: you said, "Even as..."
Nevermind
"Even as the Bush administration was spinning the notion that the torture of prisoners was the work of 'a few bad apples'..."
Why "even"?
"The perpetrator is also likely to engage in ever-escalating rationalizations, often arguing that the offenses serve a greater good. Finally, the victim is blamed for the abuse: in the case of the detainees, if they would only "behave," and confess, they wouldn't bring all this on themselves."
My father was tortured in a prisoner of war camp in the Philippines during WW2 and I can assure he's turning over in his grave! We Americans need to bring the criminals at the top of the Bush administration who have perpetrated these crimes to justice! Any American who justifies these crimes must understand that what becomes institutionalized and systematic will be done to Americans at home at some point. Are we a nation of sheep to be sheared and slaughtered? That will be the case if these criminals get away with this!
pssst, tell congress
kfdan, my dad was wwII japanese pow as well. He was tortured, starved, worked and humiliated for three years. The only time he ever stuck my Mother was once when she slapped him--it was the same type of slap he had daily as a POW. He is still alive at 85, When mccain was against torture, I called his office to thank him. Then he changed his position. We should be afraid as Americans to travel internationally unless in a group and with Canada stickers on our suitcases.
BTW, not only are those tortured screwed up mentally for life, but the torturers. I shudder to think of those soldiers coming back into society.
Thanks Naomi. This is sickening and must not be swept under the rug.
People in general have difficulty with sexual crimes because these crimes are acts of hate; not “perversion” as people prefer to think.
The thought that people do these things to each other solely with the intent of hurting them is too painful for most people to think; rape is chosen to inflict the maximum damage possible on its victims; it is intended to leave the victim thinking and feeling the way their predators think and feel; and tragically too often does.
The difficulty Americans have in confronting acts of sexual torture by the Current Administration are exacerbated by the fact that John McCain a key proponent of MCA 2006 (which codified indefinite illegal detainment without recourse, which empowered the Administration to detain, torture, try and execute anyone of their choosing) is running for President (and continuing to defend MCA 2006 while doing so). The notion that McCain opposes torture is simply naïve.
A question for the class......you all seem to be pretty good at statating what you feel we should not do when interrogating a terrorist, yet none of you can say how we CAN effectively interrogate them. Why is that?
Is this a serious question or just a condescending attempt to show you approve of torture? Most of us do not know effective interrogation techniques, but I believe there's enough public information that indicates you can question a person without torturing them. Even McCain in his "maverick" incarnation said that torture is NOT effective at getting useful information.
You flunk, Rocky. Experts in the field report that the most effective interrogators are those who establish a rapport with the prisoner. For homework, read the account of the junior American officer who got plenty of information out of Saddam during his captivity -- without ever abusing him. Shame on you and your apparent belief that torture leads to useful, truthful information.
Very good article on the subject in the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/22/washington/22ksm.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
where a soft spoken interrogator built up a rapport with one of the most notorious Al Qaeda prisoners, Kalid Sheikh Mohammed. This ended up being a far more effective than torture. The best police officers use similar techniques to get information from prisoners and suspects.
There's a ton of information out there about it. You're just too preoccupied with repeating your little right-wing talking point too realize/comprehend that.
Can you? Because there is absolutely NO real evidence that the methods they HAVE been using have been effective at all. Of course torture is very effective in getting people to say anything you want them to say. Not so much in getting any kind of legitimate reliable information though. Now if the purpose was to create more people who hate America and want to harm us. Then yes, what we have been doing is certainly effective.
"Diane Beaver, the Staff Judge Advocate at Guantanamo who signed off on many torture techniques..."
heh
Unfortunate name for the only woman in the room, but truth is stranger than fiction--and this story proves it. I don't want to believe it, but it's way past time for denials. What have they done in our name...shameful.
More fuel for the fire after the elections. Let's go get these guys, and show the world that we as a nation understand we were misrepresented by common criminals.
What's most amazing is that we still haven't uncovered everything this administration has done. Our laws go out the window for national security? It's as though the consideration of what new precedent that sets is forgotten. Unreal.
To contact House Judiciary Committee members, go to http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=Democrats_House_Judiciary where you will find all members' names listed. Click on any name to pull up appropriate information.
Whenever I encounter an article like this, I email it to Mike Doyle, my congressman.
If we all do this, we can let them know that each time they, the Congress, remains quiescent, they abrogate their constitutionally mandated obligation to behave as a co-equal branch of government.
To look up your congressman's phone number and/or address, go to https://forms.house.gov/wyr/welcome.shtml or http://www.house.gov/house/MemberWWW.shtml.
Only by defying the impeachable Nancy Pelosi by moving congress to act against her can we begin the process of indictment and trial.
Whenever I encounter an article like this, I file it in my "stupidest things I've ever wasted time reading" file. If you read this, and you at all all outraged by it, you have just been had.
There is no question that crimes were committed at Abu Ghraib. Be mad about that. Challenge our govenrment on those grounds. But to try and expand this into a government-run sex slave ring is ridculous, and unnecessarily inflammatory. The author only wants to stoke old fires which have otherwise burned out. Don't buy into this crap. It cheapens those who really have suffered sex crimes in sex slave rings.
Prisoners were systematically violated with objects and raped by U.S. servicemen and women. That's very disturbing.
The ACLU has documented hundreds of instances of torture, including sexual torture of children!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/7/14/193750/666
Bush & Co are criminals under any system of morals.
i agree......In all wars there are not so nice things done.......get over it. Forced sleep deprivation as torture give me a break. Next they will say playing loud rock music for the prisoners listening pleasure is bad. I can say any words to you anytime i feel like it, words are not torture even if a woman is say them to you during Ramadan. It is not plesant but you are a prisoner. Force sexual contact is over the top though.
Reports like this verifying torture, including rape, initiated by cheney, rumsfeld, rice, and hadley, and one other whose name escapes me, have been around for the past six months or so. Thank god for the Freedom of Information Act. If you disbelieve that the aforementioned criminals did not determine, who, when, how, and how many times per method specific individuals would be tortured, then you either live in denial or do not read the New York Times and Washington Post.
These are not old fires. Their embers will burn as long as the perpetrators are not brought to justice.
You have bought into right wing propagandistic takes on what has past: "We've heard this before.......More of same........Old news." Even if Naomi Wolf cannot substantiate some of what she has written, that rape did occur multiple times, as well as waterboarding, electrocution, and even death, cannot be refuted.
Even if she has expanded a take on what is real, what is more heinous: the transgressions of thugs who brutalize victims, most, we have learned, again through the Freedom of Information Act, are innocent of wrongdoing, or a writer who might have magnified an event based on fact? By the way, this is not a magnification. Are you to suggest that as head of an agency and confidante of bush she lacked the power to chair such a committee and that she did not? Based on what we know, I buy into Naomi's take, not yours.
What was it Maxwell Smart used to say?: "...but we have to lie, cheat, torture and kill; we're the good guys"
So what are we saying here? Just as Bush was touting the closure of the rape rooms in Iraq, he was opening them up in GITMO?
Ick.
I'm happy, finally, that someone has the balls to tell the truth about our Christian government. It's sad when our US government cloaks itself under family and religious values. I wonder how the history books are going to treat this war?
Balls? Please give Naomi proper credit.
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