How Should We Respond?

Calling all those who will be watching this tomorrow at their schools–Guantanomo: How Should We Respond?–please do find time to post comments. I will too.

POSTED BY Administrator ON 10.04.06 @ 11:21 pm |

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  1. In his excellent presentation this morning, Joseph Margulies recommended that we familiarize ourselves with one report which can be found by googling the following words: “ABC News Enhanced Interrogation Techniques.”

    Comment by Administrator — October 5, 2006 @ 10:51 am

  2. The journalists’ panel is discussing the prison-log of prisoner Mohamed Al-Qahtani published in TIME magazine. Check it out at http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1071284,00.html and http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1071202,00.html

    Comment by Administrator — October 5, 2006 @ 11:17 am

  3. In the afternoon panel, I’m right now listening to Professor Alex McCoy who has just told us that the pictures from Abu Ghraib reveal the genealogy of CIA’s techniques of psychological torture, dating back to the 1950s and extending to the present. Psychological torture is the most American form of torture, the professor has said. The picture of the hooded man with his arms spread has two trademarks of the CIA approach: the hood for sensory deprivation and the arms spread out for self-inflicted pain.

    Comment by Administrator — October 5, 2006 @ 3:15 pm

  4. Craig Haney speaks about his remarkable 1971 study in which he and his colleagues put a group of people in a simulated prison with one set arbitrarily marked as “guards” and the other as “prisoners.” To their horror, the researchers found out that within 36 hours, the “guards” had begun to torture the prisoners. Instead of the study taking several weeks to get underway, it needed to be closed six days later.
    I found Haney’s presentation to be a strong repudiation of the “bad apples” defense offered of the torturers at Abu Ghraib. He alerts us to the need to examine the structure of the barrel itself.

    Comment by Administrator — October 5, 2006 @ 4:20 pm

  5. I found it hard to believe that people with good intentions can end up being abusive. Professor Craig Haney argues that this moral complex change is due to the prison environment. Perhaps this is the case, but I am not sure if I completely agree since I have never been in a prison situation before. As for the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, I still can’t believe that some of the interrogators are physically and psychologically abusing the prisoners to the extreme. Prisoners are human too. The treatment that the prisoners are receivin are not justified.

    Comment by Shirley Shangguan — October 6, 2006 @ 10:56 pm

  6. I was absolutely shocked by the ways in which torture has been used. I felt the same way as Shirley. Prisoners are people and diserved to be treated as such. The teach-in also spoke about the Standford Prison experiment. I learned about this is psychology class, but I didn’t really think that the findings from the experiment were viable. However, after listening to the points by all of the speakers I could see how the greater sense of power felt by the guards, and the dehumanizing of the prisoners just by the standard practises of taking away any bit of individuality could lead to torture and abusive acts that were seen in the experiment. Now I really feel that the only way to prevent torture is reorganizing the prison systems in this country, not just by removing the “bad seeds” from the system.

    Comment by Taylor Stewart — October 7, 2006 @ 7:41 pm

  7. The photograph is powerful, it reminds one of the fate that hangs over Afzal Guru who awaits death sentence for his alleged involvement in Rashatrapathi Bhavan shoot out case. Your latest blog is on this, I read the powerful letter written by his wife. I also read the prison log of Detainee 063 published in Time Magazine. In the case of Guantanamo Bay detainees and in the case of Afzal Guru whose plight as a surrendered militant his wife Tabassum details, the fact is truth is shrouded in layers of lies and deceptions. Is justice built on fabricated truths?

    Comment by Uma Gowrishankar — October 8, 2006 @ 2:52 am

  8. I thought Pincus’ point about the difference between the Cold War (when many of the techniques being used presently were developed) and the War on Terror was an interesting one. He said that in the Cold War, our fears were very specific- namely, nuclear annihilation- whereas now, our fears are broader and unfocussed: our enemies are loosely defined as terrorists, and their goals, and consequently our goals in fighting them, are unclear. Pincus alluded to the possibility that this sense of object-less dread might change the way we behave toward our perceived enemies in combat and in prisons without really saying how.
    With that in mind, I searched “war” on youtube.com after the presentation. There is a ton of footage there taken by soldiers - both interesting and disturbing. One video in particular showed the “American trademarks” of enhanced interrogation, as well as the conflicts that arise from not knowing exactly who your enemy is. There is a shot of the back of a pickup truck, where five or six men are seated with burlap sacks covering their heads and their hands tied in front of them. One man tries to hold his head in his hands as he cries. The camera then pans left, to three American soldiers dressing a wound on a civilian’s leg. The wailing captive in the truck can still be heard in the background and one of the three soldiers looks nervously over his shoulder in the direction of the prisoners.

    Comment by Jamie Stevenson — October 8, 2006 @ 1:16 pm

  9. One aspect of the Guantanamo situation that has always disgusted me has been the “Do as I say, not as I do” attitude the US exudes about it. Prisoners deserve basic human rights and treatment–unless there exists the minutest possibility that they may pose a potential threat to our great nation. In that case, the US will take no chances in defending its way of life. The same seems to go for torture: we publicly condemn torture, whether physical, psychological, etc., but behind closed doors we use the same methods of interrogation the then-hated Soviets employed fifty years ago. The methods we use are bad enough, but the hypocrisy is salt in the wound.

    Comment by Michael Spencer — October 8, 2006 @ 1:38 pm

  10. The Stanford Prison experiment was fascinating. The scientists’ initial hypothesis was so moderate in comparison to what actually occured. Nurture over nature I suppose. The experiment’s findings bring to mind Nazi Germany in the 1930s and 40s. Mob mentality and the brainwashing power of ideology - thinking you are working for a greater conceptual good so you can ignore the concrete evil you are committing. And yet as much as people are lured into doing bad things, we in “civil society” are lured into thinking it would never happen to us. The “bad people” who torture and debase people in prisons are horrible and revolting. But we are just seperating ourselves and dehumanizing the torturers as sick and evil just as the torturers seperate and dehumanize their victims. It is easy to condemn the oppressors and sympathize with the afflicted. But weren’t the prisoners often oppressors to other victims? And aren’t we oppressors to the Guantanomo prison workers? Don’t we all just want to oppress and condemn someone else to keep from admitting that we have the same potential within ourselves? Just something to think about….

    Comment by Shelby Wardlaw — October 8, 2006 @ 6:19 pm

  11. I worked for the NYC Dept. of Correction and spend a week in Cuban jails. In both places the food was excellent, but something is getting left out of the discussion here. The main experience in being a prisoner is Not Knowing. The Abu Ghraib hoods just literalize a general condition. Also in Amitava’s film the one thing that shakes up the aging combatant-turned-MP, the one who did 11 years on Robbens Island, is his pity for those who were, unlike himself, assigned a “life sentence.” He has to search for a word. “A life sentence,” he says,” that is . . . it is . . . INFINITE.” Such is jail. You can never be sure you’ll ever get out. That kind of uncertainty spoils the appetite no matter how tasty the food, or how much pork the Muslim guys offer you.

    Comment by Hap — October 8, 2006 @ 6:54 pm

  12. It was incredibly fascinating to see Prof. Haney–he of the Stanford experiment–on the panel, and I was most struck by what he had to say. I saw a video of the experiment in my AP Psych class, and it really is the most chilling thing. (As a class, we were incredibly disturbed that the reasearchers let it go on as long as they did.) It’s utterly astonishing to see just how fully people will take on what they feel to be the characteristics of the role they’ve been assigned–the guards became belligerant and abusive, and the prisoners became passive and depressed (some of the prisoners, in interviews, reported that they began to feel as if they actually deserved the treatment they were getting.) And of course it has a lot to do with the mob mentality as well, especially in the case of the guards–things that you are reluctant to do by yourself suddenly become quite reasonable when several of your peers are doing it. One of the other panelists (I forgot which–I didn’t take notes, sorry) mentioned this, that the more people involved, the easier it is to spread whatever guilt you may feel around. And of course, when an authority is telling you what to do (as in the Millgram experiment, another terrifying insight into psychology I think we’d all like to pretend isn’t true), well then, the burden of blame can be lifted almost completely and the age-old rationale–”I’m just following orders”–takes its place.
    I think it’s extremely important that people become aware of these things. As Shelley said above, the idea that this kind of sadism and disregard for the humanity of others is something anyone is capable of…well, we’d really rather not acknowledge that. So we point fingers, we find scapegoats, and in doing that we ignore the real heart of the problem. It is not the case of a few “bad apples” getting carried away–it’s the system that is rotted.

    Comment by St. Taverna — October 8, 2006 @ 11:06 pm

  13. I was most struck by the comment of the Protestant minister during the religious discussion, in which he quoted Dietrich Bonhoeffer as saying that “Only those who cry out for mercy for the Jews have the right to sing Gregorian chants.” The minister insisted that today, only those who cry out for detained Muslims have the right to sing Gregorian chants. As a member of the Body of Christ, I am often appalled by the evagelical agenda that conservative politicians so often espouse. Christ called us to be advocates for the poor, the imprisoned, the “untouchables.” Yet so often modern Christianity turns into something that is merely self-serving, rather than worshipping God by seeking justice for all people. This disconnect resonates with the question put to the panel as to whether religious leaders across the country are failing to preach against torture, or whether political leaders are abusing religious power. I agree with the consensus of the panel that both are serious issues that all faith communities should address seriously.

    Comment by Brooke — October 9, 2006 @ 10:08 pm

  14. What the stories from Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib really underline for me is the disparity between the abstract ideals and the actual practices of America. We like to think we are a nation of justice, and yet deny others due process and detain them indefinitely; we like to believe we are a nation of tolerance, and yet stories surface about abuse of detainees that explicitly violate their religious beliefs; we like to say we are all equals, and yet we place ourselves above the international laws that we expect other nations to follow. Many people have commented on Dr. Haney’s Stanford prison experiment and how guards react when placed in a position of power over prisoners, but what I find equally disturbing was the role of those in medical professions at Guantanamo Bay. Leonard Rubenstein of Physicians for Human Rights was describing how Al-Qahtani went on a hunger strike while in isolation and a first-rate medical team was called in to treat his subsequent dehydration. While this medical team was treating him, they were simultaneously playing music so that he could not sleep, so in effect they were, “patching him up so torture could continue,” as Rubenstein put it. I had this image of a futuristic, totalitarian society from a novel or film, but one that had actually come to life. Rubenstein also relayed the fact that the Pentagon has declared that those in the medical profession stationed at Guantanamo are no longer subject to medical ethics. This I found most disturbing of all, “Orwellian” if we want to go there, because now there is a contingent of professionals with specialized knowledge in the medical field who are endorsed by the government to use that specialized knowledge as the government sees fit; namely, as a weapon against detainees. With a government that is ostensibly so concerned with ethics in the ironically titled “right to life” cause they parade in the media, it is this same government that states in cases it deems fit, ethics need not apply.

    Comment by Amanda Melillo — October 10, 2006 @ 8:36 am

  15. I was not surprised to hear multiple scholars blame the environment at Guantanamo for the activity there, but I have heard this opinion expressed so much that it has begun to sound trite. Not blaming the people who work at Guantanamo and who make it their profession to keep it running and to keep the institution of torture alive removes responsibility. I believe that blaming the environment is too easy and I was more surprised to have heard this argument from torture experts than I was to have heard it at all.

    Also, the discussion of the “expansion of the torture-able class” was a unique perspective I had never before heard. The theory that arguably arbitrary lines we have drawn about who is torture-able and who is not are blurring was refreshing in a very twisted way. I call it refreshing because the “expansion of the torture-able class” as I interpreted it implicates blame, and I feel blame is due here. Widening the definition of war crimes or of acts that merit toruture allows torture as an institution to expand, legitimize, and become a fixture. When I read the phrase “enhanced interrogation” in Jamie’s response, the euphemism jumped out at me. I wondered how we could continue calling torture this and executing the reality of torture without blaming someone.

    Comment by Kelly Stout — October 10, 2006 @ 9:59 am

  16. I was astounded by the figures that were presented by the rabbi during the Faith portion of the teach-in. He said that %67 of people who consider
    themselves religious thought torture could be justified under certain circumstances (the number jumped to 72% among Catholics). Everyone knows torture is wrong. I think everyone would agree, barring ‘certain circumstances,’ there are better ways to go about things that the use of torture. So what sort of ‘certain circumstances’ do these people have in mind? Why not have a poll with this sort of follow up question? Now, I hope that I would never have, in my life responded like these people did to this sort of question. But, I think it is easy for me to say ‘no, torture can never be justified’ because, in light of the current events that this forum was discussing, it makes it easier to realize how horrible something like torture is. When you hear details and reports–and it’s not something only used against the valiant good guy in some action flick–then torture no longer a vague notion, a secret. I guess it is ‘the sanctity of the body’ referred to in this
    discussion that is forgotten about when torture is not well documented and constantly talked about. I’m sure all you’d have to do is pinch the person being polled for about thirty seconds and they’d probably reconsider their answer.

    Comment by Sean — October 10, 2006 @ 10:27 am

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