When given coercive, government-like power, good people turn bad

From the Los Angeles Times

BOOK REVIEW

'The Lucifer Effect' by Philip Zimbardo

Where does evil come from? Look in the mirror, the author says.

By Alan Zarembo

Alan Zarembo is a Times staff writer.

April 22, 2007

DURING the Rwandan genocide, the level of participation by ordinary, normally peaceful citizens was greater than the world had ever seen. I spent time there as a reporter in the mid-1990s, just after the slaughter of 800,000 members of the Tutsi minority, largely by their Hutu neighbors. I tried to imagine how I would have acted if I had been born a Hutu in Rwanda and had grown up in a culture that put a high value on pleasing authority, demonizing Tutsis and planning their extermination.

What would I have done? Maybe I would have been a killer too.

This is the kind of admission that Philip Zimbardo, a longtime psychology professor at Stanford University, wants all of us to make. In "The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil," he styles himself a tour guide of the dark side. The book is built on his well-known Stanford Prison Experiment, which is a standard lesson in many Psych 101 courses. Full disclosure: I have written about the study for the Los Angeles Times; Zimbardo references my article in his notes.

In the summer of 1971, Zimbardo placed a want ad in local newspapers seeking test subjects for a two-week study. Offering $15 a day, he sought psychologically stable young men to be randomly selected to serve as inmates or guards in a mock prison set up in the basement of the Stanford psychology department building. Six days into the study, the professor called it off, because some of the guards had become mildly sadistic, forcing prisoners to embrace each other, play leapfrog, defecate in buckets and do push-ups as punishment for defying orders.

Three decades later, that project stands as one of the seminal studies on the nature of evil. Its lesson is that, in the wrong situation, seemingly good people can turn bad. Zimbardo is not talking about individuals with pathologies who unravel in fits of psychotic rage (as appears to be the case with the shooter in last week's tragedy at Virginia Tech), but of rational, stable people. Some of the study's acclaim has to do with Zimbardo's relentless self-promotion. When the project was barely underway, he convinced Palo Alto police to stage the "arrests" of the students and then called in a San Francisco TV station to tape them for the evening news. The public relations push has rarely let up over the years.

So what else is there to say about the study now? For Zimbardo, a lot. Even the first 250 pages of "The Lucifer Effect" are not enough; he often refers readers to his various websites to read more details about those six days in the basement. The book jacket promises the "full story" for "the first time and in vivid detail," but too often this amounts to giving readers large blocks of transcribed interviews and diaries.

The occasion for this latest revival of the famous study is Abu Ghraib. After the scandal broke in 2004, Zimbardo made the interview rounds as a talking head. He has also served as an expert witness in the legal defense of Ivan "Chip" Frederick, an Army reservist who worked at Abu Ghraib. Zimbardo repeatedly highlights the parallels between his study and the abuses of Abu Ghraib: that much of the mistreatment was sexual in nature, that the worst abuses happened on the night shift and that most of the guards were untrained. But the real-life details of Frederick's story — how a flag-flying, churchgoing husband from small-town Maryland wound up attaching an electrode to the hand of a hooded prisoner standing on a box, and then had the now-infamous photo taken as a souvenir — is more powerful evidence of the Stanford Prison Experiment's conclusions than what happened in the actual study.

The chapters on Abu Ghraib are the most compelling part of "The Lucifer Effect": Zimbardo builds a persuasive case for why the prison had all the ingredients necessary to bring out the worst in humans. Guards, who covered their name tags for anonymity, were unsupervised. The rising American death toll outside the prison helped feed an atmosphere in which the prisoners came to be viewed as less than human. The prisoners became mere playthings for the guards. It was as if the guards didn't realize they were doing wrong.

The Stanford Prison Experiment is really misnamed. "Demonstration" seems an appropriate description — or perhaps even television-reality-show precursor, since Zimbardo and his assistants filmed and recorded much of it through hidden cameras and microphones. Originally, the researchers were curious about how the prisoners would adapt to a state of powerlessness. In a meeting with the guards before the prisoners arrived, Zimbardo told them: "We cannot physically abuse or torture them. We can create boredom. We can create a sense of frustration. We can create fear in them, to some degree…. We're going to take away their individuality in various ways." With so many variables and no control group, it is hard to know exactly what was being measured. Obedience? A desire to please authority? The BBC later tried to concoct its own version of the study, with entirely different results: The guards and prisoners formed a peaceful commune. Zimbardo dismissively calls theirs a "pseudoexperiment."

This doesn't mean that the lessons Zimbardo derives from his study are wrong. Throughout history, philosophy and literature, there is ample evidence that he is right. On a hopeful note, though, Zimbardo coins a new phrase — "the banality of heroism" — because ordinary people are capable of great acts. Veering into the self-help genre, he also develops a "10-step program" for resisting the power of situations. Even the Stanford Prison Experiment had a hero: Christina Maslach, who had recently received her doctorate under Zimbardo and was dating him (today they are married; Zimbardo dedicates "The Lucifer Effect" to her), witnessed the guards' behavior and urged him to end the study.

At Abu Ghraib, there was Joe Darby, a young Army reservist who blew the whistle on the abuses. Was there something about his inner core that inclined him to risk his military standing and arguably his life? Zimbardo doesn't think so: He argues that there was little in his background or psychological makeup to distinguish him from Frederick and the other abusers.

The defense of Frederick failed and he pleaded guilty and was sentenced to eight years in prison. Zimbardo does not argue that he did not deserve to be punished but asserts that situational factors should have mitigated his sentence. He extends blame up the chain of command to President Bush and key Bush administration officials for creating "the System" that facilitated the abuses. An obsession with national security, Zimbardo explains, created an "administrative evil."

"This ideological foundation," he writes, "has been used by virtually all nations as a device for gaining popularity and military support for aggression, as well as repression."

This begs a question that goes largely unanswered in the book. Does Zimbardo's thesis — that evil is a product of circumstance rather than character — also apply to those at the highest ranks of power?

Judge Says Dirty Bomb Case is "Light on Facts"

By Chitra Ragavan

Posted 4/23/07

When Jose Padilla was arrested at O'Hare International Airport in Chicago in May 2002, then Attorney General John Ashcroft interrupted his meetings in Moscow to announce that the United States had nabbed a suspected al Qaeda operative who had intended to blow up a radiological device, or "dirty bomb," in the United States.

But when Padilla soon goes to trial, the government could have considerable trouble proving the case and supporting what Ashcroft then billed as a "significant step forward in the war on terrorism."

Indeed, the allegations of a dirty bomb plot are nonexistent in the government's court papers, and the two sources who made those allegations most likely will not be witnesses for the prosecution. And even the federal judge in the case, Marcia Cooke, said during a recent pretrial hearing that the indictment is "very light on facts."

Jury selection is currently underway in Miami and is expected to last a couple of weeks. Because of the publicity surrounding the case, Cooke allowed an unusual number of peremptory strikes against potential jurors. The judge also has to rule on several big motions outstanding, including whether to honor a request from lawyers for Padilla's codefendants, Adham Amin Hassoun and Kifah Wael Jayyousi, to sever their trials from Padilla's. The three men have been accused of running a "North American support cell" that fed into a global network of operational and support members of al Qaeda who were conspiring to create "violent jihad."

But the lack of specifics about what particular plots the men had initiated in the United States will become the central defense message from lawyers for the three defendants.

"The question is," says University of Richmond constitutional law professor Carl Tobias, "whether the government can connect all the dots in terms of conspiracy and persuade the jury."

The Padilla case is a big test case for the government because Padilla is the first U.S. citizen to be tried in federal court on post-9/11 terrorism charges, says Tobias. There's another thorny issue the government must contend with. Padilla has claimed that he was tortured during military interrogations while he was held at a naval brig after his arrest. Padilla didn't have a lawyer during those interrogations, and his statements will not be introduced into the record in this trial. "Padilla's lawyer will try to raise that," says Tobias, "and the government will avoid it if at all possible."

The trial could be all the more unpredictable, says Tobias, because the government is charging that Padilla was part of a vast international conspiracy, but many of the details are classified.

"A lot of the evidence," says Tobias, "we don't even know about."

New light on the Nick Berg case: US contractors ‘tortured’ for talking to the FBI

Occupation turf war sheds new light on the Nick Berg case
US contractors ‘tortured’ for talking to the FBI

11 April 2007

The case of Donald Vance, an American citizen secretly imprisoned by the US military in Iraq after making accusations against an Iraqi-owned security company for which he worked, has revealing parallels with the 2004 disappearance of Nick Berg, a US contractor whose murder is officially attributed to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

Vance was last week awarded the prestigious Ridenhour Prize for Truth-Telling at a ceremony at the National Press Club in Washington (see "My Name Used to Be 200343" by David Phinney here). The case constitutes further evidence that US military intelligence forces have secretly detained and tortured citizens of the US and probably other Western nations whom they believe may have compromised ‘unconventional operations’ in Iraq.

Vance is a US Navy veteran who signed on with an Iraqi-owned security company based in Baghdad. He and a fellow-worker, Nathan Ertel, came to suspect that the company was involved in illegal arms dealing “and other nefarious activity”.
He contends that he fell foul of the Occupation military authorities because he shared this information with the US Federal Bureau of Investigation. According to David Phinney:

Vance claims that during the months leading up to his arrest, he worked as an unpaid informant for the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Sometimes twice a day, he would share information with an agent in Chicago about the Iraqi-owned Shield Group Security, whose principals and managers appeared to be involved in weapons deals and violence against Iraqi civilians. One company employee regularly bartered alcohol with U.S. military personnel in exchange for ammunition they delivered …

Vance and Ertel barricaded themselves in their office after the Iraqi firm confiscated their ID tags. They were rescued by US soldiers and taken back to the Green Zone. There they were arrested and held, secretly, for three months. They were systematically mistreated and tortured with very loud music.

In a lawsuit now pending against former Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and "other unidentified agents," Vance and Ertel accuse their U.S. government captors of subjecting them to psychological torture day and night. Lights were kept on in their cell around the clock. They endured solitary confinement. They had only thin plastic mattresses on concrete for sleeping. Meals were of powdered milk and bread or rice and chicken, but interrupted by selective deprivation of food and water. Ceaseless heavy metal and country music screamed in their ears for hours on end, their legal complaint alleges.

…

But darker allegations are included in the complaint over false imprisonment. Because he worked with the FBI, Vance contends, U.S. government officials in Iraq decided to retaliate against him and Ertel. He believes these officials conspired to jail the two not because they worked for a security company suspected of selling weapons to insurgents, but because they were sharing information with law enforcement agents outside the control of U.S. officials in Baghdad.

…

“In other words,” claims the lawsuit, “United States officials in Iraq were concerned and wanted to find out about what intelligence agents in the United States knew about their territory and their operations. The unconstitutional policies that Rumsfeld and other unidentified agents had implemented for 'enemies' provided ample cover to detain plaintiffs and interrogate them toward that end.”

If this is true, Vance and Ertel fell victim to a vicious turf war between the shadowy special operations and intelligence forces created by the Neocons and Vice President Cheney – the ‘Other Agencies’ (OAs) set up by Rumsfeld’s Office of Special Plans – and anti-Neocon forces represented by the State Department and the FBI.

This, I have long contended, is probably what happened to Nicholas Berg in April 2004. (For a full list of the material about the Nick Berg case published on my website see links below).

For those new to the case, a brief summary follows …

Nick Berg was a 26 year-old US businessman of Jewish extraction. He was a specialist in radio communications tower repair and construction. Although Berg was, by all accounts, a supporter of George Bush and the US invasion of Iraq, his father, a member of the Democracy Now! group, was an open opponent of the war.

In Iraq, Berg found a commercial partner in Aziz al-Taee, a seedy Iraqi businessman, previously resident in the US, who was an associate of the Iranian-aligned Shiite businessman, Ahmad Chalabi. Aziz had an interesting criminal record in the US but had been instrumental in organising pro-invasion rallies before the war. It is likely that Berg combined his own fledgeling business endeavours with simple commercial intelligence-gathering for others.

Berg also had Iraqi relatives resident in Mosul. It was during a visit to Mosul, on 24 April 2004 that he was arrested by the Iraqi Police at a checkpoint because his Jewish name and Israeli stamps in his passport aroused suspicion. He was reportedly carrying a Farsi phrase book and anti-Zionist literature.

The Iraqi police turned Berg over to US military custody where he was interviewed on three occasions by the FBI. Berg was already well known to the Bureau. It is a curious fact that, while briefly a student at Oklahoma University, and before the events of 11 September 2001, his computer user ID had been used by Zacarias Moussaoui. The FBI had investigated this incident but found him innocent of any wrongdoing. The 911 investigator Michael Wright unearthed evidence supporting the view that Berg was working under CIA supervision at OU, perhaps spying on some of the alleged 911 hijackers who were living nearby at the time. Whatever the truth of this, suspicion must arise that Nick Berg was a part-time CIA operative and/or FBI informant. Certainly Berg made no complaints about his treatment by the FBI while he was in US custody in Mosul.

On 5 April, Berg’s father, who had learned of his incarceration from the US Consul in Baghdad, commenced legal proceedings for his release in the US Federal Court. The circumstances suggest that the US Consulate and the FBI spoke up for him. He was quickly released and offered a flight from Baghdad to Jordan. Reportedly he didn’t take up this offer, saying that he preferred to travel by road, with persons unknown whom he had somehow met. He left the al-Fanar Hotel on 10 April and disappeared.

No credible claim has ever surfaced that ransom demands were made, although Berg would have been a valuable, high-profile captive. A month later his decapitated body was found in Baghdad. Shortly afterwards, the infamous video of his decapitation, officially attributed to al-Qaeda, appeared on the internet. For George Bush, the timing was fortuitous, because the video provided a tailor-made “moral relativity”argument to bolster the US Government just as the story of the US torture of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib broke.

It is not difficult to see what might have happened in Berg’s case.

Remember that in early 2004, it was still possible for small-time would-be entrepreneurs like Berg to move about Iraq relatively freely. But operations by the Sunni and Baathist resistance were increasing. In late May, four US mercenaries were killed in an ambush in the Fallujah, a Sunni stronghold. The subsequent US attempt to subdue the city resulted in a minor disaster for US forces. A few days later US troops raided the offices of the cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, triggering a Shiite uprising. Suddenly, US troops were being attacked by the Shiites whom the US had relied upon to remain moderately well-disposed towards the occupation or at least neutral in relation to the escalating conflict with the Sunni and Baathist resistance. At the same time, in the US mainstream media, the view that the US had been tricked into invading Iraq on behalf of Iran began to be advanced. The fortunes of Ahmad Chalabi, until then something of a favourite with US ruling circles, suddenly plunged. The whole Neocon game-plan was falling apart. Behind the scenes rampant political confusion and paranoia would have reigned.

The Neocon-aligned OAs controlling much of the action in Iraq would certainly have known of Berg’s arrest in Mosul and would have resented the FBI and the Consulate’s interference in the case. And Berg’s relationship to a businessman close to the now discredited Ahmad Chalabi would not have helped. Under the confusing circumstance of the time, Berg looked like a highly suspicious character and he was one with whom the Neocon OAs would have felt they had unfinished business. It isn’t difficult to imagine they would have wanted to have a little chat with him. Nor is it difficult to imagine he might have died “accidentally” while under interrogation. Having seized Berg after his first incarceration had become a legal issue in the United States, his captors would have been in a lot of trouble had they later released him, but his death, apparently at the hands of al-Qaeda, would have been a safe resolution.

Donald Vance was lucky he got a prisoner registration number. At the time Berg was picked up, the CIA and OAs were holding unregistered “ghost prisoners” and they may still be doing so. Vance was probably given a number because the circumstances under which he was rescued by US troops from the Iraqi security company meant that several people whose loyalty and silence could not be relied on by the OAs, knew he had been taken into custody. In Berg’s case he was probably picked, unobserved, by an OA squad.

Donald Vance and his friend Nathan Ertel were very lucky indeed. In slightly different circumstances they might have ended up featuring in an “al-Qaeda” atrocity video, or perhaps, more likely these days, in one featuring “Iranian terrorists”.

Oh, and the Iraqi security company for which they worked is still in business, but under a slightly different name, and is still receiving US funds.

The Nick Berg case on the Nick Possum Home Page
WARNING: some articles contain disturbing images

The Nicholas Berg execution:
A working hypothesis and a resolution for the orange jumpsuit mystery
23 May 2004
Why was Nick Berg wearing a US prison "jumpsuit" when he was apparently executed on video by what are claimed to be al-Qaeda-linked terrorists? Something fishy there, but there was an elegant explanation. This was my first work on the case, later elaborated by …

New evidence and observations on the Berg case
18 July 2004
A close comparison of frames from the Berg video and pictures from Abu Ghraib prison reveals more evidence that the execution video was recorded in the notorious prison complex. Also, a refinement on the issue of the orange jumpsuit, which was actually a two-piece US prison uniform. And for an "off camera" view of a videotaped interrogation like the one seen in the opening 13 seconds of the Berg execution video, see the postscript to this piece. WARNING: disturbing images.

Nick Berg: the missing month
1 June 2004
A lot of people would like to know what happened to Nicholas Berg after he walked out of Baghdad’s Fanar Hotel on 10 April. They say the 26 year-old American contractor was looking for a taxi when he walked off down the street and into history.

Nagging questions about Nicholas Berg's last days:
An open letter to Beth A. Payne, US Consul, Baghdad, Iraq
9 June 2004
Millions want to know the truth about the last days of the young American contractor murdered in Iraq. Was he seized a second time by US forces? The US Consul in Baghdad should tell us all she knows.

Our man in Kabul:
Torturing Afghanis with Fox News' celebrity mercenary
1 August 2004
The fascinating case of Jonathan Keith Idema a mercenary headhunter and one of Donald Rumsfeld's OA boys until he fell foul of the US State Department and the Afghan regime.

Public needs to know about School of the Americas

Article published Apr 11, 2007

Jack Gilroy / Guest Column

Some parents, not wanting to reveal certain information, tell their children, “You're on a need-to-know basis, and you don't need to know this.”

That may be the right of a parent, but as citizens, we need to know more about what our elected government officials are doing. The revelations of Americans torturing other people at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo were a shocker to most of our citizens. But it was no surprise to those of us who have known for many years that the U.S. Army taught torture and assassination to Latino students at the U.S. Army School of the Americas at Ft. Benning, Ga.

A member of my immediate family graduated from the Senior War College in Washington, D.C. When I told him 10 years ago that the SOA was a school of assassins, he was outraged at me. He insisted the United States would never stoop to teach torture or assassination. Just weeks later, he sent me clippings from The Washington Post with an apology. The article (from September 1996) told how Spanish language manuals were used at the SOA to teach Latino soldiers methods of psychological torture, physical torture and assassination.

A group of citizens calling themselves School of Americas Watch (www.soaw.org) investigated the SOA through the Freedom of Information Act. The evidence of torture and assassination was striking. When our legislative work in Congress came close to closing the SOA in 2000, the Pentagon decided to hand over the school to the Department of Defense. The SOA was closed on Dec. 17, 2000 and reopened one month later with a new name, the Western Hemisphere Institute for Security Cooperation (WHINSEC).

“New Name, Same Shame” was our response to the claims of the closure of the SOA. Sen. Paul Coverdale, the Republican senator from Georgia when the school took on the new name, said, “Simply cosmetic.” Democratic Rep. Joe Moakley of Massachusetts, who had headed a movement to close the SOA, said the name change “was like pouring perfume on a toxic dump.”

United States citizens need to know WHINSEC is a toxic place where Latino soldiers are dumped to learn diplomacy through combat arms. SOA Watch has been working with Congress for years to close the SOA and its clone, WHINSEC. Last year, we lost in Congress by just 15 votes. In the November election, 35 who voted against us lost their congressional seats. This year, we may win our case. In our area, Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-22nd District, has consistently voted to close the school. Former representative Sherwood Boehlert always voted to close the school, and we need to bring on his successor, Rep. Michael Arcuri, D-24th District. Rep. Jim Walsh, R-25th District, has always voted with us. Rep. Paul Kanjorski, D-11th District, voted last year to close the school. SOA Watch Scranton is urging Rep. Christopher Carney, D-10th District, to sign on to HR 1707, the new bill just introduced in Congress.

Citizens need to know their tax dollars are being used for a school that has produced thugs, thieves and killers. They need to know that teaching democracy out of a barrel of a gun does not work. The people of Latin America need jobs, not guns. If young Latinos are taken to this country for education, teach them human rights and economic justice.

Binghamton SOA Watch will have an uplifting, hopeful and fun-filled concert of awareness with folk singers Charlie King and Colleen Kattau at 8 p.m. April 14 at First Congregational Church, Front and Main streets in Binghamton.

Iranian envoy wounds 'confirmed'

The head of the International Red Cross in Tehran says he saw wounds on an Iranian diplomat who has alleged that US forces in Iraq tortured him.

Peter Stoeker said there were marks on Jalal Sharafi's feet, legs, back and nose but he was unable to say if they were the result of torture.

Iranian media quoted Mr Sharafi saying the CIA tortured him "day and night".

Mr Sharafi was abducted in Iraq in February and released last week. The US denies any involvement in the case.

Mr Sharafi, second secretary at the Iranian embassy in Baghdad, says he was kidnapped by Iraqi agents operating under the supervision of the CIA.

Iranian state media has quoted Mr Sharafi saying the CIA subjected him to torture as they questioned him about Iranian assistance to groups inside Iraq.

'Evidence of torture'

Iranian television has shown pictures of Mr Sharafi receiving treatment in hospital and quotes a doctor's report saying there are signs someone drilled holes in his feet as well as broke his nose, injured his ear and wounded his neck and back.

The ICRC's Mr Stoeker said he had been happy to meet Mr Sharafi in hospital because his organisation had been unable to find him in Iraq.

He confirmed he saw wounds on Mr Sharafi's feet, legs, back and nose but, not being a doctor, he was unable to say if they were the result of torture and if so, who inflicted them.

"The United States had nothing to do with Mr Sharafi's detention and we welcome his return to Iran," said Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, last week.

He dismissed the claims as "just the latest theatrics of a government trying to deflect attention away from its own unacceptable actions".

An unnamed US intelligence official also denied any claims of abuse, saying: "The CIA does not conduct or condone torture."

Mr Sharafi was freed in Iraq on 3 April, the day before the 15 British sailors were set free in Iran, but no link has been confirmed between the two cases.

'We were torturing people for no reason'

Editor's note: I am moving to post at the primary blog(also see new articles below and at the secondary blog as well).
---
Tara McKelvey

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Tony Lagouranis is a 37-year-old bouncer at a bar in Chicago's Humboldt Park. He is also a former torturer.

That was how he was described in an e-mail promoting a panel discussion, "24: Torture Televised," hosted by the Center on Law and Security of the New York University School of Law on March 21. He doesn't shy away from the description.

As a specialist in a military intelligence battalion, Lagouranis interrogated prisoners at Abu Ghraib, Al Asad Airfield and other places in Iraq from January through December 2004.

Coercive techniques, including the use of dogs, waterboarding and prolonged stress positions were employed on the detainees, he says. Prisoners held at Al Asad Airfield, about 110 miles northwest of Baghdad, were shackled and hung from an upright bed frame welded to the wall in a room in an airplane hanger, he told me in a phone interview.

When he was having problems getting information from a detainee, he recalls, other interrogators said, "Chain him up on the bed frame and then he'll talk to you."

--MORE--

West Point prof says torture encourages enemy to fight to the death rather than surrender

West Point: Canada way off-base on Afghan PoWs

Harpers disturbingly shallow grasp of the strategy and tactics (condoning torture) is counterproductive.

The Prime Minister may believe that talking like a cowboy about the Taliban and human rights make the government appear tough. But in reality, it only makes it dangerous, both to the mission, and our soldier's lives.

It would rob our soldiers of possibly their single most important tactical and strategic tool – moral integrity.

RE: U.S. Lt-col. and professor at West Point, David Grossman book On Killing:

Adhering to the Geneva Conventions and treating PoWs humanely is of supreme strategic and tactical importance to any organized army.

In short, enemy forces are much more willing to surrender when secure in the knowledge that in doing so they will be treated fairly and humanely. Otherwise they will fight to the death and inflict greater casualities - even in a losing effort.

In Iraq: “America's moral integrity was the single most important weapon my platoon had on the streets. It saved innumerable lives ..."

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

PM off base over Afghan PoWs

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's comments regarding the Liberal's "passion" for the Taliban reveals the government's disturbingly shallow grasp of the strategy and tactics necessary to win in Afghanistan.

In his landmark book, On Killing, a U.S. Army lieutenant-colonel and professor at West Point, David Grossman, describes the psychological implications of killing, both legally and illegally, in battle.

Of specific interest is the psychological argument and historical evidence that explain why adhering to the Geneva Conventions and treating PoWs humanely is of supreme strategic and tactical importance to any organized army.

In short, enemy forces are much more willing to surrender when secure in the knowledge that in doing so they will be treated fairly and humanely. Enemies that believe otherwise are likely to fight to the death and inflict greater casualities even in a losing effort.

During WW-II, the Allies' adherence to the Geneva Convention resulted in German soldiers surrendering to U.S. forces in large numbers. This was in sharp contrast to the experience of the Soviets, who cared little for PoWs.

IRAQ: Lieutenant Paul Rieckhoff, who fought in Iraq and then founded and became executive director of the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, makes a similar argument regarding today's conflicts.

Prior to the Abu Ghraib debacle, he noted how "(O)n the streets of Baghdad, I saw countless insurgents surrender when faced with the prospect of a hot meal, a pack of cigarettes and air-conditioning. America's moral integrity was the single most important weapon my platoon had on the streets. It saved innumerable lives ..."

When MPs and ordinary Canadians ask questions about the treatment of Afghan prisoners they don't do so out of contempt, but out of a deep respect and concern for Canadian soldiers. Canadians know we can ill afford to treat enemy combatants inhumanely. They know this because it is in opposition to our values and our very purpose in Afghanistan.

However, they also know there is a compelling military reason: It would rob our soldiers of possibly their single most important tactical and strategic tool – moral integrity. Without this, who knows how many Canadian lives will be needlessly lost in battles where an insurgent, believing that surrender is tantamount to execution, instead opts to fight to the death.

The Prime Minister may believe that talking like a cowboy about the Taliban and human rights make the government appear tough. But in reality, it only makes it dangerous, both to the mission, and our soldier's lives.

Palestinian Medical and Health Institutions Call for Imposing Measures against the Israel Medical Association

February 2007

Occupied Palestinian Territory

Whereas the Israel Medical Association’s (IMA) medical ethics record on torture has been well documented, and the institution has never denounced or seriously confronted the Israeli government on its shameless use of torture;

Whereas the IMA has shown blatant disregard for the ethical issue of medical neutrality, with the IMA unconditionally defending the violations of medical neutrality by the Israeli army in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT);

Whereas the IMA is charged with being the executive arm of the Israeli establishment working to support political imperatives rather than serving universal medical ethics;

Whereas the IMA violates it own Physicians’ Code of Ethics, which stipulates that the goal of the IMA is to: “… maintain a suitable professional and ethical level in the medical profession”;

Whereas the IMA has either contributed directly to maintaining, defending, or justifying oppression and wars, or has stood silently in the face of civilian deaths in the OPT and Lebanon; the killing, harassment and wounding of Palestinian and Lebanese health professionals on duty; and the destruction of the Palestinian and Lebanese health systems -- in the OPT as a result of destruction of the infrastructure, the apartheid Wall, and in Lebanon as a result of the massive destruction of infrastructure, roads, bridges and petrol outlets-- all systematic violations of the Fourth Geneva Convention;

Given that all forms of international intervention have failed to force Israel to comply with international law or to end its repression of Palestinians and the unjust war in Lebanon;

Given that direct appeals to the IMA have been unavailing, including those from both local and international health and human rights organisations over many years, and despite a mass of incriminating documentation;

Given that the World Medical Association, responsible for monitoring medical ethics worldwide, and which has as its current Chair of Council the IMA president, has repeatedly declined to take action as it is mandated to do;

Given that people of conscience in the international community of medical and health professionals and workers shoulder the moral responsibility to fight injustice, as exemplified in their struggle to abolish apartheid in South Africa through various forms of boycott and sanctions;

In the spirit of international solidarity, moral consistency and resistance to injustice and oppression,


We, the undersigned, Palestinian Medical and Health institutions in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, call on world medical and health institutions to:

1. Immediately end cooperation with, and refrain from participation in, any form of collaboration or joint activities with the IMA.
2. Advocate for the condemnation of the IMA.
3. Support Palestinian medical and health institutions directly without requiring them to partner with Israeli counterparts as a condition for such support.


The undersigned:

1. The Medical Association -Jerusalem (Palestinian Physician’s Union).
2. Maqassed Hospital - Jerusalem
3. Red Crescent Society –Gaza
4. The Gaza Community Mental Health Program
5. Arab Women’s Union Hospital – Nablus
6. Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees – West Bank and Gaza (Palestinian Medical Relief Society)
7. Health Work Committees
8. Union of Health Work Committees - Gaza
9. Union of Health Care Committees
10. The National Society for Rehabilitation – Gaza
11. Near East Council of Churches Committee for Refugees - Gaza
12. Union of Agricultural Work Committees
13. Treatment and Rehabilitation Center for the Victims of Torture (TRC)
14. Patients Friends Society -Jenin
15. Union of Palestinian Handicapped
16. Palestinian Family Planning and Protection Association
17. Health Policy Forum
18. Project Loving Care-Jerusalem
19. Palestinian National Institute for NGO’s

Posted on Mar 26, 07 | 12:51 am

The American Ghosts of Abu Ghraib

consortiumnews.com

By Sam Provance
March 27, 2007

Editor’s Note: Former Army Sgt. Sam Provance was one of the heroes of the Abu Ghraib scandal, the only uniformed military intelligence officer at the Iraqi prison to testify about the abuses during the internal Army investigation. When he recognized that the Pentagon was scapegoating low-level personnel, he also gave an interview to ABC News.

For refusing to play along with the cover-up, Provance was punished and pushed out of the U.S. military. The Pentagon went forward with its plan to pin the blame for the sadistic treatment of Iraqi detainees on a handful of poorly trained MPs, not on the higher-ups who brought the lessons of “alternative interrogation techniques” from the Guatanamo Bay prison to Abu Ghraib.

The Congress, which was then controlled by the Republicans, promised a fuller investigation. Provance submitted a sworn statement. But Congress never followed through, leaving Provance hanging out to dry. Then, in February 2007, he went to a special screening of the documentary, “Ghosts of Abu Ghraib,” and learned more than he expected about why the scandal died:

For those of you who have not heard of me, I am Sam Provance. My career as an Army sergeant came to a premature end at age 32 after eight years of decorated service, because I refused to remain silent about Abu Ghraib, where I served for five months in 2004 at the height of the abuses.

A noncommissioned officer specializing in intelligence analysis, my job at Abu Ghraib was systems administrator (“the computer guy”). But I had the misfortune of being on the night shift, saw detainees dragged in for interrogation, heard the screams, and saw many of them dragged out. I was sent back to my parent unit in Germany shortly after the Army began the first of its many self-investigations.

In Germany, I had the surreal experience of being interrogated by one of the Army-General-Grand-Inquisitors, Major General George Fay, who showed himself singularly uninterested in what went on at Abu Ghraib.

I had to insist that he listen to my eyewitness account, whereupon he threatened punitive actions against me for not coming forward sooner and even tried to hold me personally responsible for the scandal itself.

The Army then demoted me, suspended my Top Secret clearance, and threatened me with ten years in a military prison if I asked for a court martial. I was even given a gag order, the only one I know to have been issued to those whom Gen. Fay interviewed.

But the fact that most Americans know nothing of what I saw at Abu Ghraib, and that my career became collateral damage, so to speak, has nothing to do with the gag order, which turned out to be the straw that broke this sergeant’s back.

After seeing first-hand that the investigation wasn't going to go anywhere and that no one else I knew from the intelligence community was being candid, I allowed myself to be interviewed by American and German journalists. Sadly, you would have had to know German to learn the details of what I had to say at that time about the abuses at Abu Ghraib.

Later, Republican Congressman Christopher Shays, who was then chair of the House Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International Relations, invited me to testify on Feb. 14, 2006, so my sworn testimony is on the public record. [See: www.humanrightsfirst.info/pdf/06214-usls-provance-statment.pdf]

On June 30, 2006, dissatisfied with the Pentagon’s non-responsiveness to requests for information on my situation, the Committee on Government Reform issued a subpoena requiring then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to produce the requested documents by July 14. I heard nothing further. I guess he forgot. I guess Congress forgot, too.

Thanks largely to a keen sense of justice and a good dose of courage on the part of pro bono lawyers and congressional aides, I made it through the next two and a half years of professional limbo, applying my computer skills to picking up trash and performing guard duty. Instead of a prison sentence, I was honorably discharged on Oct. 13, 2006 and began my still-continuing search for a place back in the civilian world.

Producers for Rory Kennedy’s documentary “Ghosts of Abu Ghraib” were among the journalists who interviewed me—discreetly—in Germany. On Feb. 12, 2007 I attended a screening of that documentary. What happened there bears telling.

Surreal Event

Walking into the fancy government building to see the documentary proved to be a bizarre experience. Hardly in the door, I saw a one of the guests shaking his head, saying in some wonderment, “The young woman at the front desk greeted me with a cheerful smile; Abu Ghraib? she said. Right this way, please.”

The atmosphere did seem more appropriate for an art show than a documentary on torture. People were dressed to the nines, heartily laughing, and servers with white gloves were walking about with wine and hors d’oeuvres.

I managed to find one other person who was also in the film, former Gen. Janis Karpinski, with whom I shared the distinction of having been reduced in rank because we refused to “go along to get along.”

I had wanted to talk to her ever since the abuses at Abu Ghraib came to light. We’ve been on the same page from the beginning. She seemed happy to meet me as well, but so many others wanted her attention that serious conversation was difficult.

Everyone shuffled into the theater and Gen. Karpinski’s and my presence there was announced briefly during the introductions. I was pleasantly surprised to hear that the showing was to be followed by a discussion led by Sen. Edward Kennedy (who was there from the start) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (who arrived only after the introductions).

It was largely because of the interest that Sen. Kennedy took in the Army’s retaliation against me that I escaped the Army’s full wrath for truth telling. And Sen. Graham initially had approached me when he heard of my situation, not even realizing at the time that I was from South Carolina. So I was looking forward to what I expected would be an unusual bipartisan challenge to the practice of torture.

Flashback

When the lights dimmed and the documentary started, I began to be affected more emotionally than I had expected.

It was the words of the other soldiers that touched me most deeply, because I could relate to them; I knew those soldiers on one level or another. I got worried I might not make it through the screening, that I would break down right there.

Ironically, it was my anger at their plight that kept me composed. Everything in the film was all too familiar to me. The soldiers explaining they were just following the orders of their supervisors; the higher-ups vigorously shifting blame from themselves onto soldiers of lesser rank—the whole nine yards.

And to see those Iraqi faces again—the broken hearts and ruined lives of innocent Iraqi citizens detained, abused, tortured. And the systematic cover-up, with the Army investigating itself over and over again, giving the appearance of a “thorough” investigation.

After the film, Senators Kennedy and Graham took seats on the stage to begin their discussion. I was shocked to see it descend into heated debate.

Sen. Graham began saying things that I couldn’t believe I was hearing. He made a complete 180-degree turn on the issue of torture from when I had spoken to him on the phone not long after the Abu Ghraib scandal was exposed.

Now he was portraying Abu Ghraib as a place where only a handful of soldiers resided (you’ve heard of them, the so-called “rotten apples).” I felt betrayed.

Worse still, the only officer Graham saw fit to criticize (he assumed in absentia) was Gen. Karpinski. And he laid it on thick, asserting forcefully that she should have been court-martialed because she was the reason things went awry.

The senator argued that Karpinski (who was responsible for overseeing 17 prisons with military police, most of whom had not been trained in detention operations) should have driven from her headquarters to Abu Ghraib for random middle-of-the-night checks. He then saw fit to contrast her behavior with what Graham described the due diligence he exercised nightly as an Army lawyer in checking the “dormitory.” (sic)

...and sick. Anyone who knows much about Abu Ghraib knows that all kinds of Army brass lived and worked there, and that it was host to visits by former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, his deputy Paul Wolfowitz, U.S. pro-consul Paul Bremer, Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, Gen. Geoffrey Miller (in charge of “Gitmo-izing Abu Ghraib), Gen. Barbara Fast, and even National Security Council functionary Frances Townsend.

They were all there. I don’t know how many, if any, saw fit to check the “dormitory.”

Torture Works?

During the discussion/debate, Sen. Graham seemed to be speaking in support of virtually everything that we opposed – and that had been exposed in the documentary – throwing all reason out the window. He dropped a bombshell when he began defending the practice of torture itself, using the torture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed as an example. He cited the “good stuff” gleaned from treating him that way, as if to say, “it works!”

This raised again the question in my mind about just what kind of person professionally tortures somebody, and what kind of mentality would approve of it? (I found myself almost wishing such people could hear the screams—almost, because I would not wish that on my worst enemy.)

The obvious answer is: Sadists. Which is what the administration called the military police in the infamous photographs. And what was seen in them was small stuff compared to what else happened—and continued to happen even after the abuses at Abu Ghraib were exposed.

Benjamin Thompson, a former U.S. Army specialist at Abu Ghraib, has told Reuters that exposure of the scandal “basically diverted everyone’s attention away from anything that was not in the photographs... as long as we didn’t stack people and make pyramids, we were doing a great job.”

This reminds me of my wonderment at President George W. Bush’s public advocacy last fall of the “alternative” interrogation procedures in what clearly is one of his favorite CIA programs. Perhaps better than others I can imagine what has been tucked under the rubric of “alternative” techniques, the alleged success of which the President has advertised and has been picked up in the captive corporate media.

At one point Sen. Graham asked the audience who among us considered Army specialist Joe Darby a hero. Darby was the one who initially gave the Abu Ghraib photos to Army investigators. Pausing just a few seconds, Graham used the momentary silence as a cue to continue talking about how the American people really don’t care about torture.

For me, the worst part is that I have found this to be generally true. It is more convenient for people not to care. By and large, they are far more prepared to accept official explanations than to take the trouble to find out what is really going on. For, if they found out, their consciences might require them to do something about it.

Sen. Graham’s demeanor was downright eerie in the way he chose to relate to the crowd…beaming with a kind of delight and mocking the outrage that he must have seen building.

This reminded me of my experience in Iraq, where I would hear soldiers discussing their abuse of detainees. It was always cast as a humorous thing, and each recounting won the expected—sometimes forced—laugh.

But now I am in Washington, I thought. Has everyone been bitten by the torture bug? I was sickened to watch a senior senator and lawyer flippantly dismiss what happened at Abu Ghraib, and act as though he knew more about the abuses than the people, like me, who were there.

Sadly, Graham is not the first elected official who has become part of the problem rather than the solution.

Audience Unrest

Unrest was spreading in the audience to the point where some were threatened with ejection. People were yelling at Sen. Graham from all over the theater and for a moment I thought a riot might ensue.

But Sen. Kennedy’s response pierced the darkness with the white-hot light of truth. Clearly, he was just as uncomfortable as most of the rest of us at what we had just witnessed, and he spoke in a straightforward way against what is just plain wrong.

For me, his comments came in the nick of time. I was beginning to feel not only betrayed, but a little crazy. Was this really happening? Later, I was happy to be able to shake Sen. Kennedy’s hand as he left the theater.

At the end, producer Rory Kennedy brought a portable microphone to Gen. Karpinski where she sat in the audience and, directing her attention back to the stage, explained to Sen. Graham that Karpinski was present and that it seemed only fair to give her a chance to comment on his remarks about her.

She rose and, in quiet but no uncertain terms, accused Graham and the general officers involved in Abu Ghraib of “cowardice.” Then she noted that as a South Carolinian she intended to work very hard to ensure that he would not be the senior senator beyond January 2009.

As to the merits of his charges against her, Gen. Karpinski revealed that she had actually pressed hard to be court-martialed and to appear before a jury of her peers, to get the whole truth up and out. She explained that the Army refused her request, presumably because a court martial might jeopardize the Pentagon’s attempt to restrict blame to the “few bad apples.”

Graham was initially taken somewhat aback, but he recovered quickly. He offered no apology. Rather, he attempted to trivialize what had just happened with the jovial remark, “Well, I guess I lost your vote!” Smirk. Smirk.

Make that two votes.

Afterwards, it was back to high-society small talk and wine, while I looked for someone to really talk to. A reporter who has been covering the issue from the start sought me out and told me something that made me want to cry.

“You know we’ve talked over the years and I have followed your case, but I just want to tell you that I have found everything you’ve said to me all along to be true.”

For so long people have tried so hard to discredit either me or my testimony. Now the dust had settled for a moment; it was encouraging to know the truth can still stand tall.

I ended up hanging out with Janis Karpinski and later walking her to the Metro station. I gave her a big hug and told her I’d always be her soldier. Then, as she went down the escalator I saluted her, and she returned my salute.

“Thank you,” she said. “Anytime, General!” I replied. Anytime.

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The CIA's Italian Job

by MOHAMAD BAZZI

[from the April 9, 2007 issue]

Cairo

From her third-floor balcony, the Egyptian woman saw the whole thing: a group of CIA and Italian agents snatching the imam of her local mosque off a Milan street, stuffing him into a white van and driving off. It was February 17, 2003, and Hassan Osama Nasr was walking to the mosque for noon prayers. He was stopped by a man waving a badge and shouting, "Police!" In perfect Italian, the man demanded Nasr's ID, wallet and cellphone. Then two men came up from behind Nasr, grabbed his arms and forced him into the van. It all took about three minutes.

But the agents didn't know that someone had seen the abduction. The woman called the mosque, and word spread among worshipers. By evening, the mosque's leaders suspected that Nasr--a cleric known as Abu Omar who had fled Egypt in 1990--would be sent back to his homeland. They phoned Montasser al-Zayyat, a prominent lawyer in Cairo who has spent his career defending Islamic militants. "The plan was that no one would see him being kidnapped and he would disappear," Zayyat said in an interview at his office. "But that Egyptian woman who happened to be standing on her balcony saved him."

Nasr, 44, is now at the center of the most politically explosive case involving the CIA practice of "extraordinary rendition," in which a suspected militant is secretly abducted and taken to another country for interrogation and, usually, torture. After years of denial, the Bush Administration now acknowledges using the extra-judicial tactic but insists that it does not sanction the torture of suspects.

In February an Italian judge indicted twenty-six Americans--a US Air Force colonel and twenty-five suspected CIA operatives, including the former Rome station chief and former Milan sub-station chief--for their role in the months-long plot to abduct Nasr. Although none of the suspects are in custody, the trial is set to begin June 8, and it has already become an embarrassment for the Bush Administration and the Italian government.

The public relations disaster may have saved others from abduction and torture. "I suspect that Abu Omar's case has slowed down the policy of renditions," said John Sifton, senior researcher on terrorism and counterterrorism at Human Rights Watch. "It was an incredible embarrassment for the CIA. Undoubtedly, it made them think twice about other abductions."

But the star witness, Nasr, might not be able to testify in Italy. He was released from an Egyptian prison in February, but his lawyer says he is not allowed to leave the country or to make any public statements. "The Egyptian authorities warned him that if he speaks about the case, he will be sent back to prison," said Zayyat. (Egyptian officials had made good on an earlier threat to throw Nasr back in prison: After being released in April 2004, he was arrested twenty days later when the secret police learned that he had been discussing his abduction.)

American and Egyptian officials have refused to comment on the case. Egypt has even refused to confirm or deny that it had Nasr in custody. But a Cairo appeals court ordered his release after he'd been held in prison for four years without charge. And now Egypt, the second-­largest recipient of US foreign aid after Israel, is trying to save its benefactor from further embarrassment by preventing Nasr from testifying in Italy. "The Americans want this case to go away," Zayyat said. "They don't want Abu Omar to publicly describe what happened to him."

It's hard to believe that the CIA didn't know what would happen to Nasr. "Egypt's intelligence services are infamous for using torture," said Sifton. "The Americans knew that by sending him to Egypt, he would be tortured," Zayyat said. "They wanted someone to do this dirty work for them."

The trial is likely to reveal new details about the CIA's covert operations and the complicity of Italian intelligence services, and to cast a harsh light on the Bush Administration's dealings with its European allies. Nasr's lawyer plans to travel to Italy for the trial and to file a lawsuit against the US and Italian governments, seeking $13 million in damages. Zayyat also plans to file a separate lawsuit against former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, alleging that he personally approved the abduction. Berlusconi has denied having prior knowledge of the plan.

Nasr entered Italy illegally in 1997 and was granted political asylum four years later. He had fled Egypt after being imprisoned twice in the late 1980s for antigovernment sermons at a mosque in Alexandria. Although he has not been charged with a crime in Italy, he was under investigation for allegedly recruiting Muslim men to fight in Iraq. Italian officials have said they were about to detain him for questioning when the CIA abducted him.

"Abu Omar is prepared to go to Italy, even if he's going to be tried and imprisoned," Zayyat said. "He's convinced of his innocence, and he's confident in the Italian judiciary."

The lead Italian prosecutor, Armando Spataro, said after the indictments were handed down that he wants Nasr to testify against the American agents, but Egypt has never responded to an Italian request for access to the cleric. "Obviously it would be useful to hear what he has to say," Spataro said. "If he is banned from leaving [Egypt], there's nothing we can do."

In April 2006 Nasr appeared in an Egyptian court for the first time and gave a detailed, two-hour account of his experience. Zayyat said Egyptian officials have refused to give him or Italian prosecutors a transcript of that session. But Zayyat provided The Nation with four pages of handwritten notes he took during his client's testimony. Nasr told the court that shortly after his abduction, US and Italian agents put a black hood over his head and "punched me in the stomach and all over my body." He was driven to Aviano Air Base, a joint US-Italian installation, where he boarded a small plane for a flight that lasted an hour and a half. As Nasr tried to resist, the beatings continued on the plane. "I was bewildered," he told the court. "I didn't understand what was happening around me."

At a US base in Germany, Nasr was led into a "large, cold room." His hands were untied and the hood was taken off. He saw a group of fifteen to twenty men all wearing masks and Special Forces uniforms. The men wrapped his entire head and face with duct tape and cut holes over his nose and mouth so he could breathe. He was stripped of his clothes and dressed in a jumpsuit, and his arms and legs were shackled. He was then hustled onto another plane. By that point, Nasr had stopped resisting--and the beating had ended. "I had given up," he said. "I was resigned to my fate."

After the plane landed at Cairo airport on February 18, 2003, a guard on the tarmac told Nasr, "You have arrived in Egypt, Abu Omar." Still blindfolded and shackled, he was stuffed into another van and driven to the Mukhabarat (secret police) headquarters outside Cairo. Guards removed the duct tape from his head and face, allowing his hair and beard to take their form. He was escorted into a room by an Egyptian security official who told him that "two pashas" wanted to speak with him.

Nasr testified that he recognized one of the men as Egypt's interior minister. The other man appeared to be an American. "Only the Egyptian spoke," Nasr said. "He offered me to become an informant. If I accepted, he said, I would be returned to Italy right away before anyone noticed my disappearance." Nasr refused, and the two men left. That's when the torture began. He testified that he was beaten with wooden sticks, given electric shocks and hung upside down. He was sometimes shackled to an iron rack, nicknamed "the Bride" and zapped with stun guns.

At other times, Nasr testified, he was tied to a wet mattress on the floor. To prevent him from moving, a guard sat on a wooden chair on top of Nasr's shoulders. Another interrogator would then flip a switch, sending jolts of electricity into the mattress coils. For most of his four years in prison, Nasr was kept in solitary confinement. He testified that his cell had no toilet and no lights, and "roaches and rats walked across my body."

Nasr spent the first seven months at the Mukhabarat prison. He was then sent to a State Security prison, where he was regularly tortured during interrogations. Throughout this time, Zayyat was trying to confirm that Nasr was in Egyptian custody. "I was looking for him in the prisons where they keep political detainees. But I found nothing," Zayyat said. "I filed requests for information from the courts. Nothing."

A year after Nasr's abduction, Zayyat finally established his presence in Egypt when several Islamists detained in State Security told the lawyer that they had seen Nasr being moved around the prison. "It took one year to confirm that he was here," Zayyat said, shaking his head. "One year! And I still didn't receive any official word."

In March 2004 Zayyat filed a petition at the appeals court in Cairo seeking Nasr's release. The prosecutors filed a response, in which they sought to detain the cleric for "membership in an illegal organization"--usually a reference to the Muslim Brotherhood or Egypt's two violent Islamist groups, Gama'a Islamiya (Islamic Group) or Islamic Jihad. Prosecutors argued that Nasr was active in the Gama'a, which helped assassinate President Anwar Sadat in 1981 and later waged a bloody seven-year campaign to topple the government. But the court did not find the evidence sufficient, and it ordered Nasr's release. When I asked Zayyat if he had a copy of the court's decision, he laughed, saying, "We don't have those kinds of laws in this country."

In April 2004 State Security agents drove Nasr to his family's home in Alexandria. They told him to keep quiet if he wanted to stay out of prison. But Nasr immediately called his wife and friends in Milan and described his abduction in detail. He did not know that Italian prosecutors had tapped the phones at his home and mosque in Milan as part of their investigation into the CIA plot. Those wiretaps provided Italian investigators with their first full account of Nasr's case. When word got back to Egyptian authorities that Nasr was talking, he was arrested again.

"When they brought me back to State Security, they said, 'We warned you not to talk with anyone, but you violated our deal,'" Nasr testified. "'So now we're going to keep you.'"

During this second imprisonment, Nasr was held under Egypt's emergency laws--imposed by President Hosni Mubarak soon after Sadat's assassination and never rescinded--which allow authorities to hold anyone without charge for thirty days. But the police and intelligence agencies can renew the thirty-day period with little effort, turning it into indefinite detention. Nasr testified that he wasn't tortured as badly during his second stint, but he was again placed in solitary. Despairing and worried that he would never be released, he twice tried to commit suicide.

When Zayyat learned that his client was arrested again, he began filing monthly petitions for his release. "Every time the thirty-day period would expire, I would submit another petition," he said. "It would say, This person is being held without charge, and there's nothing to justify his detention." In the end, it was one of these procedural petitions--and, undoubtedly, the growing international scandal--that won Nasr's release.

On February 22 Nasr appeared unexpectedly at the trial of an Egyptian blogger in Alexandria [see Negar Azimi, "Bloggers Against Torture," February 19]. In front of the TV cameras, he pulled back his sleeves to show evidence of the torture he'd endured: scars on his wrists and ankles. He said there were more scars on his stomach and other parts of his body that he was too embarrassed to show. "I don't want any more trouble with anyone," he said. "My body cannot bear any more prison and torture." When journalists asked him for more details, he walked away, saying he feared going back to prison.

Mohamad Bazzi, the Middle East bureau chief for Newsday since 2003, is based in Beirut.

Australian pleads guilty to terror charge

MSNBC.com

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Hicks, a Guantanamo detainee, admits providing material support

The Associated Press

Updated: 3:49 a.m. MT March 27, 2007

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVAL BASE, Cuba - An Australian accused of helping the Taliban fight the U.S.-led invasion of Afghanistan pleaded guilty Monday to providing material support for terrorism, a step lawyers said would assure his transfer from Guantanamo to a prison in Australia.

David Hicks, 31, was the first of hundreds of Guantanamo detainees to make such a plea at this U.S. Navy base since the first terror suspects were brought here in 2002. On Monday, he also became the first detainee to face prosecution under revised military tribunals set up after the Supreme Court found the Pentagon’s previous system for trying Guantanamo prisoners unconstitutional.

He could be sentenced by the end of the week, military officials said. Defense attorneys said a gag order by the military judge prevented them from discussing details of the plea until a sentence is announced and it could not be immediately determined whether there was a formal plea bargain.

“If I was a betting man, I’d say the odds are good” that Hicks will be home by the end of the year, Air Force Col. Morris Davis, the chief prosecutor for the Guantanamo tribunals, told reporters after Hicks entered his plea.

In the days leading up to the hearing, defense attorneys said Hicks did not expect a fair trial and was severely depressed and considering a plea deal to end his five-year imprisonment at the U.S. naval base in Cuba.

The United States has agreed to let Hicks serve any sentence in Australia.

‘First step’
“This is the first step toward David returning to Australia,” said David McLeod, an Australian attorney for Hicks.

The heavyset Hicks appeared at his hearing wearing a khaki prison jumpsuit. The Muslim convert shaved his beard before his arraignment but kept the long hair that his attorney says he uses to block the constant light in his cell.

His father Terry Hicks had an emotional reunion with his son before the arraignment Monday. But he already had boarded a plane to leave Guantanamo when he was told an evening session would be held and was not in the courtroom when his son entered his pleas.

Hicks’ military attorney, Marine Corps Maj. Michael Mori, told the judge, Marine Col. Ralph Kohlmann, that his client was pleading guilty to one of two counts of providing material support for terrorism and not guilty to the other. Asked by Kohlmann if this was correct, Hicks said solemnly: “Yes, sir.”

According to the charge sheet, Hicks spent weeks trying to join the fight in Afghanistan alongside the Taliban against invading U.S. forces and their Northern Alliance allies, the charge sheet says, but the Taliban’s lines collapsed barely two hours after he reached the front. He was armed with grenades and an assault rifle and his menial assignments along the way included guarding a tank.

The count he pleaded guilty to says he intentionally provided support to a terror organization involved in hostilities against the United States. He denied the charge that he supported for preparation, or in carrying out, an act of terrorism.

The charge carries a maximum penalty of life in prison, but Davis has said he would seek a sentence of about 20 years. He said the five years Hicks has spent at Guantanamo could be considered in the ultimate sentence.

The United States is holding about 385 prisoners at Guantanamo. Among them is Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, an al-Qaida member who during a so-called Combatant Status Review Tribunal earlier this month confessed to planning the Sept. 11 attacks and other terror acts. That military panel determined he was an enemy combatant who could later face charges.

Unlike the alleged terrorist mastermind, Hicks has been depicted by the U.S. military in its charge sheet as a minor figure.

Kohlmann, wearing a black robe over his uniform, ordered attorneys to attend a closed session Tuesday in a hilltop courthouse on the base in southeast Cuba to specify the acts to which Hicks is pleading guilty. The judge will also make sure Hicks understands the consequences of the plea, officials said.

A panel of military tribunal members convened for the Hicks case must travel to Guantanamo to approve any sentence, a development that could come this week.

“We’re anticipating in the next few days bringing this to a conclusion,” Davis said.

Outcry in Australia
In Australia, Foreign Minister Alexander Downer said he expected Hicks would return soon to Australia, where an outcry over his continued detention has cost Prime Minister John Howard support ahead of elections due this year.

“I am pleased for everybody’s sake that this saga ... has come to a conclusion,” Downer told Australian Broadcasting Corp. radio.

But Sen. Bob Brown, leader of the minor opposition Greens party, said Hicks made the plea so he could get out of Guantanamo Bay and his guilt would remain in doubt.

“He’s pleaded guilty but under circumstances that wouldn’t hold up in an Australian court and that debate will fly home with Hicks,” Brown said.

The plea announcement marked a dramatic conclusion to the first hearing under revised military tribunals.

Defense lawyers and human rights groups say the new system, approved by the U.S. Congress last year, is also flawed because it does not offer the same protections as U.S. courts.

“In a narrow sense, David Hicks was not legally coerced today to issue a plea, but he was operating in the background of a highly coercive system that has held him for five years and did little today to restore his faith ... in the legitimacy of the system,” said Jennifer Daskal of Human Rights Watch.

At the first session in Monday’s hearing, Hicks asked for more lawyers to help defend him, but Kohlmann instead ordered two civilian attorneys to leave the defense table, leaving the defendant with one attorney.

Kohlmann said the two civilian lawyers, including a Defense Department attorney, were not authorized to represent Hicks.

One of the lawyers, Joshua Dratel, said he refused to sign an agreement to abide by tribunal rules because he was concerned the provisions did not allow him to meet with his client in private.

Scolded by judge
“I’m shocked because I just lost another lawyer,” Hicks said after Dratel’s departure, drawing a scolding from the judge for interrupting as he explained the reasoning for removing the lawyers.

Mori challenged Kohlmann’s impartiality, arguing that his participation in the previous round of military trials that the Supreme Court last year found to be illegal created the appearance of bias.

A challenge of the reconstituted tribunal system is pending before the Supreme Court. Lawyers for detainees have asked the high court to step in again and guarantee that the prisoners can challenge their confinement in U.S. courts.

Lawmakers have also questioned the detainees’ lack of access to U.S. courts.

© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Twilight Zone / Dress code

Your tax dollars at work.
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Last update - 18:42 22/03/2007

By Gideon Levy

What won't the Shin Bet security service do to break the spirit of a Palestinian detainee? Before, interrogators used threats and told detainees that their loved ones were being arrested because of them. Now they even put on the show. Under false pretenses, agents brought the wife and the aged father of a security detainee to a Shin Bet interrogation facility, where they forced him to remove his kaffiyeh in order to humiliate him, then dressed him in a prisoner's uniform, held him by both arms and, through a window, displayed him to his son, who has been kept for weeks in isolation, without the opportunity to meet with a lawyer.

The result: Prisoner M. launched a hunger strike. He has attempted to kill himself in his cell three times, twice by bashing his head against the wall and once by hanging.

In its ruling prohibiting the use of torture, the High Court of Justice wrote: "A reasonable investigation is necessarily one free of torture, free of cruel, inhuman treatment of the subject and free of any degrading handling whatsoever."

The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel argued in its petition to the High Court regarding M.: "The use of the interrogation technique by which the petitioner's father and wife were presented to him as prisoners, caused and is causing the petitioner genuine psychological suffering which has led him to hurt himself and even to attempt suicide."

Justices Ayala Procaccia, Elyakim Rubinstein and Devora Berliner ruled two weeks ago on M.'s case. The High Court ordered the Shin Bet to tell M. that his wife was never arrested and to arrange for a psychiatrist to examine M. by the end of the week. In addition, it said that M.'s representatives could ask the relevant authority to review the staged imprisonment of his father to determine "the degree of legitimacy of the use of this method."

The result: In Ashkelon Prison there is a prisoner in a state of severe psychological distress, while at his home in Beit Awa his wife and father are absolutely distraught over the dirty trick played on him. The state has not permitted them to visit him since the arrest.

Psychiatrist Dr. Yaakov Elish of the Be'er Yaakov Mental Health Center, who examined the prisoner for the High Court, wrote: "In the wake of distress over imprisonment, he has developed a depressive response with tendencies to self-injury."

Beit Awa is south-west of Hebron, on the Green Line. It has 10,000 residents and two main clans. The prisoner's father, A., is from the Suwayti clan and describes himself as "nearly Israeli." For 34 years he has roamed through Israeli cities, collecting and trading in used items. Last Friday he was at a house in Ramat Gan to pick up a table and four chairs, while on Sunday, he got a call from Bat Yam, to come pick up a dining room set. In the past, A. worked for the Solel Boneh construction company, at Soroka Hospital in Be'er Sheva and for the Jewish National Fund on Kibbutz Lahav. He is 63, the father of 15, who speaks fluent Hebrew and has Israeli friends.

M., 32, is his third son. His father doesn't want the full name published because of his son's mental state. We are in M.'s home, in a living room filled with objects he chose out of his father's collecting: a dish with Hebrew text, an enormous wooden globe, an old clarinet and an old record player. It's not what you'd call a "political" living room: There is no sign of any connection with the national struggle, in contrast to most homes in the territories.

A few years ago M. opened an reupholstery shop in Beit Awa. He was arrested only once in his life, about two years ago, when he was held for six days. His wife is from the Rajoub family. They have four young children. A. says that apart from M., none of his children has ever been arrested. He is convinced that someone falsely accused his son.

At 2:30 A.M. on February 1, their world was turned upside down. M. and his wife were awakened by the sound of rocks being thrown at their door. M. went outside in his pajamas, where he was met by soldiers who told his wife to bring him a coat and shoes. M. disappeared into the night with the soldiers. For the next 30 days, no one was allowed to visit him, including his lawyer.

A week after M.'s arrest, again in the middle of the night, soldiers knocked on his father's door. A. says that there were nine Jeeps parked around his house. When he came to the door he was taken to an officer. "The officer said to me: 'Good evening.' I said: 'Good evening.' He said: 'What's your name? Whose father are you? How many children do you have? Give me their names, from oldest to youngest.' When I got to M., he said: 'Enough,'" A. related.

The officer introduced himself as the "captain" who arrested M. "He told me: 'I want you to come tomorrow, at 8:30 A.M., so I can give you a ticket to see your son. He's in a bad way. And bring him a change of clothes.' I told him: 'Okay, but give me another half-hour, until nine.' He said: 'Okay,'" A. continued his story.

The captain told him that he also intended to go to M.'s house to give his wife a ticket. A. pleaded with him not to wake his daughter-in-law, who was alone with the children. "It's one in the morning and she's alone with the children... she'll be afraid. I'll bring her with me, without a ticket. You have my word."

That morning M.'s father and wife took a taxi to the Etzion detention facility. They waited outside until noon, when M.'s wife was summoned and told to leave the package of clothing outside. A. was called in about half an hour later. "I went in there with the clothing, but they told me to leave it," A. said. "I went up to the second floor and saw my son's wife." A. was questioned briefly. His daughter-in-law told him that in the meantime she was taken into the husband's room. When M. tried to tell her not to worry and that he was innocent, the guards pushed him roughly. Their meeting lasted a few minutes.

A. continues: "Now they told me: Take off your kaffiyeh. They took it and put it on the chair. I'm a 63-year-old man. For us, this is our dignity. I don't have any hair. Two men came, one an Ethiopian [Jew], the other maybe Druze, speaking Arabic better than me: 'Kif halak, ya hajj?'. I told him I was fine. He said: Stand on the chair. I said: 'If the government tells me to stand on the chair, I'll stand on it.' The Ethiopian and the other one left and came back two minutes later with a torn and dirty coat that a dog wouldn't wear. I said: 'I have good clothes, why are you giving me this?' And one of them said: 'Stand up and put it on.' I said: 'It's the Israeli government, what can I do?' And they fastened the jacket so my clothes underneath wouldn't show. Only at the end did I figure out what it was. A movie."

The uniformed guards took A. by the arm on either side. "So it would look like I'm sick or something," A. continued. "Me, who hauled a refrigerator down from the tenth floor the other day. They took me to the stairs and told me to walk down each one - not more than 20 centimeters high - in two steps, as if I was sick or stiff. When I'm carrying a heavy washing machine, I take each step normally and they're telling me to take two steps each time.

A. and his two jailers, his co-stars in the show, went down to the yard, where A. was instructed to look up at the second-floor window. A. did not see his son, his eyesight is poor. A. was released immediately afterward. "That was the first film."

A. and his daughter-in-law returned home, leaving the clothes for M. they had brought. M.'s wife told A. that M. was standing at the window, thin and unshaven, when A. was in the yard in the prisoner's coat.

A week later, the telephone rang. It was the captain. He told A. to return to Etzion the next day, where he was questioned by an agent who introduced himself as his son's interrogator. A.: "He asked about my family. I have 15 children. It took two hours. At the end he said to me: What kind of work does M. do? And I told him: He rents a storage room and deals in furniture."

A week ago, security forces raided M.'s upholstery workshop. A. says that almost 20 Jeeps showed up for the operation. The soldiers broke the doors and windows and broke in, wreaking havoc.

We have seen the upholstery shop, and that is all it is, nothing more.

A prisoner who was released several days ago told A. that M. attempted suicide in prison and that his condition is serious. Perhaps M. wanted to put an end to his father's suffering, believing him to be ill and imprisoned on his account.

The IDF Spokesman's Office did not issue a response by press time.

Why CIA abuse is medieval madness

Michael Otterman

• Torture can produce unreliable confessions, while non-coercive methods often reach the truth

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• March 22, 2007

SINCE medieval times, water-boarding, or forcing water into captives' lungs, has been used to compel prisoners to confess. During the Inquisition, water-boarded prisoners admitted to shape-shifting and cavorting with the devil.

Today, terrorism suspects subjected to this medieval torture admit the wildest things too. Just ask 9/11 plotter, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

KSM was bound to a stiff wooden plank at a secret CIA black-site prison. Interrogators tilted one end of the platform so that his head was several inches below his feet. A rag was fixed in his mouth and cellophane was firmly wrapped over his face.

Slowly, water was poured over his mouth until he began to gag and lurch. Seconds before he blacked out, interrogators ripped off the plastic and pulled the rag from his mouth, allowing him to briefly catch his breath. After 2 1/2 minutes on the waterboard, CIA officials said he was "begging to confess". He admitted to 31 different plots - nearly every act of terrorism against the US since the early 1990s.

While his hand in 9/11 has been independently confirmed, his other claims are less believable. Former CIA field officer Robert Baer told Time: "(KSM) is making things up. I'm told by people involved in the investigation that KSM was present during Wall Street Journal correspondent Danny Pearl's execution but was in fact not the person who killed him. There exists videotape footage of the execution that minimises KSM's role. And if KSM did indeed exaggerate his role in the Pearl murder, it raises the question of just what else he has exaggerated, or outright fabricated."

Pearl's father told ABC News in the US the facts "don't match (KSM's) story". Asra Nomani, a former Wall Street Journal reporter who knew Pearl well, said: "Anyone who saw the tape of Danny's murder could confess to those details." She added: "From everyone I've talked to in Danny's family there isn't closure ... there's not convincing evidence that Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was the killer."

KSM has also confessed to attempting to bomb the US's Plaza Bank headquarters prior to his arrest in March 2003. "I was responsible for planning, training, surveying, and financing for the new (or second) wave of attacks against ... Plaza Bank, Washington state," he said during his recent Guantanamo tribunal hearing. This claim is also dubious. Plaza Bank was founded in early 2006.

Today, most of KSM's "facts" are inseparable from fiction. Sadly this was avoidable. Rather than stripping him naked, holding him in a dark cold cell for months on end, blasting loud music and strobe lights at him, threatening violence against his two sons, and nearly drowning him, US officials should have used non-abusive techniques proven to build trust. These methods yield reliable evidence.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is the US domestic law enforcement agency that must obtain non-coerced evidence that stands up in US courts. Over time, the FBI has developed an array of non-violent interrogation techniques. FBI investigators methodically engage their suspects in conversation, supply incentives, then slowly vet and cross-check the information their suspects reveal. Rather than shave a Muslim's beard and abuse his Koran, they give devout men sweet figs and allow them to pray.

The FBI used rapport-building techniques before 9/11 to cultivate relationships with former al-Qa'ida operatives and unravel attacks such as the 1998 East African US embassy bombings.

"FBI agents, as officers of the court, know what the rules are," said former FBI interrogator Jack Cloonan to The American Prospect. "We have procedures to follow. We firmly believe in this thing called due process, and do not see it as something passe or something that should be seen as an impediment."

After 9/11, FBI methods were sidelined in favour of the CIA's tougher techniques. The decision to drop FBI methods will haunt the US for decades. By using FBI rapport-building methods - not CIA tortures - officials could have come closer to unlocking the truth from suspects such as KSM. According to Yosri Fouda, the only journalist to interview KSM before his 2003 capture, he was a "a power-hungry mastermind" who lived for the spotlight. Likewise, the 9/11 Commission report described KSM as a flamboyant character prone to exaggeration. Given KSM's boastful personality, officials should have known that torture - and its say-anything-to-stop-the-pain qualities - would be the worst way to get accurate intelligence.

By torturing him, the Bush administration slammed shut what could have been a window into the al-Qa'ida terror network. Now, the truth will remain hidden from both the US Government and from KSM's victims.

Michael Otterman is a visiting scholar at the Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies at University of Sydney and author of American Torture: From the Cold War to Abu Ghraib (Melbourne University Press).

Gonzales, Cheney Blocked Call For Guantanamo Closing

March 23, 2007

New to Job, Gates Argued for Closing Guantánamo

WASHINGTON, March 22 — In his first weeks as defense secretary, Robert M. Gates repeatedly argued that the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, had become so tainted abroad that legal proceedings at Guantánamo would be viewed as illegitimate, according to senior administration officials. He told President Bush and others that it should be shut down as quickly as possible.

Mr. Gates’s appeal was an effort to turn Mr. Bush’s publicly stated desire to close Guantánamo into a specific plan for action, the officials said. In particular, Mr. Gates urged that trials of terrorism suspects be moved to the United States, both to make them more credible and because Guantánamo’s continued existence hampered the broader war effort, administration officials said.

Mr. Gates’s arguments were rejected after Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales and some other government lawyers expressed strong objections to moving detainees to the United States, a stance that was backed by the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, administration officials said.

As Mr. Gates was making his case, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice joined him in urging that the detention facility be shut down, administration officials said. But the high-level discussions about closing Guantánamo came to a halt after Mr. Bush rejected the approach, although officials at the National Security Council, the Pentagon and the State Department continue to analyze options for the detention of terrorism suspects.

By THOM SHANKER and DAVID E. SANGER

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