[Peace-discuss] William Pfaff on Torture

[David Green]

Pfaff, while a liberal realpoliticker, has always had
some perceptive comments from Paris. The Chicago
Tribune no longer publishes his work:

Published on Tuesday, December 21, 2004 by the
International Herald Tribune  
Torture: Shock, Awe and the Human Body 
 
by William Pfaff 
  
A historian in the future, or a moralist, is likely to
deem the Bush administration's enthusiasm for torture
the most striking aspect of its war against terrorism.

This started early. Proposals to authorize torture
were circulating even before there was anyone to
torture. Days after the Sept. 11 attacks, the
administration made it known that the United States
was no longer bound by international treaties, or by
American law and established U.S. military standards,
concerning torture and the treatment of prisoners. By
the end of 2001, the Justice Department had drafted
memos on how to protect military and intelligence
officers from eventual prosecution under existing U.S.
law for their treatment of Afghan and other prisoners.

In January 2002, the White House counsel, Alberto
Gonzales (who is soon to become attorney general),
advised George W. Bush that it could be done by fiat.
If the president simply declared "detainees" in
Afghanistan outside the protection of the Geneva
conventions, the 1996 U.S. War Crimes Act - which
carries a possible death penalty for Geneva violations
- would not apply.

Those who protested were ignored, though the
administration declared it would abide by the "spirit"
of the conventions. Shortly afterward, the CIA asked
for formal assurance that this pledge did not apply to
its agents.

In March 2003, a Defense Department legal task force
concluded that the president was not bound by any
international or federal law on torture. It said that
as commander in chief, he had the authority "to
approve any technique needed to protect the nation's
security." Subsequent legal memos to civilian
officials in the White House and Pentagon dwelt in
morbid detail on permitted torture techniques, for
practical purposes concluding that anything was
permitted that did not (deliberately) kill the victim.


What is this all about? The FBI, the armed forces' own
legal officers, bar associations and other civil law
groups have protested, as have retired intelligence
officers and civilian law enforcement officials.

The United States has never before officially
practiced torture. It was not deemed necessary in
order to defeat Nazi Germany or Imperial Japan. Its
indirect costs are enormous: in their effect on the
national reputation, their alienation of international
opinion, and their corruption of the morale and
morality of the American military and intelligence
services.

Torture doesn't even work that well. An indignant FBI
witness of what has gone on at the Guantánamo prison
camp says that "simple investigative techniques" could
produce much information the army is trying to obtain
through torture.

It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Bush
administration is not torturing prisoners because it
is useful but because of its symbolism. It originally
was intended to be a form of what later, in the attack
on Iraq, came to be called "shock and awe." It was
meant as intimidation. We will do these terrible
things to demonstrate that nothing will stop us from
conquering our enemies. We are indifferent to world
opinion. We will stop at nothing.

In that respect, it is like the attack on Falluja last
month, which - destructive as it was - was
fundamentally a symbolic operation. Any insurgent who
wanted to escape could do so long before the
much-advertised attack actually began. Its real
purpose was exemplary destruction: to deliver a
message to all of Iraq that this is what the United
States can do to you if you continue the resistance.
It was collective punishment of the city's occupants
for having tolerated terrorist operations based there.

The administration's obsession with shock and awe is a
result of its misunderstanding of the war it is
fighting, which is political and not military.
America's dilemma is a very old one.

It is dealing with politically motivated
revolutionaries, in the case of Al Qaeda, and
nationalist and sectarian insurgents in the case of
Iraq. It has a conventional army, good for crushing
cities. But the enemy is not interested in occupying
cities or defeating American armies. Its war is for
the minds of Muslims.

Destroying cities and torturing prisoners are things
you do when you are losing the real war, the war your
enemies are fighting. They are signals of moral
bankruptcy. They destroy the confidence and respect of
your friends, and reinforce the credibility of the
enemy. 

© 2004 International Herald Tribune