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Separate Interrogation Rules For Special Forces?
Sy Hersh's piece on the stifling of General Antonio Taguba's inquiry into Abu Ghraib begs a big question: What would Taguba have uncovered if he had been free to investigate?
Buried within three of the Pentagon's official investigations into torture, there's plenty of circumstantial evidence to suggest that the answer is a separate, harsher set of rules for detainee and interrogation operations led by Special Operations Forces -- the elite units specializing in unconventional warfare -- than those that apply for the rest of the U.S. military. Yet none of the inquiries follows through on how highly trained SOF units, increasingly important in the war on terrorism, could have created detention facilities so brutal as to give them the motto "No Blood, No Foul" absent official guidance.
In 2004, in order to undercut calls for an independent inquiry into Abu Ghraib, Donald Rumsfeld appointed a panel chaired by ex-defense secretary James Schlesinger to investigate the Defense Department's detainee operations. Schlesinger found (pdf) that, essentially, there were two distinct sets of rules for interrogating detainees in Defense Department custody: one for the detainee population at Guantanamo Bay, where the Bush administration decreed that the Geneva Conventions don't apply, and another for department operations everywhere else. Outside of Guantanamo Bay, military interrogators were supposed to rely on an Army field manual, known as FM 34-52, that complied with the Geneva Conventions. For years, the Pentagon's line was that the only set of authorizations for interrogations were FM 34-52, or the enhanced techniques to be used only at Guantanamo -- nothing else. (Last year, the Army updated FM 34-52, rechristening it FM 2-23.2 and intending the Geneva-compliant manual to apply in Guantanamo as well.)
Except that Schlesinger's report hinted at another set of rules for interrogations. During December 2002 and January 2003, Rumsfeld furiously reviewed and revised the procedures for interrogations in Guantanamo Bay -- but it turned out that those techniques didn't remain in the island prison. In late January 2003, intending to facilitate Rumsfeld's review, the U.S. command staff in Afghanistan provided to U.S. Central Command "a list of techniques being used in Afghanistan, including some not explicitly set out in FM 34-52." Schlesinger never specified what the techniques were. But he wrote that they were subsequently "included in a Special Operations Forces (SOF) Standard Operations Procedures document published in February 2003."
That February 2003 document was never included in the appendix of the Schlesinger report. A later investigation, by Vice Admiral Albert T. Church, didn't shed any additional light on the February 2003 SOF procedures, either. Yet Church reported that some interrogation procedures that deviated from FM 34-52 were "developed independently" by interrogators in Afghanistan. Both Church and Schlesinger sidestepped the question of how or why interrogators in Afghanistan would have come up with an alternative set of interrogation measures absent orders from the Pentagon, especially since Church described those measures as "similar to the counter resistance techniques that the Secretary had approved for GTMO" in an early -- and quickly rescinded -- iteration. Among those approved GTMO techniques: "deprivation of light/auditory stimuli"; "mild, non-injurious physical contact, e.g., grabbing, poking or light pushing"; "stress positions, like standing"; "removal of clothing" and more.
To date, the role of what Special Operations Forces are allowed to do in detention and interrogation operations remains opaque. The only Pentagon investigation into Special Operations' role in detainee abuse, led by Brigadier General Richard Formica in 2004, focused (pdf) only on specific allegations of abuse, not on what standard detention and interrogation procedures are for SOF. Formica nevertheless found that for four months in 2004, interrogators used techniques "including sleep management, stress positions, dietary manipulation, and yelling/loud music that were not specifically authorized" by the U.S. command in Iraq -- and which the command had, in October 2003, expressly foresworn. Formica attributed the use of those techniques to a misunderstanding.
Even if Formica had broadened his focus, however, there's no guarantee that he would have been able to determine anything. Hersh reports that in one investigation by the Army's Criminal Investigations Division into a SOF task force suspected of abusing detainees, task force members used fake names and took other measures to obstruct the inquiry. Similarly, Rep. David Obey (D-WI), chairman of the House Appropriations Committee, told Hersh that he distrusts the classified reports he receives from the Pentagon about what SOF forces are up to around the globe.
Knowing whether SOF plays by a different set of detention and interrogation rules would help explain how Human Rights Watch could have documented a SOF detention facility rife with abuse, down to the gruesome motto, "No Blood, No Foul." As Hersh writes, SOF activities have massively expanded worldwide in the years since 9/11, with little oversight into the rules under which they operate. In particular, three big questions remain outstanding:
* What additional interrogation techniques are contained in the February 2003 Standard Operation Procedure?
* Are they still in place?
* And is there any other guidance differentiating what SOF task forces can do from that of the rest of the U.S. military?
Taguba wasn't able to get the answers. Neither has the new Democratic Congress. Even without Rumsfeld in charge, the Pentagon wants to keep it that way.
An issue not likely considered by anyone is what effect such malignant treatment of humans has on the perpertrators? They for the most part are kids from our neighborhoods, fresh out of our public school system. After a brief brain-washing, they become the equivalent of the most brutal tormenters of the Nazi era. The most frightening aspect of this is that once they complete their tours of duty they are dumped, un-deprogrammed, back onto U.S. soil, where they will once again become our neighbors.
June 18, 2007 4:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
“There’s a big problem for both the White House and Congress on these subpoenas, and that is that everybody looks bad,” said Ari Fleischer, Mr. Bush’s first press secretary. “The White House doesn’t want to get into a visible public executive privilege court fight because it makes it look like they’re hiding something. Congress shouldn’t go down this subpoena line because they’re only cooking their own goose. It’s great for the base, but lousy for the country.”
Why does the Times accept ARI FLEISCHER'S uncorroborated word that an executive privilege fight is bad news for Congress.
Congress will see its ratings go up when they put the pressure on Bush. Bush has everything to lose because no one expects anything exculpatory to come out of this investigation.
Rivkin's assertion that the President is on firm ground legally speaking is also biased. John Dean persuasively argued that the President is on shaky ground legally speaking.
What a lousy paper.
June 18, 2007 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
With any luck some of them won't come back to be your neighbor(s). If the Congress and the Interpol does their jobs properly that is.
June 18, 2007 4:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
This is close to showing what is hidden, parallel organizations, groups lacking genuine accountability and oversight, secret forces, secret prisons, secret laws, secret back channels; basically the definition of a cabal.
Hollywood script: Cabal group steals election through inattentiveness and holes in the decentralized trust the blue hairs running the roles and purging the deviants and lessors. When challenged intimidate and create chaos while deploring the chaos and fear. Cabal takes opportunity and writes Patriot Law, creates secret police tactics and armed forces. Steal election two, go deeper in the corruption but are surprised over mid-term reversals.
Facing possible prosecution and war crimes does the cabal go for it and actively suppress the government and take over?
June 18, 2007 4:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
See the pattern: "Separate rules for . . .[fill in the blank]:" GOP, DoD, DoJ, legal counsel, President, VP, intelligence community, classification, security information, protecting CIA names, warfare, information to Congress.
June 18, 2007 4:42 PM | Reply | Permalink
The perpetrators in this context are the human rights violators -- the members of the U.S. Military, our kids and our neighbors' kids. They are being turned into monsters by our government.
June 18, 2007 4:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sleep Managment, Dietary Manipulation, Stress Positions. I was subject, and in turn subjected other kids to all of these techniques and others, during the time I spent in Straight Inc. under the auspices of former US Ambassador and Republican money-man Melvin Sembler.
If we allow these things to be done to our own children, why are we surprised when we find out that we do this to 'the enemy'?
As for the young men and women who are applying these techniques, I fear they have a life filled with nightmares awaiting them, should they ever come anywhere close to facing reality and deprogramming themselves.
June 18, 2007 5:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
Jack B. MUST be free to do what he does best! The Republican debates make that much clear.
Please let the next President render Bush and Cheney to the -istan of his/her/its choice before the law changes after the election.
June 18, 2007 5:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Are you perhaps referring to the JSOC, Joint Special Operations Command? I gleaned from Hersh that this group was a joint CIA, DOD and others group that ran a lot of the black ops. Not necessarily Special Forces.
June 18, 2007 5:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know, it's really beyond me why anyone would think that we don't (or at least did not) torture people in these black site, extraordinary rendition, Gitmo, Abu Gharaib extra legal systems set up by the Decider and his Decider-Handlers. Why on earth bother to set up this system if you weren't going to torture people?
Whether or not this was justified is a totally different question. My thinking is that it is not justified, but I'm open to arguments on the issue. But I don't get why any cognizant individual would think that we don't torture.
June 18, 2007 5:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
As has been the case historically for the entire human epic: war breeds atrocity. And with that, what other argument do we need to avoid war altogether?
To me it is impossible for us (not actually there facing and dispensing death daily) to ever fully understand what happens to a human under those conditions. This does not justify egregious behavior but does go some way towards explain it's existence. And the same applies to the fact that we can never truly understand the generations of hardship and despair that allow men like bin Laden to recruit so many impressionable and desperate young men into their ranks. All we really can do is avoid the conditions that allow these dark thoughts to take root.
War, poverty and despair are the real enemies of humanity. If we would focus on and conquer those we would likely find the thought of even debating the minutia differentiating interrogation and torture as appalling as it truly is.
June 18, 2007 6:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
"ARSOF [Army
Special Operations Forces] conduct them abroad in support of national
foreign policy objectives, but in a manner that USG [US Government]
participation is neither apparent nor publicly acknowledged."
from today's Secrecy News on special forces
http://www.fas.org/blog/secrecy/
i'm confused- but i know for a fact my nephew wouldn't have joined at all if he'd known there were 3 units in memphis on april 4, 1968 (see Wm Pepper - An Act of State)
June 18, 2007 8:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Whether or not this was justified is a totally different question. My thinking is that it is not justified, but I'm open to arguments on the issue."
When you engage in this, you lose the moral authority to challenge your foes who do it. You leave your forces open to being treated in this manner should they be captured, without you being able to challenge such treatment and obtain support for yourself and opprobrium for the enemy for so doing.
More importantly, if you get rid of the things that distinguish us from the enemy, the things that made us the country the rest of the world admired and respected, the things for which we were hated and attacked by the enemy - in the name of fighting that enemy - where then is the victory, since you have thrown away the prize you claim to defend.
It's real simple Workaday Joe, if you're going to claim to be the Good Guys, you have to actually BE the Good Guys.
And as to Special Operations Forces, doesn't that translate into German as "Waffen SS"????
June 18, 2007 9:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Whether or not this was justified is a totally different question. My thinking is that it is not justified, but I'm open to arguments on the issue."
When you engage in this, you lose the moral authority to challenge your foes who do it. You leave your forces open to being treated in this manner should they be captured, without you being able to challenge such treatment and obtain support for yourself and opprobrium for the enemy for so doing.
More importantly, if you get rid of the things that distinguish us from the enemy, the things that made us the country the rest of the world admired and respected, the things for which we were hated and attacked by the enemy - in the name of fighting that enemy - where then is the victory, since you have thrown away the prize you claim to defend?
It's real simple Workaday Joe: if you're going to claim to be the Good Guys, you have to actually BE the Good Guys.
And as to Special Operations Forces, doesn't that translate into German as "Waffen SS"????
June 18, 2007 9:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
sorry forthe double post - thought the system was supposed to catch this
June 18, 2007 9:28 PM | Reply | Permalink
For the life of me, I can't understand how the American people could make themselves heard and understood on social security reform and immigration reform or whatever the new immigration law is called and somehow could not get the lawmakers to change their minds on torture. I do not believe the repubs. could do it without dem. green lighting. Our leaders deserve the Hague...many news people also deserve prison for encouraging an illegal war. The evidence was flimsy.
June 18, 2007 11:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
My wife directed me to an article that touches on the evil of war and how difficult it is to forgive ourselves for doing our duty: http://www.myss.com/Newsletter061507.asp
Regarding torture:We obviously have been doing it for a long time.It has been condoned and authorized be Bush et., al..
Torture is never justified.NEVER!!!!!!
Why these folks aren`t in jail is beyond me.
June 18, 2007 11:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Sy Hersh's piece on the stifling of General Antonio Taguba's inquiry into Abu Ghraib begs a big question"
Argh! No, it doesn't. It raises a few good ones, though.
security code 'sorry, pet peeve'
(no, not really)
June 19, 2007 1:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
"When you engage in this, you lose the moral authority to challenge your foes who do it."
Reciprocity is an important consideration. Churchill was against the use of torture because he feared the Germans would in turn treat our soldiers like they treated the Russians. Hitler was against using chemical weapons because he feared their reciprocal use by the allies. We're facing a insurgent/terrorist enemy who ignore the rules of war, therefore our interrogators should accept - whilst torturing - that if captured they will likely be tortured. The ethical rationale is simple.
"Torture is never justified.NEVER!!!!!!"
Next you'll be telling me that neither is killing!!!! and that we should eat tofu and beans till we die!!!!
June 19, 2007 4:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I think the bigger picture about the Taguba inquiry is this: if this investigation, which was publicly touted as a legit effort to root out problems was so compromised, how can we possibly assume anything they have investigated was legitimate?
I think this is a clear demonstration that nothing – absolutely no conclusion, from any investigation headed by the Pentagon or Republican led Congress can be taken seriously. It is just like the US Attorney scandal, where it isn't the fired Attorneys that Americans need to worry about. The real worry is how many investigators got the “nudge nudge, wink wink” and made their conclusions safe ones that kept their stasis as “gainfully employed”.
Sad.
June 19, 2007 8:25 AM | Reply | Permalink
The horror . . . the horror . . .
Or, from the Richard Cohens and Tom Friedmans of the world, just a little therapeutic violence.
June 19, 2007 11:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
How much of this stuff is being done by contractors who are not subject to any law?
June 19, 2007 11:33 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mr. Sparkle's view condemns us all to barbarity, where all behavior is permitted because the enemy does it.
Good must be lived, not just talked about, and that means some sons and daughters will die and some will be tortured by the enemy, but that the opposing response will be to not torture.
George Bush and those that surround him believe that the accumulation of power is more important than anything, including the Constitution. He has lowered the bar of morality far beneath that of America's founding principles, and has repeatedly acted to eviscerate or bypass laws and constitutional provisions intended to preserve the principles which protect individuals from both government and aggregate entities. People will either have to raise the bar, or live with Bush's fearful new world.
June 19, 2007 11:56 AM | Reply | Permalink
It is not an equivalent. It is not Good torturing good. We are facing an enemy on a different moral paradigm to us therefore we shift our behaviour in relation to those enemies, it's a proportional method of teaching them their moral system sucks.
workaday joe if you are unsure about how you feel about torture first consider if someone had your family, would you resort to torturing the kidnappers if it brought them back? Although this is not a direct comparison to a widespread use of torture it sets the moral standpoint that most people are not adverse to torture when it aids them personally. When it's some poor grunt on the ground however, their moral compass suddenly flips to saint mode.
June 19, 2007 12:36 PM | Reply | Permalink
At least since the democratic revolutions of the late 18th century, every government fighting a war has found it necessary to persuade its public that the war is a matter of good fighting against evil.
At least until recently, that has not meant that these governments have resorted to torture in fighting their wars. There has been a reason for this scruple. And the abandonment of it has been a real mark of moral degradation.
June 19, 2007 3:36 PM | Reply | Permalink