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Today's Must Read
One of the few heroes in the U.S.'s shameful adoption of torture over the last few years is Tony Lagouranis. Lagouranis, a former military interrogator, returned from Iraq -- where, unlike Guantanamo Bay, the Bush administration has never contended that the Geneva Conventions don't apply -- and blew the whistle to Human Rights Watch about how deeply coercive interrogations have taken root in Iraq. Along with Captain Ian Fishback, who wrote to Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) in 2005 about the coercive techniques his superiors recommended he use in interrogation, Lagouranis put his reputation at risk by his disclosure. But according to today's Washington Post, Lagouranis won't let himself off the hook for what he did in Iraq.
For Lagouranis, problems include "a creeping anxiety" on the train, he said. The 45-minute ride to Chicago's O'Hare airport "kills me." He feels as if he can't get out "until they let me out." Lagouranis's voice was boyish, but his face was gray. The evening deepened his 5 o'clock shadow and the puffy smudges under his eyes.
Not long ago in Iraq, he felt "absolute power," he said, over men kept in cages. Lagouranis had forced a grandfather to kneel all night in the cold and bombarded others in metal shipping containers with the tape of the self-help parody "Feel This Book: An Essential Guide to Self-Empowerment, Spiritual Supremacy, and Sexual Satisfaction," by comedians Ben Stiller and Janeane Garofalo. ("They hated it," Lagouranis recalled. "Like, 'Please! Just stop that voice!' ")
Now Lagouranis's power had dissolved into a weakness so fearful it dampened his upper lip. Sometimes, on the train, he has to get up and pace. But he can't escape.
Pairing Lagouranis's experience with those of ex-interrogators in Britain and Israel, Laura Blumenfeld powerfully illustrates an often-overlooked point in the debate over what's acceptable in interrogations: how torture brutalizes the torturer as well as the tortured. Lagouranis, obviously suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder, now works as a bouncer in a Chicago bar -- where the bartender jokes he should "get Abu Ghraib" on unruly patrons -- and questions how his girlfriend could possibly love someone who's done the things he has.
"But you're trying to fight the bad guys," she said. She knows he is haunted. He got an honorable discharge after a diagnosis of "adjustment disorder." He startles awake, she said: "Last night you had a dream --""I never saw a ghost in Abu Ghraib," he said. "But I saw a ghost last night. It was me."
"Seeing innocent people being tortured is hard," she said.
"Not the things I saw, but the things I did. You keep saying 'torturing the innocent,' but the two brothers I tortured were guilty. It doesn't mean you should torture them."
This week, Lagouranis will release his long-awaited memoir about his time as an interrogator in Iraq, Fear Up Harsh. Blumenfeld's profile suggests that, unfortunately, it won't bring him much closure.
Comments (26)
neo1 wrote on June 4, 2007 10:38 AM:I'm sorry, but I can't see calling someone who has admitted to torturing innocent people 'a hero'. I have compassion for his current situation, and respect his blowing the whistle, but he tortured innocent people! Who knows, if I were put in his shoes maybe I would have done the same thing, but if I had, I still wouldn't want to be called a hero.
KimiK wrote on June 4, 2007 10:49 AM:Bush and Cheney will rot in hell for all they have done - it amazes me that the super "Christians" haven't recognized any of the signs of Satan in these two and their actions...Personally, I don't believe in any of that crap, but these wing-nuts that claim to live their lives by it, well, Jeez - Are they blind??? How much closer to pure evil can you get?
KimiK wrote on June 4, 2007 10:50 AM:Bush and Cheney will rot in hell for all they have done - it amazes me that the super "Christians" haven't recognized any of the signs of Satan in these two and their actions...Personally, I don't believe in any of that crap, but these wing-nuts that claim to live their lives by it, well, Jeez - Are they blind??? How much closer to pure evil can you get?
John Emerson wrote on June 4, 2007 11:04 AM:Franz Fanon's "Wretched of the Earth" has the false reputation of being mere propaganda, but it includes (among other things) a very illuminating account of the negative effects of torture both on torturers and on their victims.
In our dirty war in El Salvador, much of the actual dirty work was done by low-ranking personnel who were themselves at risk of being tortured or shot.
jak1 wrote on June 4, 2007 11:07 AM:I agree wholeheartedly. Hero is a word overused. What I read about was a man with a problem with his conscience. A man troubled because he did something wrong.
Is he a hero? NO! Here is a man who needs to come clean for his own state of mind. Plus he should make a few bucks, which will help!
>>I'm sorry, but I can't see calling someone who has admitted to torturing innocent people 'a hero'. I have compassion for his current situation, and respect his blowing the whistle, but he tortured innocent people! Who knows, if I were put in his shoes maybe I would have done the same thing, but if I had, I still wouldn't want to be called a hero.
Posted by: neo1
Tuli wrote on June 4, 2007 11:10 AM:Date: June 4, 2007 10:38 AM <<
Isn’t The Wretched of the Earth required reading anymore? And what about Robert Jay Lifton? That perpetrators are damaged by torture shouldn’t be shocking to anyone. When one has to dehumanize another, one has to dehumanize oneself.
Nell wrote on June 4, 2007 11:14 AM:Iraq -- where, unlike Guantanamo Bay, the Bush administration has never contended that the Geneva Conventions don't apply
Unfortunately, this isn't entirely accurate, unless Ackerman means "publicly contended."
There is recent evidence that senior operatives in the shadowy multi-service 'Task Force 20' (aka Task Force 121, 5, 26, etc.) that operated "Camp NAMA" and many other of its own detention sites believed that they had been released from Geneva obligations. This led to conflict when staff from DIA and other agencies assigned to work with the task force protested at the treatment of detainees.
Jeff wrote on June 4, 2007 11:22 AM:>>>"Feel This Book," by comedians Ben Stiller and Janeane Garofalo. ("They hated it," Lagouranis recalled. "Like, 'Please! Just stop that voice!' ")<<<
This is a sobering topic, but it strikes me as ironically humorous they would use an audio tape of a self-help parody as an extreme interrogation technique. Can we get Stiller or Garofalo on the record with their response to this?
bajsa wrote on June 4, 2007 11:42 AM:He said, You keep saying 'torturing the innocent,' but the two brothers I tortured were guilty. It doesn't mean you should torture them."
No, it doesn't make him a hero, but should we not use his realization of how wrong he was to stop this horror committed in our names?
OneCrankyDom wrote on June 4, 2007 11:46 AM:I wrote about Lagouranis a few months over at DailyKos , eyt I could not bring myself to call him a hero. That is going too far. He may deserve credit for coming forward, but what he did is no the stuff of Heros.
Nell wrote on June 4, 2007 12:21 PM:This is just to document my comment above.
From the recently released report by the Office of the Inspector General of DoD that reviewed (unfavorably) the Defense Dept's previous investigations into torture and detainee abuse:
"The Commander, Joint Personnel Recovery Agency, explained that he understood that the detainees held by TF-20 were determined to be Designated Unlawful Combatants, not Enemy Prisoners of War protected by the Geneva Convention and that the [SERE] interrogation techniques were authorized ..."
Via Stephen Soldz' post here:
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/5/30/183814/475
Bugboy wrote on June 4, 2007 12:27 PM:Hero maybe not, but he WAS a member of the armed forces, who are duty bound to serve their Commander-In-Chief. Therein lies the responsibility for pissing on the Geneva Convention.
Try reading the oath they all take and weep for how they must be conflicted at the orders they are given. I know I do, almost every day now that Congress has proven ineffective at stopping this madness.
We need to stop painting these people as monsters, and seeing them as who they are, real people who have real lives, trying to live them and do what they thought was the right thing to do. Is it their fault a fool and his enablers were at the helm?
Seamus wrote on June 4, 2007 3:09 PM:Bugboy,
Anonymous wrote on June 4, 2007 3:12 PM:part of the UCMJ says that a soldier cannot use the "I was only following orders" defense. Illegal orders are just that, illegal. Many death camp guards were incarcerated or hung at Nuremberg following the reaction of the "following orders" defense. These "real people who have real lives" know they went beyond the pale, that's why this guy is so haunted. He knew that what he was doing was wrong. I am sure that many soldiers have refused to torture and I have not heard of anyone being prosecuted for refusing to follow orders to torture. I don't think the Pentagon wants to open that can of worms, court-martialing people for refusing to torture. That would play real well around the world, not!
Bugboy,
JNagarya wrote on June 4, 2007 4:51 PM:part of the UCMJ says that a soldier cannot use the "I was only following orders" defense. Illegal orders are just that, illegal. Many death camp guards were incarcerated or hung at Nuremberg following the reaction of the "following orders" defense. These "real people who have real lives" know they went beyond the pale, that's why this guy is so haunted. He knew that what he was doing was wrong. I am sure that many soldiers have refused to torture and I have not heard of anyone being prosecuted for refusing to follow orders to torture. I don't think the Pentagon wants to open that can of worms, court-martialing people for refusing to torture. That would play real well around the world, not!
"I'm sorry, but I can't see calling someone who has admitted to torturing innocent people 'a hero'. I have compassion for his current situation, and respect his blowing the whistle, but he tortured innocent people! Who knows, if I were put in his shoes maybe I would have done the same thing, but if I had, I still wouldn't want to be called a hero.
"Posted by: neo1
Date: June 4, 2007 10:38 AM"
I didn't read of anyone calling him a "hero". Does it advance the truth to make things up that aren't true?
JNagarya wrote on June 4, 2007 4:54 PM:"I'm sorry, but I can't see calling someone who has admitted to torturing innocent people 'a hero'. I have compassion for his current situation, and respect his blowing the whistle, but he tortured innocent people! Who knows, if I were put in his shoes maybe I would have done the same thing, but if I had, I still wouldn't want to be called a hero.
"Posted by: neo1
Date: June 4, 2007 10:38 AM"
I didn't read of anyone calling him a "hero". Does it advance the truth to make things up that aren't true?
JNagarya wrote on June 4, 2007 5:00 PM:"Isn’t The Wretched of the Earth required reading anymore? And what about Robert Jay Lifton? That perpetrators are damaged by torture shouldn’t be shocking to anyone. When one has to dehumanize another, one has to dehumanize oneself.
"Posted by: Tuli
Date: June 4, 2007 11:10 AM"
It's stated as if a Commandment: "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you."
In fact, it is impossible to do unto others that which one doesn't first do to oneself. It's like a law of the universe, a law of physics. Ontological. Existential -- condition of existence.
Hate harms the hater before it harms others.
JNagarya wrote on June 4, 2007 5:09 PM:">>>"Feel This Book," by comedians Ben Stiller and Janeane Garofalo. ("They hated it," Lagouranis recalled. "Like, 'Please! Just stop that voice!' ")<<<
"This is a sobering topic, but it strikes me as ironically humorous they would use an audio tape of a self-help parody as an extreme interrogation technique. Can we get Stiller or Garofalo on the record with their response to this?
"Posted by: Jeff
Date: June 4, 2007 11:22 AM"
Garofalo is not funny. That fact, combined with her inexplicable belief that she is, and having to listen to her stupid, failed, efforts to be funny, is sufficent to violate all laws that prohibit torture.
And I'm not joking.
Bugboy wrote on June 4, 2007 5:16 PM:Sure, let's dredge up ugly visions of Nazi Germany to shut everyone up about discussing the horrible trauma this man is trying to own up to, Seamus. "Following orders" might have worked discrediting excuses for running the gas chambers, but I don't think it's quite as cut and dried here.
I'm not talking about "following orders". I'm talking about serving your country. That's what these guys swear to do. Get your head out of your ass and try to imagine what that is like, to swear to do WHATEVER your Commander-In-Chief tells you to do, no questions asked. Then be asked to do the unthinkable, when nearly EVERYONE in this country wanted pay-back.
Kind of funny how you can't hardly find anyone who admits they voted for Bush these days, eh, Seamus?
OneCrankyDom wrote on June 4, 2007 5:42 PM:I posted a comment earlier that seems to have disappeared, so I'm trying again.
Hardheaded Liberal wrote on June 5, 2007 6:23 AM:I wrote about Tony Lagouranis a couple months ago over at dkos and even then I could not bring myself to call him a hero. Remorse is not heroic, it's what happens as the guilt becomes too much to bear. Yes, I'm glad he decided to speak out, it should be taken into account at his own sentencing.
A suggestion that might help clarify the discussion: Acts can be heroic. People who do heroic acts do not consider themselves to be heroes -- they just act as society has taught them to act, but in circumstances of danger to themselves or others. The dangers that threaten social position and prospects are actually more daunting, I think, than dangers that threaten the physical safety of the heroic actor.
So I prefer to speak of heroic acts, not of heroes. The soldier who does heroic acts today may be a basket case from PTSD tomorrow.
Lagouranis did shameful things when he tortured prisoners. He did an heroic thing when he disclosed to Human Rights Watch that he had been part of a culture of torture, that torture was not limited to "a few bad apples."
I suspect that his heroic act was in part an attempt to expiate his shameful acts, and that the heroic act came out of an abyss of pain that he felt for his torture of helpless people -- whether the torture victims were guilty or innocent.
But few of the torturers have voluntarily come forward to expiate their criminal acts. So I personally would judge his heroic act to be admirable, even though I would judge his succumbing to that feeling of absolute power to have been shameful.
PS Many of the comments in this thread about Lagouranis strike me as a bit "holier than thou," although I am sure that no one intended to take such a stance. But the "prison simulation" experiment with male college students in the 1970's proved the terrible seductiveness of abuse of power when someone is placed in a position of absolute authority over another human being. We would all like to believe that "we would NEVER do something like that..." But both social science and history show that every human being is all too vulnerable to violating civilized norms if everyone around us expects us to violate those norms.
Bugboy wrote on June 5, 2007 11:08 AM:@Hardheaded Liberal
Great post, especially the famed prison simulations, those studies should be required reading in high school. I know about them as a student of biology, and would not have seen them othewise.
My point is that no matter how shameful his acts, it's easy to for us to view them in retrospect. This country was out for blood after 9/11, we must not forget that, revisionist historians are all around us happily sugarcoating the events that transpired which led up to the tragic circumstances Lagouranis found himself in.
That by no means is saying what he did was right, but as you say his heroic act is trying to own up to it. He is the one who has to live with himself. He is the one who has to sleep at night. May we all be spared having to choose between serving our country and doing what is right.
Jim wrote on June 5, 2007 2:51 PM:This is an interesting issue. On the strictly legal side, there is a two-step test for illegal orders (R. v. Finta, Supreme Court of Canada, 1990-something).
First, did the person know that the order was illegal? If the person in question was repeatedly told by his chain of command that the order was legal, you are going to have a real problem deciding that he had actual knowledge of the illegality of the order.
But even if he did not *know* it was illegal, was it *manifestly* illegal? The definition of "manifestly illegal" is pretty restrictive. It involves language like "would shock and revolt the conscience of any normal human being," and stuff like that.
It seems to me that this is pretty much the situation that he found himself in. His conscience was shocked and revolted. The illegality of the orders manifested itself to him. Hence his present difficulties.
This does not make him a hero, although I would suggest that his actions in trying to stop the torture were (at least a little bit) heroic. It does mean that he is a person with a conscience and the courage to try to amend his actions, even at some cost to himself. This means that he is, if not a hero, a good human being. Just as doing something heroic did not make him a saint, so the evil that he did does not make him a demon. He is a good man who has done both good and evil. He should be forgiven for the evil (which he has certainly repented of) and praised for the good that he has done.
But mostly, he needs forgiveness. And, in my very humble opinion, he should have it from us.
Security Code = collar, which in his case is more like a millstone, until he is forgiven.
nick X wrote on June 7, 2007 3:22 AM:I'm more than a little pained to hear this guy's mea culpa. Mr. Ackerman is misinformed on the definition of the word hero--this guys no hero. Did our guilty soldier blow his whistle and fess up because he was burdened with guilt or did he squeal on the others to get a better deal for himself. I can't help noticing some folks did time for their actions, while our young "hero" is guilt-ridden.
So he's suffering PSTD. Welcome to the club pal. This guy stomped all over the UCMJ and he Geneva Convention, and you can bet he knew he was breaking the rules against illegal orders. Further it was his responsibility to inform someone up the chain of command about what was going on and to do so before you torture someone--not after. In basic training they teach us all about the Geneva Convention and the absolute requirement we have to follow the rules.
I managed to get though Vietnam without torturing anyone, without committing war crimes, without becoming that which is the worst of humanity. Our friend did not and he should have been put in jail for a suitable period of time. When these guys crap all over the Geneva Convention, we can't complain when the enemy starts chopping off heads.
We're America and we're supposed to be the good guys and not torturing is as good a place as any to start.
He's whining about his self-inflicted PSTD. I wonder the guys he tortured doing right now. With the play he'll get off the this TPM moment in the spotlight, don't be surprised to see the guy get a book deal over the next week or so.
Anonymous wrote on August 29, 2007 10:01 PM:These are the only examples of "torture" in the article:
"Lagouranis had forced a grandfather to kneel all night in the cold and bombarded others in metal shipping containers with the tape of the self-help parody "Feel This Book: An Essential Guide to Self-Empowerment, Spiritual Supremacy, and Sexual Satisfaction," by comedians Ben Stiller and Janeane Garofalo."
Sorry, how is that torture?
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