Abu Ghraib, Torture, and American Culture's Human Rights Failure

Introduction: Abu Ghraib and American Culture

Americans were shocked when they learned about the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib — or were they? Certainly, the media reported shock and outrage on the part of the public at the unpleasant revelations. But that outrage, if it truly existed, has not proved lasting. The White House response to photos of young military personnel sexually assaulting and humiliating prisoners was to imply that only a few poorly supervised, bad-apple MPs would do such things. President George W. Bush said, "These acts do not represent the values America stands for." However, many Americans did not abhor the treatment of those prisoners at all. In fact, some thought there should be more of it. "They do it to us" is commonly heard in restaurants where ordinary people discuss current events. Republican Congressman James Inhofe of Oklahoma dismissed the entire matter by saying, "These prisoners — they're murderers, they're terrorists... Many of them probably have American blood on their hands." Inhofe did not apologize for his comments, which implies he believed he spoke for a large segment of the voting population in his state — one that applauded such behavior.

An article in World Watch ("What a Nation Values," 2004) points out that the soldiers who were tormenting the prisoners were very young — perhaps only a year or two out of high school — and were products of public schools where playground bullying, a time-honored American institution, has escalated to horrendous proportions in recent years. A boy beating up and humiliating other boys is a tradition and "a big part of the American experience." The writer suggests that the abuses at Abu Ghraib reflect what happens every day in American schools. If the soldiers had thought what they were doing was wrong, he argues, they would have tried to hide their actions; instead, they photographed themselves.

In movies, television, and video games, young people have witnessed tens of thousands of violent acts, often performed by the heroes: "Kick ass is what a hero does," at least according to the message of violent video games, which repeat narratives found throughout the broader media landscape. These games offer an exciting and seductive portrayal of so-called real men and the opportunity to play at being that kind of man: "Many of these texts [games] align masculinity with power, with aggression, with victory and winning, with superiority and strength — and, of course, with violent action" (Alloway & Gilbert, 1998, p. 97). Just as girls who play with Barbie learn to be caregivers, boys play violent video games for learning purposes and learn to be men. We live in a culture that allows such distorted and destructive messages about manhood to be sold to boys and young men for enormous profits. Media violence and real violence are not the same thing, of course, but in a culture where entertainment is the biggest and most lucrative industry, media experience shapes reality. A certain hard-edged mentality develops. What do 10,000 civilian deaths matter, or a few hundred destroyed buildings, if the bad guy goes down?

In fact, the treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib does reflect the values of the Bush administration. There are, of course, Americans whose values are not aligned with torture, violence, war, and the destruction of civil liberties and human rights — people like Dennis Kucinich and Marianne Williamson, who were working to create a U.S. Department of Peace; religious groups like Unitarians and Quakers; the Union of Concerned Scientists; Human Rights Watch; and those who carry forward the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. ("What a Nation Values," 2004). But in general, these people were not the voting bloc that supported George W. Bush. Those who supported Bush, his values, and his policies included voices like Ann Coulter, who wrote in the National Review that America should strike back at Muslim terrorists — "invade their countries, kill their leaders, and convert them to Christianity." The National Review reported receiving a flood of agreeing emails from readers who urged that we "nuke" Mecca. In this kind of retaliatory cultural climate, it is worth asking why we were so surprised when American soldiers tormented, degraded, humiliated, and tortured prisoners of war.

The Bush Administration's Torture Policy

Although President Bush publicly stated, "The United States reaffirms its commitment to the worldwide elimination of torture... freedom from torture is an inalienable human right, and we are committed to building a world where human rights are respected and protected by the rule of law," his administration actively fostered and encouraged torture. Harold Koh (2005) argues that after the September 11 attacks, the administration had an opportunity to establish a democratic, long-range plan for controlling terrorism. Instead, it looked for shortcuts, and torture became one of them — "a substitute for multilateral police work; the uncertainties of intelligence gathering; the expense of guarding ports, reservoirs, and transportation centers; and the financial regulation necessary to cut off the funding of terrorist groups" (p. 7).

Koh testified before the Senate that torture — an international crime — was being conducted with government authorization. Members of the Bush administration developed a torture policy, and a legal rationale for it was constructed. In his message to the Senate, Koh stated: "Torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment are both illegal and totally abhorrent to our values and constitutional traditions. No constitutional authority licenses the president to authorize the torture and cruel treatment of prisoners, even when he acts as commander-in-chief" (p. 8). He further argued that mistreatment of prisoners also violated the Geneva Conventions, under which American troops themselves were entitled to protection from similar treatment.

Information and confessions obtained by torture are notoriously unreliable. People will say anything to escape pain. Torture tactics have included holding a person's head underwater, boiling limbs, and wiring a man's hands, legs, and genitals to deliver electric shocks. The people subjected to such treatment are not necessarily guilty of any crime — many had not even been charged. When Congress reviewed 1,800 slides and several videos (totaling three hours) from Abu Ghraib Prison, they witnessed American soldiers sexually assaulting prisoners with chemical light sticks and laughing at the abused and mutilated bodies of Iraqis (Barry et al., 2004). Newsweek reported that "U.S. soldiers and CIA operatives could be accused of war crimes. Among the possible charges: homicide involving deaths during interrogations" (p. 26). It was also evident that some of the torture methods had been taught — ordinary American soldiers did not invent them independently. "Who taught them? Almost certainly it was their superiors up the line" (p. 27).

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Article 5, states: "No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment." The United States ratified the Convention against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment in 1994 and is therefore legally bound to act in accordance with it. Article 2 of that Convention states: "No exceptional circumstances whatsoever, whether a state of war or a threat of war, internal political instability or any other public emergency, may be invoked as a justification of torture" (cited in Koh, 2005, p. 9).

International Law and the Legal Rationale for Torture

Jay S. Bybee, from the Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, issued a 50-page memorandum on August 1, 2002, exploring how torture could be used against suspected terrorists without the United States being held legally liable. Koh (2005) notes that the memo defined torture so narrowly that many heinous acts committed by Saddam Hussein's regime would not have qualified. It granted the president far greater power as commander-in-chief than the Constitution actually provides and concluded that the International Convention Against Torture permits the United States to engage in cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. The president's counsel, Alberto Gonzales, did not repudiate this document.

Donald Rumsfeld and others in the administration concluded that the Geneva Convention was outmoded and did not apply to al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Rumsfeld told reporters in February 2002, "The reality is the set of facts that exist today with the Al Qaeda and the Taliban were not necessarily the set of facts that were considered when the Geneva Convention was fashioned" (cited in Ross, 2005). In Rumsfeld's view, detainees at Guantánamo Bay were all unlawful combatants who "do not have any rights" under the Geneva Conventions.

Ross (2005) points out that American military practice has been governed since the Civil War by Lincoln's humanistic principles regarding the treatment of prisoners in wartime. The Lieber Code, produced by the Lincoln administration, called for restraint and adherence to accepted rules of war. Article 16 of the Lieber Code states: "Military necessity does not admit of cruelty — that is, the infliction of suffering for the sake of suffering or for revenge, nor of maiming or wounding except in fight, nor of torture to extort confessions" (cited in Ross, 2005, p. 20). The Lieber Code influenced Prussia and other European armies and served as the basis for the Hague Regulations at the turn of the twentieth century and the Geneva Conventions at mid-century (p. 20).

The Bush administration, however, turned away from Lincoln's legacy. In July 2002, the CIA asked administration lawyers how far the agency could go when questioning terror suspects. Alberto Gonzales met with colleagues to discuss the question, and it was partly from this meeting that the infamous August 1 memorandum emerged. Gonzales argued that the war on terror "renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners." Isikoff et al. (2005) reported in Newsweek that "Gonzales and his team were constantly looking to push legal limits, to widen and maximize Bush's powers" (p. 55). Reportedly, Gonzales was far more loyal to the president than to the Constitution.

Bruce Ackerman, a professor of law and political science at Yale, argued that this kind of power maximization could be prevented through new legislation. He pointed out that the war on terror, unlike traditional wars, will never formally end, since terrorists will always operate in the shadows. We should therefore not call it a war. Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor agreed, upholding the president's power to detain Yaser Esam Hamdi as an enemy combatant only so long as U.S. troops remained involved in active combat in Afghanistan — but not for an endless war on terrorism. Ackerman recommended that when a terrorist attack or natural disaster occurs, Congress should declare a state of emergency and authorize the president to act unilaterally for only a week or two — "long enough for Congress to consider the matter" (Ackerman, 2004). He further proposed: "The emergency should expire unless a majority of Congress supports the president. After two months, the matter should return to Congress for reauthorization, and this time, a 60-percent super-majority should be required for another two-month extension; the next should require 70%, and 80% thereafter" (p. 40).