In the wake of Abu Ghraib, extraordinary rendition and Guantanamo, torture has become a stain on America s good name, something that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago. This stain, which has especially harmed US relations with the Muslim world, must be removed, with all those involved being held accountable for their actions.
US Congress needs to conduct a thorough investigation into crimes of torture authorized and carried out by US officials, while governments worldwide should work together to prevent future abuses and encourage an environment of mutual respect for human rights.
Colonel Nick Rowe, famed as one of the only American prisoners of war (POW) to escape from five years of imprisonment by the Vietnamese Communists, would be aghast at recent events. Years after his experience in Vietnam, he became a man with a mission, voluntarily accepting recall to active duty in 1981 to establish the US Army Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape (SERE) Program. A victim of torture himself, Rowe did his best to protect and prepare American fighting men for the horrors of war, but never would he have thought his program would become the model for the United State s torture lite campaign.
He designed his SERE course to enable American servicemen to survive isolation, torture and indoctrination by hostile countries or terrorists. Torture in the SERE course is limited to torture lite, which means the use of nakedness, extreme temperatures, stress positions, infliction of continuous high volume noise and sleep deprivation. This combination of torture lite techniques is designed to cause pain, mental disorientation and total collapse of the individual s will to resist.
Days and nights of continuous torture lite are enough to break anyone. It leaves physical, psychological, mental and sometimes spiritual scars. Torture lite is designed to tear asunder the spirit of individuals and render them willing collaborators with their tormentors.
Recently, a German citizen who was reportedly disappeared by the CIA and taken to Afghanistan for torture lite was committed to a mental health institution. Five months after his disappearance – part of the global war on terror – he reappeared on a deserted country road in Albania after US government officials realized he was not a terrorist. He now suffers from psychological illness resulting from his severe interrogations and imprisonment.
Milt Bearden, a CIA officer who directed support operations for Afghan mujahideen fighters resisting the Soviet occupation of their native land in the 1980s, stated that official US policy during the administrations of three American presidents was that all sides in the Afghan conflict should treat their prisoners in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, in which signatories agree not to torture POWs and enemy civilians in armed conflicts.
World War II veterans, Vietnam veterans and active duty soldiers have also always opposed torture and inhumane treatment of captives. Why do the soldiers who suffered the horrors of war seem to know more about the need to preserve and defend the values of human dignity than policy makers? Probably because they know that once inhumane forms of warfare are found acceptable by the United States of America, itself a signatory to the Geneva Convention, American soldiers will be more likely to suffer torture and abuse if captured by terrorists.
The United States needs to learn from its soldiers. It also needs to recognize that asking forgiveness and making restitution to the victims of illegal policy is part of a necessary process to regain our stature as a moral nation governed by the rule of law.
In 1999, US President Bill Clinton traveled to Guatemala to extend his apology for 30 years of US government support to the former military dictatorship. That dictatorship utilized death squads, torture, disappearances, secret prisons and ethnic cleansing to repress its own people. Clinton s action served to re-establish confidence in the Guatemalan people that America would no longer support repression in the region.
A similar apology by US President George W. Bush to the innocent victims of the war on terror would go a long way towards reconciling illegal and immoral US policies seen as anti-Muslim in public opinion surveys from Turkey to Indonesia. Such a gesture by President Bush would set the stage for the eventual reconciliation between America and the marginalized peoples of the Middle East and South Asia. Such a process would move forward the cause of global peace and justice, as well as isolate extremists of all varieties.
William Bacheis a retired US army officer and Vietnam veteran, currently living in Turkey. In 2006, he worked as the Deputy for Ethics at the Iraqi Center for Military Principles, Values and Leadership in Baghdad. This article first appeared in Washington Post/Newsweek s Post Global and was written for the Common Ground News Service (CGNews).
