Remembering the international outcry over the pictures that were leaked from Abu Ghraib and Bagram, the US intelligence services knew the powder keg that they were hiding from the world. They knew what they had done were crimes against humanity and no amount of verbal discourse would make this acceptable, tolerable or forgivable.
There are two parts of this discourse that are disturbing to me as a human being. First, of course, is the report itself and what is still hidden from the public discussion. Second, and what is even more disturbing, is that in the face of these revelations, the Republican spin doctors have taken to television stations to defend their actions, as if it was actually necessary to implement these methods.
The summary report and what is still unknown
Most of the world’s media is talking about the 500 pages that were released for public consumption a few days ago. The conversation is centred on the abuses that have been exposed, and looking for answers to how this was allowed to happen and how they were all duped into believing that enhanced interrogation techniques were in the US’s greater interest and national security. Few are talking about the elephant in the room that has yet to be exposed.
The elephant concerning me, and all of you, is that this is only a 500-odd page summary report of a 6,700 page complete report, based on 16.7 million pages of de-classified CIA documents related to torture since 2002.
Take a second to think about that – 16.7 million pages of de-classified documents drilled down into 6,700 pages that the public will probably never see after the global reaction to the shorter summary report.
What is also worrying is that these tactics were used in a 1963 CIA program called KUBARK, which was used against everyone from Soviet double agents to Latin American dissidents. The 1963 program techniques were incorporated into the CIA interrogation manual, known as the Human Resource Exploitation (HRE) Training Manual, in 1983 and the officer in charge of the interrogations was elevated to the CIA’s chief of interrogations in the Renditions Group in 2002.
Had the summary report spoken of abuses such as sleep deprivation, beatings, electrocutions, or water-boarding, most of the world would have replied with a ‘been there, done that’. Most of the world watched these techniques in Hollywood creations like Zero Dark Thirty and 24.
Sadly, that was not what was in the report.
The report detailed abuses against 119 detainees – such a clinically neutral term – under the guise of gathering intelligence from them, that included forced rectal feeding, mock executions and burials, Russian roulette, threats of torture, murder and sexual assault against mothers, children and family members. I don’t want to get into the details of the tactics because they are so disgusting and inhumane that it would make your stomach churn if you had to read them. Suffice it to say that they found ways to abuse a human being that even the inventive scriptwriters in Hollywood couldn’t have imagined.
The summary report details extreme abuses that have long been called “enhanced interrogation tactics” by members of the Bush administration as the world demands to know which allies participated, facilitated and covered up the torture that has been exposed before the world. At current count, 54 countries are listed, including Afghanistan, Australia, Belgium, Canada, Egypt, Croatia, Germany, Hong Kong, Iran, Ireland, Jordan, Libya, Malaysia, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Syria, Thailand, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, the United Kingdom, Uzbekistan and Yemen. The list, according to the Open Source Foundation, is still not complete. The extent of their involvement is still unknown but it is fascinating to see that a list of US enemies included in the list of countries called upon to participate in torture on their behalf.
