Detainee Abuse And Torture: A WWII Perspective

-CTF Editorial: October 8, 2007

As reported in the Washington Post, some of those who have fought World War II have been speaking out, and I believe we would do well to listen to them.

Per the Article:

The group of World War II veterans kept a military code and the decorum of their generation, telling virtually no one of their top-secret work interrogating Nazi prisoners of war at Fort Hunt.

“We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture,” said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess.

"We did it with a certain amount of respect and justice," said John Gunther Dean, 81, who became a career Foreign Service officer and ambassador to Denmark.

The interrogators had standards that remain a source of pride and honor. "During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone," said George Frenkel, 87, of Kensington. "We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I'm proud to say I never compromised my humanity."

I wish the same could be said of the behavior in the current conflict.

Link to the DOD report on detainee abuse in .pdf format:

Church Report on Detainee Abuse

 

There were several lines from the movie "Judgement At Nuremburg" (1961) that are particularly relevant to the discussion at hand. The character Ernst Janning was a judge during the Nazi Regime. Here he attempts to explain his actions, and it is striking how his arguments mirror some of those we hear spun today from the Bush Administration and it's apologists, and also the unfortunate realizations some of them are having now regarding the sins they committed amidst their fear.

It also speaks to what a monumental error it was for Bush to regard the Geneva Conventions as some frivolous document he should endeavor to find loopholes around, rather than following it, either in spirit or letter.

Ernst Janning: "There was a fever over the land. A fever of disgrace, of indignity, of hunger. We had a democracy, yes, but it was torn by elements within. Above all, there was fear. Fear of today, fear of tomorrow, fear of our neighbors, and fear of ourselves. Only when you understand that - can you understand what Hitler meant to us. Because he said to us: 'Lift your heads! Be proud to be German! There are devils among us. Communists, Liberals, Jews, Gypsies! Once these devils will be destroyed, your misery will be destroyed.' It was the old, old story of the sacrificial lamb. What about those of us who knew better? We who knew the words were lies and worse than lies? Why did we sit silent? Why did we take part? Because we loved our country! What difference does it make if a few political extremists lose their rights? What difference does it make if a few racial minorities lose their rights? It is only a passing phase. It is only a stage we are going through. It will be discarded sooner or later. Hitler himself will be discarded... sooner or later. The country is in danger. We will march out of the shadows. We will go forward. Forward is the great password. And history tells how well we succeeded, your honor. We succeeded beyond our wildest dreams. The very elements of hate and power about Hitler that mesmerized Germany, mesmerized the world! We found ourselves with sudden powerful allies. Things that had been denied to us as a democracy were open to us now. The world said 'go ahead, take it, take it! Take Sudetenland, take the Rhineland - remilitarize it - take all of Austria, take it! And then one day we looked around and found that we were in an even more terrible danger. The ritual began in this courtroom swept over the land like a raging, roaring disease. What was going to be a passing phase had become the way of life. Your honor, I was content to sit silent during this trial. I was content to tend my roses. I was even content to let counsel try to save my name, until I realized that in order to save it, he would have to raise the specter again. You have seen him do it - he has done it here in this courtroom. He has suggested that the Third Reich worked for the benefit of people. He has suggested that we sterilized men for the welfare of the country. He has suggested that perhaps the old Jew did sleep with the sixteen year old girl, after all. Once more it is being done for love of country. It is not easy to tell the truth; but if there is to be any salvation for Germany, we who know our guilt must admit it... whatever the pain and humiliation."

Judge Dan Haywood: "Janning, to be sure, is a tragic figure. We believe he loathed the evil he did. But compassion for the present torture of his soul must not beget forgetfulness of the torture and death of millions by the government of which he was a part. Janning's record and his fate illuminate the most shattering truth that has emerged from this trial. If he and the other defendants were all depraved perverts - if the leaders of the Third Reich were sadistic monsters and maniacs - these events would have no more moral significance than an earthquake or other natural catastrophes. But this trial has shown that under the stress of a national crisis, men - even able and extraordinary men - can delude themselves into the commission of crimes and atrocities so vast and heinous as to stagger the imagination. No one who has sat through this trial can ever forget. The sterilization of men because of their political beliefs... The murder of children... How easily that can happen! There are those in our country today, too, who speak of the "protection" of the country. Of "survival". The answer to that is: 'survival as what?' A country isn't a rock. And it isn't an extension of one's self. It's what it stands for, when standing for something is the most difficult! Before the people of the world - let it now be noted in our decision here that this is what we stand for: justice, truth... and the value of a single human being!"

Ernst Janning: "Judge Haywood... the reason I asked you to come: Those people, those millions of people... I never knew it would come to that. You must believe it, You must believe it!"
Judge Dan Haywood: "Herr Janning, it came to that the first time you sentenced a man to death you knew to be innocent."

This is especially disturbing when considering some of the detainees we found out about who were in GTIMO. The American people have never been given a full accounting of precisely who is being held, much less why, but in March of 2006 we got a brief glimpse of some of them in the  5,000 pages of transcripts from closed-door tribunal hearings for the detainees released by the Pentagon via a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit filed by the Associated Press. Considering the haphazard way in which many of them were captured, and the fact that many were turned in solely to obtain the reward we were offering without verifying that they were in fact the individuals we were seeking, much of the information within the transcripts is disturbing.

Per the AP report:

In some cases, even having the name did not clarify the identity. In one document, the tribunal president asks a detainee if his name is Jumma Jan. The detainee responds that no, his name instead is Zain Ul Abedin.

Mohammed Gul, who said he was a farmer and gas station owner in his native Afghanistan, claimed he was mistakenly captured as a Taliban fighter when he returned to his country from Saudi Arabia to care for his sick wife. "I don't want to spend any more time here, not one more minute," he told the tribunal.

Another detainee, whose name was not included in the transcripts, was accused of hiring a smuggler with ties to militant Muslim groups to help him get to the United States from Pakistan. The prisoner said he made it to Mexico, after flying to Guatemala, but he did not intend to attack the United States. "I was going to find a job to make some money," he said.

In one unedited transcript, Zahir Shah, an Afghan accused of belonging to an Islamic militant group and of having a rocket-propelled grenade launcher and other weapons in his house, admits having rifles. He says they were for protection — he had a running feud with a cousin — and insists he did not fight U.S. troops. The only time he shot anything, he says, was when he hunted with a BB gun. "What are we going to do with RPGs?" he asks, adding: "The only thing I did in Afghanistan was farming. ... We grew wheat, corn, vegetables and watermelons."

Prisoner Abbasi complains that on two occasions, military police officers had sex in front of him, while others tried to feed him "a hot plate of pork," food banned by the Islamic faith. Some, he said, misled him into praying north toward the United States rather than toward Mecca as Muslims are required to do. Like the other detainees, Abbasi wasn't allowed to see classified evidence against him. He repeatedly cited international law in arguing that he was unfairly classified as an enemy combatant. An Air Force colonel whose identity remains blacked out would have none of it. "Mr. Abbasi, your conduct is unacceptable and this is your absolute final warning. I do not care about international law. I do not want to hear the words international law again. We are not concerned about international law," the colonel says. Then he has Abbasi removed from the courtroom.

About 490 prisoners are being held at Guantanamo Bay, but only 10 of them have been charged with a crime.

"WE are not concerned with international law," colonel? What "WE"? It is precisely that kind of thinking that is getting us into trouble, and that perception doesn't occur in a vacuum. It comes from somewhere. It comes from the TOP.

What else is the colonel to think, when the Commander-in-Chief has no regard for the law?

Perhaps someone needs to instruct the colonel AND Mr. Bush that per Article VI, Paragraph II of the U.S. Constitution, "All Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land." They become AMERICAN law. We signed the Geneva Conventions and the Nuremberg Tribunal Charter. They are AMERICAN law. Violate it, and you have done offense to this country and it's people.