http://billmon.org/http://billmon.org/

« Perfect Timing | Main | Neoconned II »

May 04, 2004

Average Joe

Last night a reporter who is chasing the Abu Ghraib torture story emailed me an autobiographical sketch of Joe Ryan, the conservative talk radio personality turned military interrogator who provided this inside look at life inside the prison. (As lived by the Americans, I mean. The prisoners are just now getting a chance to their sideof the story.)

The bio was provided by the KSTP -- the Minneapolis radio station that, up until recently, had been posting Ryan's diary on its web site. Joe, it seems, is an ex-Special Forces intelligence specialist turned contractor employee -- whether for CACI International or some other firm is not made clear, although my understanding is that CACI was the only firm providing interrogators at Abu Ghraib. I'm guessing Ryan's background is reasonably representative -- professionally and probably ideologically -- of the contractors involved in the scandal (although there's no direct indication in his diary that he himself participated in any of the abuses.)

Anyway, here's Joe in his own words:

For those of you who do not know my military and civilian background, let me give a little bio to maybe clarify how I look at things while I am here.

I was in Air Force Junior ROTC in high school and went to University of Colorado for two years on Air Force ROTC scholarship. I decided that Aerospace Engineering was not for me and left college.

I enlisted into the Army as a PFC for an interrogator position with an airborne slot. My language wish list consisted of Russian, German, or Spanish. In the army's omnipotence, they chose to send me to the Foreign Service Institute in Washington, DC to learn Swahili. My first assignment was with 3rd Special Forces Group where I was in-processed a whole 13 days prior to going on my first deployment with a team to Uganda. I have spent time in 10 African countries with the teams and earned my "S" identifier after completion of selection and qualifying course for weapons specialist (18B), but was never released by MI branch since I was one of two Swahili linguists in the army, so carried the 18B as a secondary specialty. I went through the DOD Strategic Debriefer Course, Israeli Interrogation Course, and the SCAN Course. In 1994, I went into Haiti with two SF teams into La Cayes on the southern peninsula. After securing our objective, we were informed the invasion was canceled. This meant no further reinforcements for 28 days and forever resentful to the philandering president. In Haiti I performed more than 80 interrogations and conducted the force protection assessments.

Since MI Branch would not release me, I reclassified to 98C (Signals Intelligence Analyst) so I could advance my career. So a Swahili linguist was sent to Korea for a year upon completion of the school. The blessing is that I met my wonderful wife in 98C school and spent the year in Korea with her. I was in charge of the two Trojan Spirit systems for the 2nd Infantry Division.

Needing a desk to try on for size, I went to work for the National Security Agency for the last 17 month of my active duty. As the only military person in the department and the only one to have spent time in Eastern Africa, I had four civilians making MUCH more money than I working for me during the height of the Sudanese civil war.

I wanted to move to Colorado or back to California when I got out of the military. My wife was from Minnesota. Due to typical martial negotiations, we moved to Minnesota, which as usual, the wife made a great decision. I left the army and finished my degree in Political Science while working as a security technician supervisor for the St Paul Companies. I have since moved on to manage workers' compensation claims for the county employees in Minnesota.

A week before Thanksgiving of 2003, I found out that I was facing a potential recall to active duty after enjoying civilian life for 5 years since I was former special forces. In order to avoid going back to active duty, I signed on with a defense contractor and am now over here as an interrogator.

Now in reading Joe's account of himself, one phrase kind of jumped out at me:

I went through the DOD Strategic Debriefer Course, Israeli Interrogation Course, and the SCAN Course. (emphasis added)

I spent the better part of the morning doing Google and Nexis searches to see what I could find out about the "Israeli Interrogation Course," without much luck. I did find a bio blurb for an ex-MP turned security contractor who claimed to have attended something called the "Israeli Interview and Interrogation School" while in serving in the Army. But Google and Nexis didn't yield anything on that one, either.

The potential Israeli connection to the interrogation regime at Abu Ghraib is of some interest, since, as I explained here, some details of the treatment inflicted on the prisoners resembles the known practices of Israel's General Security Service (aka Shin Bet). There have also been numerous reports -- including one by Sy Hersh -- suggesting that the Israeli security forces and/or the Israeli Defense Force are deeply involved in advising Centcom on its conduct of both the war and the occupation.

If anyone has any information about the "Israeli Interrogation Course," or the "Israeli Interview and Interrogation School," I'd be interested in hearing it. I'm guessing it's probably spme kind of program offered at the Army Intelligence School at Fort Huachuca, Arizona, based on Israeli doctrine and perhaps taught by Israeli instructors.

Just as a footnote, it's ironic to note that while the USA appears to have adopted or modified such techniques as the "Shabach position," the "Frog Crouch," and the "Fake Execution," most of these practices have been banned in Israel -- at least in theory -- by decision of the Israeli Surpreme Court. While Israeli human rights groups acknowledge that "torture lite" still continues in Israeli prisons, despite the ruling, they say it has at least forced Shin Bet operatives to think twice before resorting to such practices.

Our American military interrogators, on the other hand, not only appear to have adopted torture lite as their standard operating practice, they've also crossed the line into outright torture and execution, if this haunting passage from Sy Hersh's story -- which in turn is based on the Army's own internal investigative report -- is accurate:

Two Iraqi faces that do appear in the photographs are those of dead men. There is the battered face of prisoner No. 153399, and the bloodied body of another prisoner, wrapped in cellophane and packed in ice. There is a photograph of an empty room, splattered with blood.

Try as I might, I can't get that image out of my head. I wonder if the American interrogators present during that particular line of questioning can.

Update 4:15 PM ET: Here's an interesting excerpt from the Taguba report, excerpted in the LA Times:

In general, U.S. civilian contract personnel (Titan Corporation, CACI, etc….), third-country nationals and local contractors do not appear to be properly supervised within the detention facility at Abu Ghraib. During our on-site inspection, they wandered about with too much unsupervised free access in the detainee area… (emphasis added)

It would be interesting to know the identity of that "third country."

Posted by billmon at May 4, 2004 02:18 PM | TrackBack

Comments

Hey, Billmon-- the NY Times has picked up on your scoop on the contractor (Steven Stephaniwicz still is on the job).

I wonder where they got the info from?

Posted by: at May 4, 2004 02:29 PM

I know nothing about an "Israeli Interrogation Course", but that line jumped out at me as well.

Of course, reading your blog has sort of primed me for picking up on Israeli references....

Posted by: Alex at May 4, 2004 02:31 PM

Cripes, people like Joe give me the willies.

"Philandering"? Clinton sent in an airborne invasion, for crying out loud. And he cancelled it only when the junta backed-down and agreed to leave. Force when needed, peace when possible. How "bad" is that?

Before any shots were fired? After the cancellation of hostilities? Didn't this thug realize that peace had broken out?

Yes, billmon, I'm sure they can. They can make you believe 2+2=5. They can make you--and all of us--love Big Brother.

Posted by: cthulhu at May 4, 2004 02:31 PM

Hmmm. He acknowledges serving at the NSA? That was the agency that wouldn't even acknowledge its own existence until very recently. Something's very fishy here.

Posted by: Dinsdale Piranha at May 4, 2004 02:31 PM

Though I certainly don't mean to suggest that abuses and torture have ended, I'm glad to see that link to the Israeli Sup. Ct. decision. I was familiar with it but hadn't had the chance to read the actual text yet. Chief Justice Barak has been known for making some pretty politically unpopular rulings - but at least it shows that he's willing to stand up for the right thing.

Posted by: DavidNYC at May 4, 2004 02:35 PM

Here's the NY Times article on Steven Stephaniwicz

Posted by: Alex at May 4, 2004 02:35 PM

How many fingers, Mr. Hadji?

Posted by: Petronius at May 4, 2004 02:38 PM

Billmon-- please, please chase down the conspiracy link because that's the truly important thing here.

But for me it's the hypocrisy that really gets up my nose....like that last line from the bio:
".....In order to avoid going back to active duty, I signed on with a defense contractor and am now over here as an interrogator."

Heather Mallick (the Canadian 'socialist' that went toe to toe with O'Reilly recently) said it best, I think (paraphrasing, no time to look it up now)....'these people are not there to serve their country, they're there to serve their Human Resources Supervisors.'

Oh, ya, and the money's not bad either.

And 'Cheers' to your latest source. Is it just my imagination or have your sources improved exponentially since you sidestepped the comparison to Hersh the other day?

Posted by: RossK at May 4, 2004 02:39 PM

And someone said just the other day that blogs doesn´t matter. That no one in the big world cares about blogs. Seems like someone at NYT does care. And more than that: reads.

Posted by: mort at May 4, 2004 02:46 PM

What strikes me about this Joe Ryan is his apparent
unconcern with the bigger picture. These few lines are not much to go on, but he seems not to question AT ALL the purposes of his assignments and their constitutionality, morality, or effects on the populations
of the places he was assigned. Total faith in "the mission", and his leaders. This faith seems to be inborn, since he was in JROTC in high school. Like
Colin Powell: "a good soldier". Like "good soldiers" who have enabled tyrants from time immemorial.

Posted by: disgusted vet at May 4, 2004 02:46 PM

The "SCAN course" mentioned in Joe Ryan's bio is probably the course offered by LSI Laboratory for Scientific Interrogation, Inc. headquartered in Phoenix, Arizona. They also have an office in Israel (English Hebrew).

Posted by: Richard Parker at May 4, 2004 02:50 PM

Alan Dershowitz has argued that Israeli courts should issue "torture warrants" to protect interogators using extreme measures to extract information.

Posted by: citizen Able at May 4, 2004 02:52 PM

It keeps getting darker and darker. I feel like this whole thing is about to blow.

Posted by: gsabino at May 4, 2004 02:52 PM

The Israeli connection stuck out in some other articles yesterday. At that point I immediately thought that the interrogations were strongly influenced by W's strongest and scariest ally.

It makes sense. Before Sep-2001 how many US "employees" knew arabic or about the culture. Sure there were some leftovers from the early 90's, but there was a visible panic expressed over the shortage of arabic reading intelligence post September 2001.

The Israeli's on the other hand know the arab culture oh to well. If they trained US people on interrogation, I'm sure they told them about every little thing that is degrading and shaming to an arab. An illinformed american is not going to know the underlying history that is going make their actions carry so much more weight than meets the eye.

Even NSA Joe did finish his college education until after his illustrious professional carrer. Sure the training he got was probably on the same level, but he did have any "expanded" knowledge going in. It interesting that he finished out a Political Science degree after returning to civilian life.

So anyway, it all begs the question, are the contractors in the jails just Israeli-trained henchmen doing work for Israel and oh-by-the-way the US too? How 'in bed' is W, in bed with Israel? Is Sharon on par with a Michael Jackson analogy?

Posted by: PRob at May 4, 2004 02:59 PM

Having lived all my life around the military, (due to sheer strenth of will I never joined) I know something about the culture. Military police are a subculture that is particularly prone to attracting individuals with SM tendencies, compulsive-obsessive personalities, sexual dysfunctions, anti social behavior patterns and inferiority complexes. It is these personality defecits that produce the type of inhumanity seen in the photos despite "training" to the contrary. The wonder is that it should be a surprise to anyone especially to their commanders. Read CYA subtext.

Do you remember the brutal stockade sergeant in "From Here to Eternity" played wonderfully by Ernest Borgnine? A classic character study.

Posted by: Airman at May 4, 2004 03:01 PM

Having lived all my life around the military, (due to sheer strenth of will I never joined) I know something about the culture. Military police are a subculture that is particularly prone to attracting individuals with SM tendencies, compulsive-obsessive personalities, sexual dysfunctions, anti social behavior patterns and inferiority complexes. It is these personality defecits that produce the type of inhumanity seen in the photos despite "training" to the contrary. The wonder is that it should be a surprise to anyone especially to their commanders. Read CYA subtext.

Do you remember the brutal stockade sergeant in "From Here to Eternity" played wonderfully by Ernest Borgnine? A classic character study.

Posted by: Airman at May 4, 2004 03:01 PM

disgusted vet,
you might add that Joe Ryan gets his news exclusively from Fox. Wanna bet he's all for "staying the course"?

Posted by: Big Mike at May 4, 2004 03:03 PM

The New Yorker's web site has a series of the photographs, including the photograph of the corpse packed in ice packs. Welcome to the free-market version of the Gulag Archipelago.

Posted by: CD318 at May 4, 2004 03:03 PM

This line jumped out at me too. I wonder if he kept pictures of his "interrogations" for his scrapbook? Judging from the personality that is revealed by his biographical notes and his pride in telling us about his Haitian activities (which were authorized by whom and for what possible purpose?), I'd say yes.

Posted by: Basharov at May 4, 2004 03:05 PM

Disgusted vet, I noticed the same thing. Like you, I'm a disgusted vet and these people are truly creepy. We had "gung-ho" people too when I was in the USAF 35 years ago but most of us were pretty laid-back folks. But, yet, how gung-ho was Ryan because he signed up with a contractor to avoid being pulled back into the military? That makes this guy even scarier because he doesn't seem to have any higher principles.

I also noticed the "Israeli Interrogation School" when I read his bio and wondered, "What the hell?" I had read several times over the past few months that the American military forces were using Israeli-taught techniques for dealing with Iraqis. I said to myself then, "Yeah, that'll work great. The Israelis are having fantastic success in winning over the hearts and minds of the Palestinians." That's when it was clear to me that that this was an occupation - not a liberation.

Posted by: Mushinronsha at May 4, 2004 03:06 PM

thank you thank you

Posted by: annie at May 4, 2004 03:06 PM

I cannot get that image out of my head either, Billmon. I I have trouble breathing sometimes when I think that they might (and it seems more and more a real possibility) get away with it.

Bush lectures us about how he has hopes that brown-skinned peoples can have self-governing democracies (some one send him to a cluestore). I want to know what he is going to do with these American criminals. So far he has been appallingly less than luke warm in his condemnations. Saying he and all this makes me sick does not even get close to what I feel. Words fail me.

I cannot believe I am here on my lunch hour. Addiction, thy name is Billmon's Whiskey Bar.

Posted by: Cybelline at May 4, 2004 03:07 PM

So, Billmon, we go to schools where they teach us to restrain our cruelty while interrogating--almost a contradiction in terms, as mentioned in an earlier thread--and we come out doing the very thing we were taught not to do. Something doesn't add up here.

Mr. Ryan may be a gifted lingust. Was he learning Arabic at that school? Or the questions that "work" in Arabic? If so, this would chime with Juan Cole's point that we have almost no competence in Arabic hereabouts. And his "course selection" at that school would be most revealing.

Posted by: alabama at May 4, 2004 03:08 PM

I asked a friend of mine in the military what he knew about anything called the "Israeli Interrogation Course" and this was his answer:

Though I don't think he said anything about taking pictures about it for the entire world to see...

Posted by: Doug at May 4, 2004 03:10 PM

The mess we're in comes from the ideas that 1) the command of a 'god' to defeat supercedes law and 2) defeating evil exempts one from following any law. That's what the concepts of evil and evil people get you - insanity. The people causing all this harm are insane in the sense that they believe in something they cannot see and they believe that it supercedes anything that they can see. Religion is the worst idea that some people ever dreamed up and attempted to use as a way to get through life.

Posted by: TJ at May 4, 2004 03:11 PM

Actually, I think Dershowitz has suggested that U.S. courts should issue torture warrants. I dunno, he must have picked up some of Claus Von Bulow's ethics while he was defending him.

Posted by: Billmon at May 4, 2004 03:11 PM

There is a reference in the Taguba report to third-country nationals at Abu Ghraib, and their ability to move freely around the prison. From the context in the limited excerpt I saw, it sounded like these people were working with military intelligence and CACI in interrogations. Now who would have the most experience in (1) forceful interrogation techniques; (2) dealing with Middle Easterners; and (3) speaking Arabic? Given the ties at all levels, includings Joe's participation in the Israeli Interrogation Course, is it possible that some of those third-country nationals are Shin Bet and/or Mossad? And if they are, what happens to the attitude of Arabs towards the United States when this gets out?

Posted by: Aigin at May 4, 2004 03:12 PM

Watched Rummy's press conference while eating my lunch (I don't recommend this practice to anyone with a weak stomach).

I was waiting for someone in the press corps to ask him when he would start using plain English and talk about torture instead of "alleged abuse".

Instead we got Rummy pretending this was an "isolated incident", desperately dodging the best question asked, "who are the detainees, and why are they being detained" (I would have added, and how many of them are we detaining...) and one bearded bonehead (I'm assuming a Fox employee) asking about the "hypocrisy" of people complaining about the "humiliation" of a few Iraqis when those Arabs torture people all the time...

jeebus....

Posted by: A Hermit at May 4, 2004 03:13 PM

Source? Link?

Does anybody know if the Taguba report is online yet?

Posted by: Billmon at May 4, 2004 03:14 PM

Step right up Ladies and Gentlemen! Get your very own 'Average Joe' Action Figure right here!

Guaranteed to make your other dolls talk!

Posted by: Night Owl at May 4, 2004 03:16 PM

That jumped out at me too. and thanks to Richard Parker for explaining what the SCAN course is. This just gets creepier and creepier.

I can't get the image of that blood splattered room out of my head either. And I keep remembering Joe's comment about how the KBR cleaner couldn't get the stains out of his clothes. Christ.

Just the casual tone of it is frightening. La la la, went around the world torturing people then went back to Minnesota to process freaking workers comp claims. Truly, the banality of evil.

I'm trying to imagine... what exactly do you talk about after a long day training in methods of torture and interrogation? Doesn't anyone ever stand up and say WTF?

Posted by: four legs good at May 4, 2004 03:17 PM

Airman writes:
"Military police are a subculture that is particularly prone to attracting individuals with SM tendencies, compulsive-obsessive personalities, sexual dysfunctions, anti social behavior patterns and inferiority complexes."

Roger that.

Is anyone else stuck by the fact that none of the statements made by MPs in Sy's article identify MI personnel by name? Who are the individuals they're referring to? They worked with them, received guidance/instruction/orders from them, and yet never name them. It's a pretty queer and thorough omission.

Posted by: Pat at May 4, 2004 03:18 PM

*** A REQUEST ***

HERE IS THE BLOG OF A "STRATEGIC DEBRIEFER/INTERROGATOR"

http://chiefwiggles.blog-city.com/

PLEASE SOMEBODY MIRROR IT AS IT MAY DISSAPPEAR.
HE ALSO HAS AN OLD BLOG AND A NEW SITE, BOTH LINKED
TO FROM THERE. (I AM LOW ON BANDWIDTH UNTIL 12.MAY)

THE BLOG HAS LOTS OF LINKS TO PICS, NAMES OF PEOPLE AND
OTHER STUFF WHICH MAY BE INTERESTING IN THE CONTEXT OF
THE ABU-GHRAIB CRIMES.

AS TO TRAINING WITH ISRAELIS, LOOK UP "NOAM TIVON" FROM
THE IDF WHO WAS/IS TRAINING WITH THE USMC ACCORDING TO
THIS SITE (comment on one of the pics):

http://members.aon.at/hpkr/kawther

Posted by: name at May 4, 2004 03:21 PM

I remember that. Actually I believe he said that on Nightline sometime after 9/11, IIRC. He was arguing that the ends justified the means in the most reasonable tone of voice. I couldn't believe it.

Oh yeah, CNN had a poll up this morning (it's down now) - is torture ever justified? No was winning by only 53%.

Stop the world and let me get off.

Posted by: four legs good at May 4, 2004 03:23 PM

Again another set of excellent posts and comments. Slightly OT (did not know where to put it) but an interesting site at Solders for the Truth.org This site is military information oriented and some/most of the posts are very pro military. But David H. Hackworth, DefenseWatch Senior Military Columnist writes some very telling articles about the absolutely inept way this whole ‘war’ is going. Check out the latest post concerning:

"Deploying without sufficient armor and then having to fly 70-ton Abrams tanks to Iraq is as flaky as almost everything else about a war where politicians were proclaiming just a year ago that once we drained the swamps, the rest would be rice and flowers."

Posted by: GarySlo at May 4, 2004 03:25 PM

Not for nothing, but I bet everyone here at the bar reads it before chimpy does.

BTW, when googling Taguba Report, Whiskey Bar is the 4th story down. How cool is that?

Posted by: four legs good at May 4, 2004 03:27 PM

Sy Hersh all but said that last night on Charlie Rose. I can't find a transcript of it though.

Posted by: chance at May 4, 2004 03:30 PM

Best I know re: Taguba are excerpts from LAT yesterday

Posted by: RossK at May 4, 2004 03:35 PM

Billmon:

The New York Times had an article several months ago about the seige of the town that first broke the news stateside that we were employing techniques used by the IDF as occupation practice. I suggest this so vaguely because I'm sure you probably know the story I'm referring to. I cannot remember the name of the town anymore, but it was the first story about surrounding a town with razor wire and passing all people through checkpoints. I remember it included the statement by one of the US officers that "The only thing Arabs understand is force." (Which, by the by, incensed an acquaintance of mine who is a retired professor of political science at a renowned Ivy League university I won't name, very well known, former Defense Policy Board member, etc.) At any rate, in that article it noted that these units had received IDF training for Occupation practice. That should have been an article that appeared in December or November.

Posted by: j at May 4, 2004 03:35 PM

The excerpts I saw were in the

In general, U.S. civilian contract personnel (Titan Corporation, CACI, etc….), third-country nationals and local contractors do not appear to be properly supervised within the detention facility at Abu Ghraib. During our on-site inspection, they wandered about with too much unsupervised free access in the detainee area….

Posted by: Aigin at May 4, 2004 03:36 PM

Thanks, RossK, for the link. I saw it in the LA Times, via Empire Notes (www.empirenotes.org).

Posted by: Aigin at May 4, 2004 03:39 PM

Hmmm. I remember that. I believe that the town was Tikrit, Saddam Hussein's birthplace.

Posted by: at May 4, 2004 03:41 PM

Who the fuck volunteers to be an interrogator when joining the army?

A sick fuck, no doubt.

Posted by: chuck at May 4, 2004 03:44 PM

for those of you in the boston area:

bill made a comment at kevin drum's blog (politcal animal at washingtonmonthly.com) that last night's charlie rose show with seymour hersh would be rebroadcast in the boston area tonight. i justed confirmed it with wgbh - 6pm on channel 44. i'll be taping it...

Posted by: selise at May 4, 2004 03:45 PM

As a side note -- Hersh is on Hardball tonight. Could be worthwhile.

Posted by: agrajag at May 4, 2004 03:49 PM

Ain't it somethin' how the American hostage that escaped was fed well and even received surgery for his gunshot wound during his captivity? Would the average American even care about the contrast?

I'm trying to decide between Canada, Australia, or New Zealand.

Posted by: Sound and Fury at May 4, 2004 03:49 PM

Note on civilian contractors:

There has been a lot of media noise about how civilian contractors aren't subject to military law (specifically, the UCMJ) and have gotten off without even charges because of that.

I direct attention to 10 USC 802, particularly subsection (a) which defines the applicability of the UCMJ -- note (10)-(12):

(10)

In time of war, persons serving with or accompanying an armed force in the field.

(11)

Subject to any treaty or agreement to which the United States is or may be a party or to any accepted rule of international law, persons serving with, employed by, or accompanying the armed forces outside the United States and outside the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands.

(12)

Subject to any treaty or agreement to which the United States is or may be a party or to any accepted rule of international law, persons within an area leased by or otherwise reserved or acquired for the use of the United States which is under the control of the Secretary concerned and which is outside the United States and outside the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Virgin Islands.

Posted by: cmdicely at May 4, 2004 03:50 PM

"Who the fuck volunteers to be an interrogator when joining the army?"

I did, Chuck. So did - and so do - a lot of other perfectly normal, honorable human beings. My husband's currently debriefing and interrogating in Afghanistan.

I think your's is a case of a (very, very) little knowledge being a dangerous thing.

Posted by: Pat at May 4, 2004 03:56 PM

Thanks for the info.

Pat, you may be correct, but I'm curious, why did you volunteer for that?

Posted by: four legs good at May 4, 2004 03:58 PM

Name, if there is valuable "gotcha" information on Chief Wiggles's site, I won't have the patience to read through his very sincere, do-gooder personal journal to find it.

For the curious drinkers: Chief Wiggles seems to be a legitimate interrogator, but he spends a lot of time on his site meeting with Iraqi upper-classes and organizing toy drives for Iraqi children. He is, strangely enough, a practicing member of the Latter-Day Saints.

Posted by: Jackmormon at May 4, 2004 03:58 PM

I checked out that Chief Wiggles site, and the thing that amazes me about blogs like that is how personally the other commenters take everything. One comment from someone called Patrick asking the author's opinion on Abu Ghraib sparked such hectoring from the other commenters that nothing substantial was actually said, on either side. I don't know what the other commenters thought they were accomplishing, but it certainly didn't leave me (nor Patrick) with the best impression of that site's patrons.

And not only that - other sites have commenters that simply assert things, without providing links or substantial backup. I am shocked that no one challenges these assertions and asks for evidence of any sort. Could it be that the Whiskey Bar brand of discussion backed up by actual evidence is not the status quo of the blogosphere? If we as bloggers and blog-reader/commenters are to be taken seriously by the mainstream media and perhaps, someday, decisionmakers in this country, we need to hold ourselves to the most rigorous standards of evidence and facts as the next magazine or newspaper. Not that we don't do this already in this bar.

We are so spoiled to have this wonderful establishment, where disagreements are seen as the spice of life and people know not to use ad hominem attacks if they don't want to be accused of trolling. And even the trolls on this site get a good dose of logic and humour rather than the nasty flaring I see so many other places in the blogosphere.

Another round, on me.

Posted by: Zoe at May 4, 2004 04:02 PM

Given the techniques American interrogators have been using it wouldn't surprise me if this "Israeli Intelligence School" isn't the infamous Facility 1391.

Posted by: buddha at May 4, 2004 04:04 PM

Tacitus recommends a course of action that IMHO should be promoted throughout both sides of the blogosphere until it is followed through on:

1.) relief from duty -- or reassignment to menial tasks -- of all officers and NCOs in the chain of command of the offending unit, which, from press accounts, appears to be the 372nd Military Police Company

2.) immediate dismissal from service of, and the loss of all contracts by, CACI, whose employees are alleged to be involved in the prisoners' maltreatment. Concurrent to this, United States or military courts could, I would think, certainly discover appropriate jurisdiction over the relevant civilian personnel and proceed accordingly (should they reject it, the clarifying option of Iraqi jurisdiction might be offered).

3.) disband the 372nd Military Police Company

Read the whole post for context and full argument.

Posted by: Yermum at May 4, 2004 04:04 PM

Here is the New York Times article, from December 7, 2003 (auspicious date?)

Tough New Tactics by U.S. Tighten Grip on Iraq Towns by Dexter Filkins

Here are some excerpts:

In Abu Hishma, encased in a razor-wire fence after repeated attacks on American troops, Iraqi civilians line up to go in and out, filing through an American-guarded checkpoint, each carrying an identification card printed in English only.

"If you have one of these cards, you can come and go," coaxed Lt. Col. Nathan Sassaman, the battalion commander whose men oversee the village, about 50 miles north of Baghdad. "If you don't have one of these cards, you can't."

The Iraqis nodded and edged their cars through the line. Over to one side, an Iraqi man named Tariq muttered in anger.

"I see no difference between us and the Palestinians," he said. "We didn't expect anything like this after Saddam fell."

The practice of destroying buildings where Iraqi insurgents are suspected of planning or mounting attacks has been used for decades by Israeli soldiers in Gaza and the West Bank. The Israeli Army has also imprisoned the relatives of suspected terrorists, in the hopes of pressing the suspects to surrender.

The Israeli military has also cordoned off villages and towns thought to be hotbeds of guerrilla activity, in an effort to control the flow of people moving in and out.

American officials say they are not purposefully mimicking Israeli tactics, but they acknowledge that they have studied closely the Israeli experience in urban fighting. Ahead of the war, Israeli defense experts briefed American commanders on their experience in guerrilla and urban warfare. The Americans say there are no Israeli military advisers helping the Americans in Iraq.

Writing in the July issue of Army magazine, an American brigadier general said American officers had recently traveled to Israel to hear about lessons learned from recent fighting there.

"Experience continues to teach us many lessons, and we continue to evaluate and address those lessons, embedding and incorporating them appropriately into our concepts, doctrine and training," Brig. Gen. Michael A. Vane wrote. "For example, we recently traveled to Israel to glean lessons learned from their counterterrorist operations in urban areas." General Vane is deputy chief of staff for doctrine concepts and strategy, at the United States Army Training and Doctrine Command.

...

Underlying the new strategy, the Americans say, is the conviction that only a tougher approach will quell the insurgency and that the new strategy must punish not only the guerrillas but also make clear to ordinary Iraqis the cost of not cooperating.

"You have to understand the Arab mind," Capt. Todd Brown, a company commander with the Fourth Infantry Division, said as he stood outside the gates of Abu Hishma. "The only thing they understand is force — force, pride and saving face."

Posted by: jer at May 4, 2004 04:08 PM

Please don't go away, Pat, we need to know. Share; we(I)will be grateful.

Posted by: alabama at May 4, 2004 04:10 PM

I do like the idea of disbanding the company; it has something very British-1800 to it. But I do wonder whether it's logistically practical. Surely, given our current troop levels, the service members not court-martialled would simply be reorganized into other companies?

But then the company "culture" would be broken up, diffused. If this is an isolated instance of a command structure gone hideously wrong, then maybe that would be an effective move.

What do the military folk in here think?

Posted by: Jackmormon at May 4, 2004 04:10 PM

The LSI SCAN course will show you how to interpret the statement from beginning to end. Every word in the subject's statement - the pronouns and connections, the subjective time, the changes in language - will "talk" to you and show you the answer.

"And as an added bonus, we'll send you FREE a pair of glasses specially designed to help you see through clothing!"

Fergodssakes, these guys are using this bullshit to analyze statements made in Arabic???

Posted by: nima at May 4, 2004 04:11 PM

How many Israeli soldiers have died in Iraq?

Posted by: Lance Boyle at May 4, 2004 04:14 PM

TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
American soldiers brutalized Iraqis. How far up does the responsibility go?

includes excerpts from from Taguba's report.

Posted by: sukabi at May 4, 2004 04:15 PM

4LG: I wanted to join MI. It's what my father did - he was a counterintelligence geek for 27 yrs - and it's the branch I felt most comfortable with. Interrogation sounded more interesting than the other MI specialites.

"Interrogation" sounds horrible. It brings to mind sadistic thugs and beatings and cruel manipilation. That's the cartoon version of it, anyway. It's hard, tedious work and the rewards can be very few and far between.

The whole point of interrogation - the pay dirt of it - is to gain the cooperation of the source and to extract reliable information. Try doing that with a detainee half out of his mind with terror and/or pain. It doesn't work.

Are there agencies of the US that carry out punitive interrogations in violation of the Geneva Conventions? If they do, they do it illegally. That's all there is to it.

Posted by: Pat at May 4, 2004 04:16 PM

I can't believe anyone is surprised by the Israel connnection. Of all our allies, only the Israelis have extensive experience in interrogations. Of course our military tries to learn from them.

I'm sorry Bush made such a mess of this stupid invasion, but it's not Israel's fault.

Posted by: Oberon at May 4, 2004 04:17 PM

No, and the neocons have no connection to Israel, and AIPAC has nothing to do with influencing Congress to support the war in Iraq because Sharon was its biggest cheerleader. Naw.

Posted by: at May 4, 2004 04:21 PM

I did, Chuck. So did - and so do - a lot of other perfectly normal, honorable human beings. My husband's currently debriefing and interrogating in Afghanistan.

In the best possible world, an interrogator is someone like John Le Carré's George Smiley who sits across a table and tries to convince an enemy agent to talk or switch sides, applying various arguments ranging from enticements to fear and psychological pressure.

In the worst possible world, it involves electricity and genitals, and sometimes fatal results.

Perfectly normal, your words, not mine, human beings do not volunteer to be interrogators, not more than they volunteer to be spies (even in a good cause), missionaries, work in a slaughterhouse, do extreme stunts, or go on the Jerry Springer show.

Wanting to be an interrogator is not a sign of normalcy, and if you do not recognize this, I suggest some therapy may be in order, as you may also not recognize the abnormal stress that comes with the territory, so to speak, and its consequences on the human psyche.

I'm not passing a moral judgment. I hope your husband is among those who perform what may be a necessary job (not knowing the circumstances, I can't tell) honorably and decently, but this is not a sign of normalcy.

I find that claim actually scary.

Posted by: Lupin at May 4, 2004 04:24 PM

Pat, so what's your opinion? is this the work of outside contractors and not regular MI interrogators? Do you have anything to add about either the SCAN course or the Israeli Interrogation Course?

Thanks for your views.

Posted by: four legs good at May 4, 2004 04:25 PM

Pat,
When abuses like this surface, most people start to distrust what has been hidden from them. It's only natural. So, I hope you haven't taken too much offense here and that you'll be our native informant into this world. One question: how much of the interrogation process is recorded on video?

Posted by: Jackmormon at May 4, 2004 04:26 PM

That's simply a tautology, Pat. The question is whether they are, in fact, doing it. And whether there has been an effort inside the Pentagon -- a perhaps inside the Bush White House -- to cover it up.

Posted by: Billmon at May 4, 2004 04:26 PM

You're joking aren't you? No one anywhere in the world knows a damn thing about interrogation except the israelis? Please.

Posted by: four legs good at May 4, 2004 04:31 PM

Pat: Are there agencies of the US that carry out punitive interrogations in violation of the Geneva Conventions? If they do, they do it illegally. That's all there is to it.

Billmon: That's simply a tautology, Pat. The question is whether they are, in fact, doing it. And whether there has been an effort inside the Pentagon -- a perhaps inside the Bush White House -- to cover it up.

And, a question I think is just prior to Billmon's: If they're doing it, are they doing it by policy? Is torture merely an artifact of culture, as many people are suggesting—the culture of a rogue military unit, for instance—or is it deliberately employed against Iraqis out of some ugly security logic? For me, that's the million-buck question.

Reading A1, the NY Times front page project

Posted by: Michael at May 4, 2004 04:34 PM

Joe Ryan In 1994, I went into Haiti with two SF teams into La Cayes on the southern peninsula.

Stan Goff, of Bring Them Home Now was in the Special Forces expedition to Haiti then, too. Wonder if he knows Ryan. Has anyone read Goff's book(s)? He's a bleak cat.

Posted by: eb at May 4, 2004 04:37 PM

Regarding "third country nationals": I seem to remember a fuss in the early days of the Afghanistan War because we were contracting out the interrogation of POW's to certain other countries (I think Egypt was one) that didn't have pesky civil rights laws to restrain their police and security forces. Wonder if that's still going on?

Posted by: Ridnik Chrome at May 4, 2004 04:37 PM

There has to have been Billmon- I can't believe that VP "Darkside" Cheney, after being in Defense back in the bad old days, didn't know about this stuff.

Here's my other tin foil theory (that sadly popped into my head at lunch)- I wonder if they asked 60 minutes II to delay this 2 weeks to coincide with the Joe Wilson book? They probably knew it was going to come out at some point, so why not time it to push other news off the plate? I'm probably being really, really paranoid.

I'll take off my hat now.

Posted by: four legs good at May 4, 2004 04:40 PM

I found an interesting paper at http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/jscope/arrigo03.htm

Here's an excerpt on how to train torturers:
"Training programs have been studied through interviews with former torturers in Greece,[54] Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Uruguay,[55] Nicaragua,[56] and Israel,[57] to name a few. As a composite picture, trainees are typically selected on the basis of their ability to endure hardship and pain, for correct political beliefs, trustworthiness, and obedience. Often the young, the lower class, or the poorly educated are recruited, or even kidnapped. Brutal training at the outset desensitizes trainees to their own pain, suffering, and humiliation. Confinement and initiation rites isolate them from prior relationships. Constant physical and psychological intimidation instill obedience. Trainees first learn torture through social modeling in witness and guard roles. They usually experience tension between their new roles and their previous values, and they variously resort to denial, psychological dissociation, alcohol, or drugs. The efficacy of shame tactics tends to lead, as with the Israeli General Security Services treatment of Palestinians, to sexual tortures, which in turn contribute to stigmatization and corruption of torturers. Training programs use dehumanization and scapegoating of victims to relieve the bad self-image experienced by many torturers."

Posted by: Alan S at May 4, 2004 04:44 PM

four-
I believe the key phrase is "of our allies." Yes, torture is practiced by many countries, but of our allies, particularly in the middle east & asia, Israel is at the top of the list.

Henry

Of all our allies, only the Israelis have extensive experience in interrogations.

You're joking aren't you? No one anywhere in the world knows a damn thing about interrogation except the israelis? Please.

Posted by: four legs good at May 4, 2004 04:31 PM

Posted by: henry at May 4, 2004 04:45 PM

"Tacitus recommends a course of action ..." I can recommend one as well...

• How about putting these sick f*cks where they belong - in front of a war crimes tribunal?
• How about admitting that terrible crimes were committed and issuing official apologies to the victims and their families?
• How about offering appropriate compensation to help the victims and/or their families to get back on their feet?

How about that?

Posted by: eff at May 4, 2004 04:45 PM

Alan, christ almighty.

I may never sleep again.

Posted by: four legs good at May 4, 2004 04:46 PM

Agreed, though I'm not sure its complete, and in #2 I would leave out US civilian criminal jurisdiction (for charges under 18 USC 2441 and 18 USC 2340A) as an option.

Posted by: cmdicely at May 4, 2004 04:46 PM

Meant to add to my comment just above: My instinct is that torture of detainees is either itself policy, or one very small step beyond policy. Arbitrary, abusive, unappealable detention has obviously been policy in Iraq for some time; the employment of intense psychological pressure, with the aim of forcing detainees to incriminate others, seems to be a consistent tactical feature of the detention regime. I'm still trying to work out the actual logic (understood, that such logic is profoundly immoral) that motivates the policy (if policy it is).

Reading A1, the NY Times front page project

Posted by: Michael at May 4, 2004 04:47 PM

This little incident at the Pentagon, from an article by Karen Kwiatkowski, keeps going through my mind:

"In early winter (2002), an incident occurred that was seared into my memory. A coworker and I were suddenly directed to go down to the Mall entrance to pick up some Israeli generals. Post-9/11 rules required one escort for every three visitors, and there were six or seven of them waiting. The Navy lieutenant commander and I hustled down. Before we could apologize for the delay, the leader of the pack surged ahead, his colleagues in close formation, leaving us to double-time behind the group as they sped to Undersecretary Feith’s office on the fourth floor. Two thoughts crossed our minds: are we following close enough to get credit for escorting them, and do they really know where they are going? We did get credit, and they did know. Once in Feith’s waiting room, the leader continued at speed to Feith’s closed door. An alert secretary saw this coming and had leapt from her desk to block the door. "Mr. Feith has a visitor. It will only be a few more minutes." The leader craned his neck to look around the secretary’s head as he demanded, "Who is in there with him?"

"This minor crisis of curiosity past, I noticed the security sign-in roster. Our habit, up until a few weeks before this incident, was not to sign in senior visitors like ambassadors. But about once a year, the security inspectors send out a warning letter that they were coming to inspect records. As a result, sign-in rosters were laid out, visible and used. I knew this because in the previous two weeks I watched this explanation being awkwardly presented to several North African ambassadors as they signed in for the first time and wondered why and why now. Given all this and seeing the sign-in roster, I asked the secretary, "Do you want these guys to sign in?" She raised her hands, both palms toward me, and waved frantically as she shook her head. "No, no, no, it is not necessary, not at all." Her body language told me I had committed a faux pas for even asking the question. My fellow escort and I chatted on the way back to our office about how the generals knew where they were going (most foreign visitors to the five-sided asylum don’t) and how the generals didn’t have to sign in."

Hmmmm.

Posted by: Semper Ubi at May 4, 2004 04:49 PM

That's not where they belong, if you mean an international tribunal. Those are for when states fail their obligation to try war criminals, or are for some reason unable to carry them out.

The US is not unable to, and we should not accept our country failing in this obligation.

We have military and civilian laws to punish this behavior and they should, they must, be enforced. If they are not, those responsible -- up to the pinnacle of the executive branch -- must be held accountable for that failure.

Posted by: cmdicely at May 4, 2004 04:52 PM

henry, he didn't mention torture, he spoke of interrogation.

Posted by: four legs good at May 4, 2004 04:58 PM

cmdicely, thanks for the link and the info on the UCMJ. One thing I am still having trouble with, and trouble finding information on, is where/whether these contractors fit in the chain of command? As Seymour Hersh noted on NPR this morning, "Command and control is necessary within military organizations."

Posted by: nima at May 4, 2004 05:03 PM

Not to pick on Pat, but in the interest of showing how poor this argument (and this is much better than the "nothing here to see; torture against Iraqis is necessary" stuff you see on rightwing blogs) is, imagine Saddam using that defense in response to his own alleged torture chambers, alleged mass graves, and his alleged gassing of Kurds.

PS: I'm using "alleged" in the same way CNN and others use it when talking about well documented crimes and ****ups. Give them a taste of their own medicine.

Posted by: BigPicture at May 4, 2004 05:03 PM

Semper Ubi:

Thanks for that article and excerpt.

More on Feith here (I have posted it on other threads, sorry for repeating):

Zionist settler joins Iraqi to promote trade
An ultra-Zionist Israeli settler has joined forces with the nephew of the Iraqi leader Ahmad Chalabi to promote investment in Iraq.

Posted by: at May 4, 2004 05:05 PM

Tacitus' suggestion strikes me as wanting to treat leprosy with skin lotion.

As the Battle of Algiers illustrated, torture, like war itself, to quote Clausewitz, "is nothing but a continuation of politics with the admixture of other means.

Posted by: Lupin at May 4, 2004 05:07 PM

cmdicely,

while I have no doubt that the US has the capability to try these inhumane bastards, I very much doubt that the the "official US" are willing to do so - except for a token sentence or two, nothing will happen and these crimes will go unpunished.

If you go to Norway and torture/murder a Norwegian - since when will your trial be taking place in the US? Remember this invasion is not a legal war in any way, shape or form. If not the international war crimes tribunal - how about an Iraqi court instead?

Posted by: eff at May 4, 2004 05:11 PM

Alan: so the best way of training torturers is to torture them? Sounds a bit like Sardaukar training. Or what the Turks did to Christian kids to make them janissaries, elite troops devoted to the Sultan.

That said, it sure can be helpful to have foreigners who speak Arabic (notably Israelis or Christian Lebanese), but don't forget that if you want to see some kind of Israeli connection, there's also a fair number of Israelis who have both US and Israeli citizenship.
Whatever, no need to see this as a kind of Israeli conspiracy, because as a close ally it wouldn't be surprising they sent some guys to advise US interrogators. That still means that if it seems highly likely that Israelis are in Iraq and some are playing mindgames and torturing Iraqis, and if that info hits the Arab media, things will go pretty badly in Arab countries. I hope Bushco realised the risks - but I fear I know the answer, as usual.

Thinking of Joe (yeah, he gives a bad name to all the Joes), and reading his casual comments, it looks like the usual banality of evil, the bureaucratic banality even. I mean, Eichman probably was just as coldly checking train schedules to be sure that all was running smoothly. In this case, reading how Joe Ryan is glad that they can crack detainees fairly quickly, it makes me wonder if some idiots there aren't relying on torture just to be more "efficient", to show a better "productivity", like "hey, Chief, look, we can make them speak in 5 hours, no one beats us". Apart from just wanting to humilate the Iraqis and make them pay, it's the only reason that could make sense, because it's quite obvious that tortured people aren't the most reliable source of information.

Posted by: CluelessJoe at May 4, 2004 05:13 PM

The points made above by cmdicely re: civilian jurisdiction are right on.

Lupin: Tacitus' suggestion strikes me as wanting to treat leprosy with skin lotion.

Think of it more as a lumpectomy. If so, what then would constitute Radiation and Chemo?

Posted by: Yermum at May 4, 2004 05:13 PM

Tacitus' suggestion seems to be just that - a typical Tacitus. Making sure the US' honor and dignity </sarcasm> remain intact while not giving a f*ck about anyone else.

A true compassionate conservative ...

Posted by: eff at May 4, 2004 05:19 PM

After the Greek dictatorship fell in 1974, extensive public documentation of how torture worked revealed that this is exactly how they were trained: they were tortured themselves first.

Posted by: at May 4, 2004 05:26 PM

Military police are a subculture that is particularly prone to attracting individuals with SM tendencies, compulsive-obsessive personalities, sexual dysfunctions, anti social behavior patterns and inferiority complexes.

A soldier can refuse an order they consider unlawful. They would have to take that refusal up the military chain of command. That didn't happen. My guess is that there was pressure to fit in with these troops who clearly weren't very sophisticated or experienced. They were probably impressed by the 'third country nationals' and wanted to ingratiate themselves with them combined with the pathologies you listed. It's telling that they're only getting reprimands. This goes all the way to the top. It wouldn't surprise me at all if Bush and Cheney didn't authorize it themselves. Gen. Rove probably figured in a campaign cycle, torture-lite for brown skinned people wasn't as bad as dead American troops. They were trying to get information to prevent attacks against our troops, after all. I don't understand where the rapes or sodomizing came from in the equation or the little soldier with the cig hanging out her mouth. Unfortunately for me, her little mutton-face will be forever seared in my brain.

Posted by: Incognito at May 4, 2004 05:31 PM

I have to disagree with Lupin re: Pat's choice of going into interrogation.

If I thought it was needed, and I thought I could do the job well without torture, and I thought my counry needed me, I'd volunteer for it as well. And to group interrogators, spies, stuntmen, and slaughterhouse workers together as somehow psychologically problematic is a pretty good overstatement. Why not butchers, fishermen, archaeologists, undertakers and taxidermists as well? I know a pretty sadistic fry cook I can throw that way too.

Coming from Kansas where a lot of folks in my town worked at slaughterhouses or entered the military, I suggest you get out among different types of folks more often.

Now, why someone would enjoy the TORTURE themselves, another person, or an animal is a different story. And how a situation can deteriorate and turn people who would never have done something inhumane into laughing torturers is too.

Posted by: Thucydides Jr. at May 4, 2004 05:32 PM

In response to my comment that "Of all our allies, only the Israelis have extensive experience in interrogations" Four Legs wrote:

Not joking, just writing badly. Let's try "Of all our allies, the Israelis have the most experience at interrogating Arabs who are known or suspected enemy combatants."

Anyhow, my point was only that no one should be surprised that our military sought to learn from the Israeli military.

Posted by: Oberon at May 4, 2004 05:32 PM

Some of the interpretive enthusiasm being applied to Joe Ryan's comments is getting a little out of hand.

First of all, there is widespread resentment towards Clinton over the Haiti mission, and not just among crestfallen warmongerers, but also among many who feel like a sitting president shouldn't spin soldiers up if he isn't going to use them. There is an incredible psychological pressure that accompanies real deployments, and it affects families as well as soldiers.

Second, anyone who thinks the NSA is a "non-existent" agency has been watching too many movies. (Vin Diesel fan?)

Third, what's sinister about someone who goes to work for a contractor rather than get shoved into the meat grinder in Iraq? If things turn sour in Korea I'll be one of the first to get shoved on board the plane, despite the three years that now separate me from active duty. I would rather avoid that thanks.

The prevalance of language-specific contractors has everything to do with the fact that the military simply can't hold onto people when they have these skills. You can plug away year after year at ~20K, tolerating the ignorance of the officer corps (who can't actually do your job) that dictates your life. Or you can get out and sign on as a contractor at ~40k tax free, and be treated as the subject matter expert that you are.

The minute Karpinski and Fredrick evoked the shadowy acronym (M.I.) and the spooky organ with the gain filter started playing, everyone just went for it. The MPs have every interest in deflecting responsibility for what they did.

Do you really think that these sinister "M.I." stormtroopers were directing this Fellini Snuff and allowing people to TAKE PICTURES?

This seems like good old down-home racism, coupled with the dehumanization of war and a failure of commanders to maintain oversight. It's disgusting. It's reprehensible. All of those involved should be prosecuted to the fullest extent of whatever applicable laws. But let's keep our heads on.

Posted by: John Guerre at May 4, 2004 05:34 PM

Er.. should read "... would enjoy TORTURING...".

Pre-emptively editing is important for the defense of the nation and language. Or what's left of both.

Posted by: Thucydides JR. at May 4, 2004 05:36 PM

Those conflating all interrogation with torture: an intelligent poster at the nielsenhayden blogs, who has also posted several astute comments here, would beg to differ. He describes actual, effective interrogation techniques here, if you would like a more well-rounded understanding.

Posted by: Thel at May 4, 2004 05:37 PM

Tacitus' approach once again demonstates the mortal vacuum in which the man operates. No wonder he is easily seduced by the sirens of fascism.

And to think this is the "best" the reasonable Right woukd throw at us? Ha!

Sadly, morality can never be decreed. If there is no true repentance, just punishments (esp. of the more or less symbolic nature), there will not be forgiveness, only revenge.

Posted by: Lupin at May 4, 2004 05:37 PM

Oberon, okay. That makes sense.

You know what's more scary? little mutton-face is pregnant with the baby of one of her fellow abusers. Tell me that kid's not gonna need therapy.

Posted by: four legs good at May 4, 2004 05:38 PM

Back in the seventies I met an Argentinian girl at a Mennonite Church conference, she gave a presentaion on her experiences during the dirty war. Dragged out of her house in the middle of the night because her involvement with a literacy program (teaching poor folks to read is a obviously a Communist plot, I guess. After three weeks of detention, torture and rape she was released because her mother was an American citizen.

She recalled her "interrogators" contempt for the the way the Americans encouraged them to do their "dirty work" but went soft when it was one of their own...

Posted by: A Hermit at May 4, 2004 05:38 PM

This seems like a good time to recommend reading Ariel Dorfman's play Death and the Maiden.

Posted by: Lupin at May 4, 2004 05:39 PM

Thucyd./Certain jobs, usually those dealing with life and death (I threw in Jerry Springer to lighten up the topic), require certain abilities and mind sets, which are hardly average or normal. To dedramatize the discussion, I could have said surgeon or policeman.

You might want to volunteer to do one of these, but it doesn't mean you could. And if you do, there is a superhuman stress associated with these jobs, and the best way to deal with it it to first recognize that what you're doing is not normal. Striving to pretend otherwise, maintaining a normal or banal surface, only creates more repressed trauma.

Anyway, that's been my experience.

Posted by: Lupin at May 4, 2004 05:48 PM

Pat: Are there agencies of the US that carry out punitive interrogations in violation of the Geneva Conventions? If they do, they do it illegally. That's all there is to it.

Billmon: That's simply a tautology, Pat. The question is whether they are, in fact, doing it. And whether there has been an effort inside the Pentagon -- a perhaps inside the Bush White House -- to cover it up.

I have no idea if illegal interrogations - or interrogations employing illegal methods - are being carried out by US intelligence agencies. I am trying to point out that there are no circumstances allowing for it, and that if it is occurring, it is occurring illegally. That may go without saying, but I think some people have the impression that the US government sanctions it or makes exceptions in certain instances, which it does not.

Posted by: Pat at May 4, 2004 05:51 PM

Alan Dershowitz was on Crossfire this afternoon, and reiterated his position that the US shouldn't advertise a position against the use of torture in all instances, because when it is inevitably used in extreme circumstances, it makes the country look bad.
He went on to agree w/ Bianca Jagger (human rights activist) that culpability for the events in these Iraqi prisons may reach high up in the ranks.

Posted by: kzr at May 4, 2004 05:55 PM

Hey Billmon,

I continue to enjoy reading your thoughts and all of the interesting things others have to say.

Some News: CACI will be holding a conference call Wed, May 5 at 9amET to discuss reported allegations concerning its employees in Iraq.

http://www.shareholder.com/caci/medialist.cfm

A brief statement by management, and then there will be questions and answers(?).

JohnLalo

Posted by: John at May 4, 2004 05:56 PM

John Guerre: Do you really think that these sinister "M.I." stormtroopers were directing this Fellini Snuff and allowing people to TAKE PICTURES?

JG, most of your points are well taken, but as to the pictures, I understood that the MPs showed them to new prisoners to intimidate them ("soften them up"). If that's right, then the answer is 'yes.'

Posted by: eb at May 4, 2004 06:00 PM

Pat, no offense - but how can you possibly assume the US government does not sanction this type of behavior simply because you weren't informed beforehand? The fact that you personally haven't encountered such a course of action in the past does not mean it doesn't (isn't) happen(ing).

And I'm sorry - but the times that people outside the US would give the US government the benefit of the doubt have long since passed. Fool us once, shame on you etc. etc. ...

Posted by: eff at May 4, 2004 06:00 PM

Of course there isn't standard procedures with specific nomenclature defining those procedures in the US military as they do everything else, but there can be extreme pressure on subordinates without outside subervision especially paid private security contractors where results are all that matter. That's what happened. I don't think we're within officially sanctioned governmental policy with the Bush administration. It's not our 'government.' It's the Bush administration.

Posted by: Incognito at May 4, 2004 06:07 PM

Dude claimed to be Joe Ryan, an interrogator for CACI at Abu Ghraib:

I was in Air Force Junior ROTC in high school and went to University of Colorado for two years on Air Force ROTC scholarship. I decided that Aerospace Engineering was not for me and left college.

This is the phrase that set up the rest of the bio for me.

Dude flunked out of aero engineering on a ROTC scholarship. Dude probably knew early in the first semester he didn't have the math skills for engineering. That's what weeds out most of them.

Dude finally drops out of college altogether— because, hey, like the Air Force is going to pay for him to learn Poli Sci? Decides the Army (not the Air Force) should teach him Russian, German or Spanish— all useful languages if you want a billet in the Army where there is any chance of meeting nice white girls when you're off duty in foreign countries. Did anybody else ping off the phrase "in the army's omnipotence, they chose" and read that he was not all that stoked to be learning Swahili?

Dude is really proud of his Haiti rotation. It's the only part of the bio where he talks about his accomplishments in the Army instead of his training. What did he do? He did eighty interrogation sessions, in who knows how many days, and he help in a force protection assessment. Oh yeah— and he learned to hate his CIC. Nice job there, Joe.

Dude shuffles out of the Army and goes to work in yet another government bureaucracy, because he's "needing to try on a desk for size" apparently. He couldn't possibly have been passed up for promotion...

Dude has a decaf moment after 2001-09-11 and realizes— oh shit, he might get reactivated! What does dude do? Does he call up his old unit and ask if they need him back? No. He signs a contract with one of these wacky sutlerage companies, where the fitness reports are handled in a much more "civilian" approach to things, and now he's Big Man On The Cell Block at the Abu Ghraib prison.

Dude is probably still there.

The problem with incompetent dumbasses is that they typically think they are just as smart and capable as everyone else around them, even when they're actually just the incompetent dumbass we are keeping around in case somebody has to be fingered for it when the whole thing collapses.

Posted by: at May 4, 2004 06:08 PM

...then went back to Minnesota to process freaking workers comp claims.

If they can do one on the unibomber, then there's a SNL skit in here somewhere.

Posted by: glasswipe at May 4, 2004 06:11 PM

John Guerre wrote:

Clinton used threat of force but achieved the job of Haiti regime change in a peaceful manner. What's wrong with that? Aren't soldiers and their families happy that the soldiers didn't have to fight a war? Ask the families of the 760 fallen US soldiers in Iraq, the thousands of wounded soldiers, and the 150K soldiers currently in Iraq how they feel about it.

To blame Clinton for not attacking Haiti is outright ridiculous.

Posted by: BigPicture at May 4, 2004 06:13 PM

Enough of the Reading into everything --
Third Country Nationals or TCNs is a term for anyone Not of US or host nation origin who do menial jobs in these desolate locations.
The term is/ was used on base in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and now Iraq to cover the Pakistani, Philipinos, Malaysians or whoever. These guys are hired by KBR (Halliburton) to run the Chow Halls, take out the Trash, burn Latrine contents etc..
Do a google search for "Third country nationals" & USAF for about a millon sources....

Posted by: HC at May 4, 2004 06:15 PM

I think he's lying. They can only legally reactivate you within two years of your 'end of time in service.' Once you leave the military, you go on what's called 'inactive service' for two years. And they can't force someone who's already seen action into fighting again once you're already out anyway. He's trying to make himself seem more important than he really was.

Posted by: Incognito at May 4, 2004 06:18 PM

I did a brief lexis search and came up with another semantically tortured terminology: "foreign disclosure officer course at Ft. Huachuca, Arizona."

I'm not sure if that has anything at all to do w/ torture, israel, etc.

Wish I had more time for this peer research project.

Posted by: slothrop at May 4, 2004 06:20 PM

I'm just back from running errands. The bane of my existence.

I'm not familiar with the set-up they have in Iraq or Afghanistan, but interrogations carried out in detention are normally recorded for review and verification.

I said in a previous thread that no evidence has yet shown up - or been made public - that would indicate that abuse was carried out by interrogators in the process of interrogation. None of the MPs have named names of the MI personnel they point to as responsible for the atmosphere in the prison - an omission that I find curious.

I'll ask again: Was SSGT Chip Frederick told by the MI guys to have his male detainees wear womens' underwear in their cells? Was that creepy, sadistic female MP who shows up in the photos told by same to have the detainees under her care masterbate in front of her, for the camera - so that when they were brought to the booth they'd be sweetly cooperative? That's not just criminal, it's insane. These men are not going to cooperate. They're going to turn suicidal or have their rage augmented - they might tell you what they think you want them to say or nothing at all - but in any case they're going to be bad sources and any decent interrogator knows that.

There're things that don't add up here.

Posted by: Pat at May 4, 2004 06:21 PM

rather: Once you leave the military, you go on what's called 'inactive status' for two years.

Posted by: Incognito at May 4, 2004 06:25 PM

I don't know of an Israeli interrogation course at Huachuca. Last time I lived there I saw precisely one Israeli - shopping with wife and kids at the commissary. I assumed he was a liason officer.

I'd be surprised if the Israeli interrogation course were located on a US base. Nondescript office building in northern Virginia would be a better bet.

Posted by: Pat at May 4, 2004 06:27 PM

On CounterPunch: Another Open Letter to the Troops in Iraq, an article by Stan Goff, formerly an A-Detachment leader, US Special Forces.

On a Haiti mission, one of his men had worked in Guantanamo as a French translator for Haitians interned there in the 90s. This was a problem, the individual had a dehumanized relationship with Haitians as a result of the jailer/jailed structure. Goff also refers to Prof. Zimbardo's Stanford Prison Experiment:

I thought this was worth pointing out, there's a lot more in Goff's actual letter.

Posted by: jonku at May 4, 2004 06:31 PM

just watched seymour hersh on the charlie rose show... here's a quote for you (i taped the show so i think it is accurate)...

sy: think about some foreign intelligence services also being involved. some of our friends in the middle east. there's no question about that too, some of these interrogations.

sounds like billmon is one the right track.

Posted by: selise at May 4, 2004 06:40 PM

just watched seymour hersh on the charlie rose show... here's a quote for you (i taped the show so i think it is accurate)...

sy: think about some foreign intelligence services also being involved. some of our friends in the middle east. there's no question about that too, some of these interrogations.

sounds like billmon is one the right track.

Posted by: selise at May 4, 2004 06:41 PM

oops.. sorry about the double post. i know better - my bad.

Posted by: selise at May 4, 2004 06:47 PM

John Guerre: Do you really think that these sinister "M.I." stormtroopers were directing this Fellini Snuff and allowing people to TAKE PICTURES?

Well, that's the argument the MPs' lawyer is making. That this was concerted, that they were being used to set up pictures that were intended to be shown to incoming prisoners to terrorize them, and that this was done by CIA types.

And one does have to ask, regardless - who was holding the camera? And how did that CD of pictures get copied and into the hands of someone with a conscience?

Posted by: bellatrys at May 4, 2004 06:51 PM

Pat, thanks for your feedback about recordings of interrogations. This news makes the "plausible deniability" factor of the upper echelons seem less plausible, but still, more generally, I am glad to learn that the Us interrogators are generally overseen. Something went wrong here, though. And rfom the pictures, something had been going wrong for a long while, which wouldn't seem consistent with a regular video surveillance. Can you help us understand what happened Here?

Posted by: Jackmormon at May 4, 2004 06:54 PM

My understanding is that civilian contractors, while subject to the UCMJ under certain circumstances, are not within the military chain of command.

Posted by: cmdicely at May 4, 2004 07:09 PM

Billmon, it's on the other thread too, NBC has the Taguba Report up.

Posted by: four legs good at May 4, 2004 07:13 PM

So what are you supposed to do if you achieve the objective of your invasion while the troops are enroute? Just blow stuff up anyway, for kicks?

Clinton did use them -- he used them to compel the enemy to accept the terms the US demanded. That they achieved that without even arriving is a testament to
the power of their reputation.

Posted by: cmdicely at May 4, 2004 07:15 PM

Bellatrys writes: "Well, that's the argument the MPs' lawyer is making. That this was concerted, that they were being used to set up pictures that were intended to be shown to incoming prisoners to terrorize them, and that this was done by CIA types.

Posted by: bellatrys at May 4, 2004 06:51 PM

No, this wasn't done at the behest of CIA personnel.

I'm waiting for names. Unit designations. Organizations. Agencies. None of this has been presented. We only know the names and unit of the MPs.

Posted by: Pat at May 4, 2004 07:18 PM

I had nightmares about that blood-spattered room last night.

Posted by: Kathryn Cramer at May 4, 2004 07:29 PM

pat - can you say Iran Contra??

Posted by: mrs. rogers at May 4, 2004 07:36 PM

Wow. Stunning.

That's, at best, a total failure of leadership from the Briade level down.

It's like almost no one in the chain of command even cared about the job they were doing, ignoring the abuses themselves.

Posted by: cmdicely at May 4, 2004 07:49 PM

Go follow the link, upthread, for the Taguba report. Names and units are named for the MI personnel involved, too.

Posted by: cmdicely at May 4, 2004 07:52 PM

How many. Israeli soldiers. Have died. In. Iraq...

Imagine you were an inhumanly vindictive bunch of fellows, long-term grudge-holding and viciously cunning, and you wanted to rub some people's faces in scenes of their own degradation. In a large context, like the world press.
Most of the decent world would be aghast and severely disapproving.
Unless you could publicize those images as leaked evidence.

We're headed for the next step.
Obviously the current level of engagement won't last much longer. So then what?
Peaceful retreat?
Iraq for Iraqis?
Armegeddon?

Posted by: Lance Boyle at May 4, 2004 08:01 PM

Jackmormon: None of the photos were taken in the process of interrogation. None of the photos were taken in the booth. None of the US personnel appearing in the pictures are interrogators. One can speculate as to who's holding the camera, but my guess would be that the camera was passed around among that particular group of MPs.

That's not to say that interrogators or other MI staff at the prison were in no way involved. Just that the photographs we've seen were taken in detention rather than interrogation, and MI people do not appear in them.

Posted by: Pat at May 4, 2004 08:05 PM

And one does have to ask, regardless - who was holding the camera? And how did that CD of pictures get copied and into the hands of someone with a conscience?

Yeah. Here is what Sy Hersh says about that...

The abuses became public because of the outrage of Specialist Joseph M. Darby, an M.P. whose role emerged during the Article 32 hearing against Chi Frederick. A government witness, Special Agen Scott Bobeck, who is a member of the Army’ Criminal Investigation Division, or C.I.D., told the court, according to an abridged transcript mad available to me, "The investigation started after SP Darby . . . got a CD from CPL Graner. . . . He came across pictures of naked detainees." Bobeck said that Darby had "initially put an anonymous letter under our door, then he later came forward and gave a sworn statement. He felt very bad about it and thought it was very wrong.

Here's another important little bit from the Hersh article...

Another witness, Specialist Jason Kennel, who was not accused of wrongdoing, said, "I saw them nude, but MI would tell us to take away their mattresses, sheets, and clothes." (It was his view, he added, that if M.I. wanted him to do this "they needed to give me paperwork.")

Here is a guy who did the right thing... he said, "If you really expect me to treat that as a lawful order, then you'll put it in writing."

Watch. We will find out that there are no written orders for any of this abuse. If there ever were, there aren't any now.

Posted by: s9 at May 4, 2004 08:12 PM

Not to worry. By the time the child is old enough to need it, all the therapy in this country will be provided free of charge through your friendly neighborhood fundamentalist church.

Posted by: Lisa at May 4, 2004 08:50 PM

Pat:
There're things that don't add up here.

Probably because you're an interrogator, and (I infer from what you've said) quite a professional one.

I'd bet if you were a propagandist or psy-ops specialist, it would add up a lot more roundly...

Thanks for your perspective. It couldn't have been easy to walk into this charged atmosphere and tell us what you do. We all really need to know what's actually happening, and what the realities of military doctrine and training, really are. So we don't people the night with monsters.

The evident realities of Abu Ghraib, and, unfortunately, probably a lot of other places under control of the end-justifies-the-means-and-hell-it's-fun-in-the-first-place crowd, are bad enough.

Posted by: tripsarecopsem at May 4, 2004 08:51 PM

Cthulu, the scariest thing about Joe is that he's not that different from any of us. Thanks for the post.

Posted by: Sallyh at May 4, 2004 10:06 PM

I agree with Lupin. WANTING to be an interrogator should be a giant red flag. And like all sociopaths, they look so normal...

Posted by: Sallyh at May 4, 2004 10:11 PM

I put up a mirror of Kawther Salam's site. If her original site goes down, feel free to propagate the link.

Posted by: Raph Levien at May 4, 2004 11:04 PM

I thought I read about Kuwaitis being in the prisons, but that doesn't mean there wern't others.

Posted by: VAdem at May 4, 2004 11:39 PM

Big Picture:
I wasn't attempting to justify it, just providing a cultural context that divorces it from the "warmonger" story being told.

Incognito:
the number of years that one is on inactive status varies. Whenever you enlist in the army, you are signing up for an eight year commitment, no matter what. He might have done 3 active and then had 5 inactive.

And I've *heard* that those of us who went through language training can be called on a more informal basis for much longer. But I haven't ever seen any documentation on that. I'm sceptical.

The Anonymous Poster Who Commented On Joe Ryan's Career:
Whay was it significant that he chose the army over the air force or the navy?

Posted by: John Guerre at May 5, 2004 12:00 AM

Regarding the third party interrogators, a piece in the WaPo yesterday implied that Kuwaiti military personnel were involved. See the trackback.

Posted by: Travis at Rain Storm at May 5, 2004 12:06 AM

Come on people, the interrogator path is not sold as a fast track to war crime. At many occasions in one's military career we are reminded that the Geneva Conventions are binding, and along with the Constitution and the UCMJ, define the limits of what we can legally be expected to do.

I know and have known innumerable interrogators. Most, if not all, of them were people who took these things very seriously.

We should remind ourselves that MPs were the ones who actually did this, actually took the pictures, and who now face judicial punishment.

This isn't because the spooky MI folks are bigwigs; they are probably mid-career enlisted folks. No higher ranking than the MPs. This is part of why the MPs story of MI direction doesn't quite sound right. There were many times I couldn't get an E-2 cook to do what I said, let alone an MP.

They will say what they have to say to preserve their careers. And as I mentioned before I actually served under the MI officer who is being reprimanded. The guy is just clueless; Mr. Magoo in a pickle suit, if you will.

Posted by: John Guerre at May 5, 2004 12:08 AM

Look, I DID NOT talk about resentment over Haiti because I endorsed it. I was pointing out that to color Ryan as being simply crestfallen over a lost opportunity to kill is inaccurate.

Posted by: John Guerre at May 5, 2004 12:11 AM

I'm an ex-interrogator and counter-intelligence specialist from Australian Military Intelligence with over 15 years experience.

What I can tell you is all potential interrogator trainees are 'bagged' (hooded/plasticuffed) and then detained/interrogated for extended periods under extremely realistic conditions. This allows interrogators and MPs to practice/demonstrate skills/techniques and practice gaurd/detainee ops respectively. Those that don't 'cut-it' don't proceed to interrogation training.

Interrogation merging into Torture. It's been my experience that certain personality types obtain a form of pseudo-sexual pleasure from progressively extreme methods, especially where thay are able to obtain unsupervised 'Absolute' control over other human beings. For these types it becomes progressively more addictive and extreme over time and in thier view easy to rationalise based on the needs of the 'Mission'.

These types are also likely to take the opportunity to manipulate/suborn others if the opportunity presents.

Only effective, uninvolved leadership command can detect and prevent this.

I find it ironic though that Maj Gen Miller(former commander at Gitmo), the recently appointed commander of detention ops in Iraq, who's now claiming everything is 'better' now whilst maintaining the ongoing primary purpose of detention will be interrogation and intelligence gathering.

Note, it was after Maj General Millers visit to Abu Ghraib in November 2003, with 30-odd specialists in tow, that these 'most' extreme events seem to have occured, how ironic he's now here to 'make it all better' ?!

PS it is by the very nature of our personalities/skills/experience interrogators are adept Liars/Manipulators.

Outraged !

Vince

Posted by: Outraged at May 5, 2004 11:36 AM

Why is it surprising to see pictures of soldiers treating prisoners like this?

The military is designed to teach you to see the enemy as subhuman. A raghead, a gook. Otherwise you might not want to shoot him with a rife, blow him up with a grenade, crush his skull with a shovel.

Once you capture him, you turn this hatred off?

Posted by: Diggity at May 5, 2004 12:46 PM

Diggity,

In the heat/stress of direct combat operations only to a degree, or you 'manage' it. However, professionals, which includes soldiers, have to adhere to self and imposed discipline and codes of conduct. Under effective leadership/command the greatest problem dealing with detainees normally is empathising with them as fellow human beings and not the 'enemy'. Unfortunately the greater the cultural/religuous difference the more risk of the worst human traits coming to the fore, especially where there is an all pervasive message of an 'enemy' who is described collectively as 'terrorists' and falsely associated with true terrorism. As long as 'security'
overrides civil and legal protections, human rights abuses will continue.

Vince

Posted by: Outraged at May 5, 2004 01:00 PM

Excerpt from MG Taguba's report.

"With respect to interrogation, MG Miller’s Team recommended that CJTF-7 dedicate and train a detention guard force subordinate to the Joint Interrogation Debriefing Center (JIDC) Commander that "sets the conditions for the successful interrogation and exploitation of internees/detainees."

Regarding Detention Operations, MG Miller’s team stated that the function of Detention Operations is to provide a safe, secure, and humane environment that supports the expeditious collection of intelligence. However, it also stated "it is essential that the guard force be actively engaged in setting the conditions for successful exploitation of the internees."

Hmmm... I stand by my earlier post that Miller initiated the circumstances that led to these abuses based on his management and techniques he developed at Gitmo, imparted during his visit with 30-odd specialists to Abu Gharieb starting Nov 2003.

Now he's the 'Good-Guy' managing all detention facility throughout Iraq ?!

Outraged !

Vince

Posted by: Outraged at May 5, 2004 03:41 PM

Knowledge of Joe Ryan's Iraq Diary has reached the Washington Post: Media's Most Wanted Today Is Blogger From Iraqi Prison.

New information from the article includes a quote from Joe Ryan himself:

"I'll not be sending my diary out any more because of the allegations being spread through the media. I will keep my diary and maybe someday the truth of what is and has gone on here will surface," Ryan wrote in an e-mail, according to Ethan McIntosh, a producer at KSTP.

The article also mentions:

Ryan lives in St. Paul, works as an interrogator for CACI International Inc. and had been writing the blog since January, McIntosh said. Ryan's employment status could not be verified.

An army report on Abu Ghraib names Steven Stephanowicz as a CACI employee who is one of the people it deems "directly or indirectly responsible" for abuses at the prison. Ryan's blog drew attention because he refers to a Steve Stefanowicz who works with him at the prison.

An entry dated April 25 said that with two other men, "Steve Stefanowicz and I all took turns trying to hit balls over the back wall and onto the highway."

Posted by: Richard Parker at May 5, 2004 06:58 PM

I am at Abu Ghurayb. I know "Joe Ryan", he is an arrogant individual. Walks around like he is invincible, wearing his SF T shirt and hat. Having been in Group, they do not advertise like that...hence the motto "Quiet Professionals". Quiet he is not and he is far from Professional. I was doubtful about his "credentials" when I first met him. As for his life in SF...I spent some time in Group, as an MI guy, and although it is rewarding, it is not the way he describes. As a support guy he would not have been afforded the same operational oppertunities as the 18 series guys. Maybe that is why he went to the Q course, even then as a long tabbed MI guy he still would have been stuck in the MI Detachment in HQ, not on a team.

The CACI interrogators here have limited language skills so they rely on translators.

As a member of the military, doing the right thing under harsh conditions I condemn "Joe Ryan's" statements, and attempt to capitalize on the current situation.

No wonder he asked the radio station to stop posting his submissions...ol' Joe could get into some hot water for poor security practices.

Posted by: Mike Bell at May 8, 2004 10:10 AM