| 06 December 2005 Torture Ramsey Clark is seventy-seven years old. I think that staying active is what keeps you young, and Mr. Clark has certainly been active since that strange aberration that made him briefly the Attorney General of the United States of America . Ramsey was in court in Baghdad yesterday to lecture the judge on the standards of fair jurisprudence on behalf of his client, Saddam Hussein. The defendant is accused of murder and torture, among other things. According to charges filed with the court, he was responsible for ordering the murder of an entire village where an assassination attempt had been made against him. Witness “A,” a woman who was permitted to conceal her identity, said that Saddam's men tortured her. He is not charged with the deaths of 37 sailors onboard the USS Stark in May of 1987, nor for the wounding of another 21. There is still some controversy about why the Iraqi Mirage fighter launched two French-made Excoet missiles at the American ship. The war of the moment was with Iran , and the American presence was intended to benefit Iraq and permit the safe navigation of the oil. The French produce an efficient weapons system: both missiles struck the target undetected. The first hit the port-side and penetrated to the crew quarters, while the second impacted the superstructure of the Perry-class frigate. For that moment, the attack was considered the worst peacetime disaster to befall a Navy ship. But of course, we were not at peace. We just didn't know it. I have been uncomfortable with the whole debate on this topic. I was appalled by the revelations from Abu Ghraib prison, where the Military Police of the West Virginia National Guard conducted some egregious violations of prisoner rights. I had been of the “Whatever means necessary” school of thought about captured enemy combatants up to that moment, but realized something had gone horribly and fundamentally wrong. Let me try to give some context to this, as Secretary Rice is attempting to do in Europe this week. I believe there is a difference between non-violent coercion and a wood-chipper, which was one of the devices used by Saddam's sons to extract information, or confession. That may be the great schism in this debate. If stress is torture, than we are back to where we were in the days before we knew we were at war and Ramsey Clark can argue the issue. If it is not, and torture means torture, as it did for the Vietnamese captors of American pilots, then there are grounds for discussion. I had a professional associate from the Directorate of Operations in the CIA a few years ago, and the restrictions on what he could ask detained militants, and how he could ask, were extraordinary. His frustration with the legal constraints put against him made me angry. In one circumstance, he was officially reprimanded for raising his voice and implying that he was someone other than who he was. He was aghast. After all, he was dealing with people who posed a clear and immediate threat to the citizens of West, and who knew people who even then were plotting the murder of thousands of innocent American citizens. After 9/11, the rules changed, as the slumbering giant woke up and realized that the oceans provided no protection from murder conducted in the name of religion. Thence came the ouster of the Taliban hosts of al Qaida in Afghanistan , justified by virtually any standard, and the more murky enterprise in Iraq . I am completely supportive of the former, and ambivalent about the latter. Not the strategic goal, of course, which is the establishment of a democratic state in the midst of autocracy. But rather the understanding of the complicating factors on the ground. Secretary Rice made a carefully-parsed statement to the German Chancellor yesterday. The German is new on the job, the first woman and the first from the former DDR to serve in the position. Condy denied that the United States transferred detainees around the world to provide venues where creative interrogation techniques might be used. "The United States does not transport,” she said, “and has not transported detainees from one country to another for the purpose of interrogation using torture." They say that the Administration worked on the phrasing for a week or two, and I can count the off-ramps contained in the sentence. There are at least three that permit it to mean absolutely nothing. I have never been tortured, and I respectfully defer to Senator John McCain on the matter, since he has been. I don't know what the Vietnamese had in mind for the American prisoners. their useful tactical information was perishable, after all. But I suppose the strategic goal was not a military one, but rather to break their sprits, and use them for propaganda. Long ago, I was sent to the special school the military runs to give an orientation on what it might be like to be detained and then stressed. The water-board was there, and the wet chill in the mountains, and stress and hunger, mock violence and sleep deprivation. Loud-speakers blared through the night. I vividly recall the music, which was a combination of scratchy Chinese opera and a strange piece in English, that went "Boots, Boots, Boots, marching through Africa , the Longest day of the War." It repeated endlessly, and the boxes we were in did not permit the extension of the limbs. I do not recall if I was in the box for one night, or two. We had been in the field for a couple days, hunted before we were apprehended and sent to the camp. My “War Criminal" number was “5,” and I had to recite it, eyes down, whenever asked by the simulated guards. I will never forget it. What I took away was that it might be preferable not to be captured at all, and this was mild stuff, inflicted by our own government to help us to understand why things happen as they do. I am confident that I would spill my guts over time, and could only hope to drag the process out as a matter of honor, as heroes like Jim Stockdale and John McCain did. Some of what I hear suggests that the detainees are subjected to the same sort of techniques, which might be abuse, but is not torture. The thing that makes it so excruciating is the indefinite nature of time. I knew the training would end, and it still was awful. We all cheered when the flag was raised to signify our liberation, and I hated the fact that I cried. So I suppose that in the end I must stand with Senator McCain. But it is hard to leave the feeling that “any means necessary” may sometimes still be justified. I have to contemplate the young Belgian woman who traveled to Iraq to blow herself to pieces in the middle of an American patrol. Muriel Degauque started out as a nice Catholic girl, and wound up as a convert to Islam, Europe 's fastest growing religion. She went through the usual existential changes of a teen-ager in the West; alienation, drug use, promiscuity. She found comfort in the veils and strictures of her new faith, and encouragement from the fierce eyes of her militant Algerian husband. I am happy he was shot dead before he could detonate his device, and I am happy that only one American kid was injured by the explosion of hers. I don't know precisely what should be done with them, if apprehended. We are not supposed to be looking for vengeance, but rather for answers. Condy Rice said that before the European allies complain about secret jails, they should consider that information extracted from detainees has produced actionable information that saved European lives. Sometimes extraordinary means are necessary to protect the innocent, she said, and terrorists should be “brought to justice wherever possible." I certainly agree with that, and oppose the use of coercion and abuse. But we seem to be missing something again, something that could have helped the sailors on the USS Stark. When you are in a war, you need to understand it. They taught me that in school. Don't be captured, if you have an alternative. And as to the war business, you should know when you are in one, and remember that losing is really not a constructive alternative. Copyright 2005 Vic Socotra www.vicsocotra.com |