A committee of devils scheming to thwart American intentions in Iraq could have done no worse than turning a group of loutish, leering US soldiers loose with a camera on bound, hooded, naked Iraqi prisoners.The photos we have seen so far come in two categories: one suggests a complete lack of order; the other, even more disturbing, a systematic, inappropriate use of coercive interrogation methods. In certain rare cases keeping a prisoner cold, uncomfortable, frightened, and disoriented is morally justified and necessary; but the danger in acknowledging as much has always been that such abusive treatment will become the norm. This is what happened in Israel, where a newly introduced regime of officially sanctioned “aggressive interrogation” quickly deteriorated into a system of routine physical abuse. (The Israeli Supreme Court reissued a ban on all such practices in 1999.) Routine physical abuse appears to have resulted already at Abu Ghraib, where such torments were apparently employed wholesale, and where a climate of dehumanization and sadism took root. The responsibility for that extends way up the chain of command, in ways that will become clear only with time and investigation. There are predictions (including one by Karl Rove, no less) that it will take a generation to repair the damage to America’s image in the Middle East. In the face of this horror even the most measured attempts to add context or perspective seem almost beside the point.The only way to prevent interrogators from feeling licensed to abuse is to make them individually responsible for their actions. If I lean on an insurgent leader who knows where surface-to-air missiles are stockpiled, then I can offer the defence of necessity if charges are brought against me. I might be able to persuade the court or tribunal that my ugly choice was justified. But when a prison, an army, or a government tacitly approves coercive measures as a matter of course, widespread and indefensible human-rights abuses become inevitable. Such approval unleashes the sadists. It leads to severe physical torture (because there can never be a clear line between coercion and torture), to rape, and to murder.Excerpted from an article by Mark Bowden in ‘The Atlantic Monthly’, June/July issue
