>I think this came up because someone, maybe me, noted that the
>particular tortures chosen were designed for maximum effect in the
>society being occupied.
Stripping detainees, putting bags over their heads, raping them, threatening to rape them, having some detainees rape others, sodomizing them with such objects as broomsticks, forcing them to perform sexual acts by themselves or on other detainees, depriving them of sleep, depriving them of food, forcing them to stand for long hours, shackling them in painful positions for long hours, beating them, beating some to death, threatening them with executions, having dogs attack them, threatening to have dogs attack them, etc., etc. All of them are well known forms of torture practiced by foreign occupiers and homegrown repressive regimes alike -- many of them in fact practiced within prisons in the United States. Passing them off as if they were only or mainly designed for and used on Arabs or Muslims must be the liberal media's way of damage control, making it sound as if Washington had never been directly or indirectly responsible for rape and torture of detainees and prisoners inside and outside the USA.
Even photographs of torture are not so unusual after all: e.g., photographs of lynchings, in which torturers pose themselves with tortured corpses or tortured individuals who are about to be executed (cf. James Allen, _Without Sanctuary_, <http://www.journale.com/withoutsanctuary>).
Then, there is a practice of collecting war trophies:
We know that it's usual for warriors to bring home trophies. A recent piece in the New York Times mentioned one US soldier who, during World War II, sent a Japanese skull to his sweetie. Later she was photographed by Life magazine as she stared dreamily at this odd gift. (1) This was not a unique event. In the Pacific Islands US soldiers affixed Japanese skulls atop poles at the entrances to conquered villages and mounted them on ruined Japanese tanks. Marines took photos of other marines diligently preparing their skull trophies, boiling off the facial flesh in metal vats. (2)
This barbaric behavior was following in a hallowed colonialist tradition. In 1898, in the Belgian Congo the "natives" resisted their Belgium occupiers. A punitive expedition killed off 21 rebels. Their skulls -- all 21 of them -- were used as a decorative border around the flower garden of a certain Captain Rom. (3)
The GI's in Vietnam had a different favorite trophy: the ears of dead Vietnamese. They were strung onto necklaces or carried around in plastic bags tucked into a pack. The journalist Michael Herring was handed such a collection as a joke. Herring was about to dip into what he thought was a bag of dried apricots when he realized the macabre nature of the bag's contents. (4)
The photos from Abu Ghraib are the trophies of the digital era. They were and presumably still are popular currency. They were "swapped from computer to computer throughout the 360th Battalion" and probably other battalions as well. (5) . . .
(1) Sante, Luc, "Tourists and Torturers," New York Times, May 11, 2004, p. A23
(2) Fussell, Paul, Thank God for the Atom Bomb and Other Essays, Summit Books, 1988, p. 46
(3) Lindqvist, Sven, "Exterminate All the Brutes," The New Press, 1996, p.29
(4) Herring, Michael, Dispatches, Alfred A. Knopf, 1977, p.34
(5) Hersh, Seymour, "Chain of Command," New Yorker, May 17, 2004, p. 39 (Mina Hamilton, "The Christian Dogs of War," <a href="http://www.dissidentvoice.org/May2004/Hamilton0516.htm">May 16, 2004</a>)
At least one new detail of the testimonies of Abu Ghraib detainees, however, clearly shows instances of torture that specifically included direct attacks on the detainees' religion:
Some said they were pressed to denounce Islam or were force-fed pork and liquor. . . .
He [Ameen Saeed Al-Sheik] said the soldiers told him that if he cooperated with interrogators they would release him in time for Ramadan. He said he did, but still was not released. He said one soldier continued to abuse him by striking his broken leg and ordered him to curse Islam. "Because they started to hit my broken leg, I cursed my religion," he said. "They ordered me to thank Jesus that I'm alive."
The detainee said the soldiers handcuffed him to a bed.
"Do you believe in anything?" he said the soldier asked. "I said to him, 'I believe in Allah.' So he said, "But I believe in torture and I will torture you.'" (Scott Higham and Joe Stephens, "New Details of Prison Abuse Emerge," <em>Washington Post,</em> May 21st, 2004) -- Yoshie
* Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>