Since anyone can be a terrorist, and "The Terrorists" form a class of people, even someone giving an occupation trooper the finger (or perhaps even something not quite that dramatic, merely complaining about the lack of reliable electricity) should be detained as a 'security precaution'. Defining the struggle, as it were, as a "War on Terror" makes this 'total suspicion' behavior all but inevitable.
.d.
-----
I've been thinking about this whole scene in general in relation to detention, torture and processing centers. I went through a lot of the Kubark manual this morning which can be found on the web by googling `kubark'. It is definitely worth reading. In fact it is somewhat a prerequisite in order to understand what is going on---not just in Iraq, but in the US as well.
I think there are ways to sort out what is happening and likely to happen by sorting out the purposes of developing centers following the Kubark outline.
There is a spectrum of uses for these centers that fit different purposes. The techniques outlined in the K manual (Abu Ghraib type) are used to get information. After that is achieved there is no further use of the detainees. But information isn't the only use of these facilities.
In places like Iraq and Afghanistan the centers are probably only used for information at the moment. But I am almost certain their uses will change as the US backs out of their occupations and local governments resume. In fact the effectiveness of the new uses of Abu Ghraib like facilities will be the test on how soon the US can `safely' leave once `order' is restored.
These systems and techniques may begin as information gathering systems, but they can also be used to instill a permeant state of terror on the general population to induce political apathy, compliance, silence, and generalized complicity. The use of places like Abu Ghraib, with the thinest possible pretext of a criminal justice system, make them perfect for quelling even the possibility of Thought Crimes. That's what is what is so wonderful about them. This apathy, silence, and mass complicity is what US policy makers refer to as `order', `democracy' and `normal' life.
The use of Abu Ghraib like facilities to instill a permanent state of terror over a broad public is probably their primary use in US sponsored government police forces in Latin America, SEA, or anywhere US policy has decided that a totalitarian police state is preferable to any anti-US alternative.
These latter uses as state terror factories are what Arendt outlined as part of the characteristics of a totalitarian society. Her examples were of course Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia.
However, I am very hard put to think of a single country or society in the current world that doesn't make some use of these systems on at least some of their populations. Ordinary prisons are of course the most obvious examples. And it is interesting to understand that prison is torture, precisely to the extent that it duplicates the methods outlined in the Kubark manual. But as I wrote in another post, I don't want to develop that argument in this context because it tends to mix up two different systems, their differing purposes, and obscure what is so outrageous about Abu Ghraib and places like it.
Even so, it is also interesting to theorize about the great utility of milder forms of these techniques to gain regression and there by to insure compliance in the work place, the home, and in the conduct of everyday life in mass society. Places like Singapore come to mind.
On the other hand many of the more obnoxious features of the current US workplace are essentially mild forms of these panopticon compliance measures. These include constant spying and generalized paranoia, along with restrictions on movement, tight crowed spaces, with either a general and loud din of background noise, or almost complete silence with white noise and cubical isolation from others along with dislocated and depreciated schedules for fresh air, breaks, rest, food, and normal socializing. Then we add extreme restrictions on personal habits like smoking or nibbling food or talking while working, and the maintenance of a constantly shifting level of hostility, aggression, distrust, threats, anxiety, and fear, along with endless methods to enforce de-personalization like uniform dress codes, uniforms and often trivializing and infantile outfits common in franchised retail and fast food industries.
If you consider managers as guards (which I do), then you can add an encouraged level of personalized abuse ranging from chronic dis-satisfaction with work product no matter what the results, to constant verbal abuse that openly seeks to destroy the worker's ego and self-esteem. The results are that work and the workplace feel like torture, simply because they are torture.
Often enough home life is not too different, particularly in abusive families where almost identical methods and techniques are routinely used and actually form the basis of inter-personal relationships.
All of these panopticons seek to creat a docile, child-like person who thinks, performs, and behaves as they told. In other words they induce the state of regression with a stripped down immature psyche of minimal aspect and outlook.
More striking effects due to very similar but more severe methods are found among just about any institutionalized people--whether those people are in prison or in rehabilitation centers, or in extended medical `care' facilities.
I've worked extensively with long term institutionalized disable people who very often exhibit regressive and child-like personalities---personalities I would characterize as semi-pathological. It takes several years of independent, supportive, and semi-normalized living to get the person back. Some people can not make the adjustment and are more or less permanently debilitated by their extensive institutionalizations. (It should be emphasized that they were not retarded, mentally ill, or head injuries when they were first institutionalized. In other words they started off `normal.')
Everyday life in mass society that includes extended mass public transportation is an interesting example of a similar sort of torture recommended in the Kubark manual.
Consider air travel. First there is the preliminary and invasive search, screening, and assessment process, including humiliating pat downs and tossing of personal effects in front waiting and impatient strangers who glare at the suspects. Then follows an indeterminate and anxiety wraught wait at the gate where the plane may or may not arrive on time or may be canceled with no notice. Then a crowded and over tight packing of hundreds of people into very restricted space with limited and depreciated access to water, food, tolite facilities, and of course absolutely no smoking. The boarding and unboarding process may be repeated numerous and random times as the flight travels from hub to hub rather than from departure to destination. Then there are the long hours of white noise and sensory deprivation along with temporal dislocation. (And we pay for the privilege of this prisoner abuse.)
After the preliminary assessment, toss and pat down including removal of shoes and coat, and turned out pockets I spent about ten hours in Dulles last year and finally got on a completely filled flight to SFO that took more than six hours due to weather and strong head winds. After more than sixteen hours of this shit, I got outside at SFO to fresh night air and the taxis. I was in a quasi-psychotic state that swung between hostility, elation, and apathy. If the cabby (Iranian) had told me he had to go visit his mother in San Mateo first before taking me to the Oakland airport and my car, I would have probably gone along with it as long as he let me out to walk around and smoke.
These `Homeland' mass enforced police state security measures and their random and irrelevant alerts are essentially mass state terror techniques in and of themselves.
CG