Cockburn
/ St. Clair's Scorching New History of a Decade of War
Now Available!
Today's
Stories
May
17, 2004
Ron
Jacobs
Rumsfeld's Sovereignty Shell Game
May
15 / 16, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Green Lights for Torture
Douglas
Valentine
ABCs of American Interrogation: Phoenix Program, Revisited
John
Stanton
Kings of Pain: UK, US and Israel
Ben
Tripp
Torture: a Fond Reminiscence
Brian
Cloughley
Where are You Heading, America? Taking a Closer Look at the Patriot
Act
Justin
E. H. Smith
Islam and Democracy: the Lesson from Turkey
Brandy
Baker
Equal Opportunity Torture: Lynddie England, the Right and Feminism
John
Chuckman
Peep Show on Capitol Hill: Sex, Lies and Videotape
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: Goon Squad
John
Holt
Fencing the Sky
Ron
Jacobs
The Power of Patti Smith
Brian
J. Foley
Why the Outrage Over Abu Ghraib?
Robin
Philpot
Re-writing the History of the Rwandan Genocide
Eric
Leser
The Carlyle Empire
Ray
Hanania
From Abu Ghraib to Nick Berg: There's No Such Thing as a Good
War Crime
Jeff
Halper
Dozers of Mass Destruction
Joe
Surkiewicz
Inside the Baltimore Detention Center
John
Whitlow
Iraq Goddamn
Michael
Leon
Invitation to a Beheading: Why Bush Should Watch the Berg Video
Poets'
Basement
Krieger, Ford, LaMorticella, Smith and Albert
May
14, 2004
Dr.
Susan Block
Bush's POW Porn
Ron
Jacobs
Secret History of the War on Drugs
William
Blum
God, Country and Torture
Michael
Donnelly
The People v. Corporate Greed: A Victory on the North Coast
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
India Shines
Stephen
Gowans
Building Democracy in Iraq and Other
Absurdities
May
13, 2004
Dave
Lindorff
Where is Kerry?
Colm
O'Laithian
Torture and Degradation: Revenge American Style?
Saul
Landau and Farrah Hassan
Wal-Mart: Scrooge with Hi-Tech Accounting
Practices
Ralph
Nader
An Open Letter to Bush on the Inhumane Treatment of Iraqi Prisoners
Willliam
James Martin
Deir Yassin Massacre Recalled
Marc
Salomon
Reality TV Bites
Forrest
Hylton
Law 'n Order in La Paz: All Quiet
on the Southern Front?
May
12, 2004
Blanton
/ Kornbluh
Prisoner Abuse: Cheney Warned in
1992
Virginia
Tilley
So, Who's to Blame?
Bruce
Jackson
James Inhofe, the Dumbest Senator
of Them All
Thomas
P. Healy
No Enemies: Making Peace with Bert Sacks
Linda
S. Heard
Racism and Ignorance: a Lethal Cocktail in Iraq
Norman
Solomon
Spinning Torturegate
Lisa
Viscidi
The People's Voice: Community Radio in Guatemala
Jack
Heyman
View from the Bay Bridge: Longshoremen Plan Mass Workers March
on DC
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Rummy's Reprieve
CounterPunch
Wire
Teamsters Corruption Scandal: Hoffa Exec. Assistant Alleged to
Have Quashed Investigation into Mob Influence
Christopher
Brauchli
Detention Camp, USA
William
S. Lind
Bush's Waterloo?
May 11, 2004
Mark
Engler
On the "Necessity" of Torture
Ray
McGovern
More Troops? A March of Folly
Kurt
Nimmo
Dirty Nukes and Jefferson's Grand Experiment
Mickey
Z.
Less Than Hero
Christopher
Reed
Torture on the Homefront: America's Long History of Prison Abuse
Dennis
Hans
When John Negroponte was Mullah Omar
Bruce
Jackson
Pete Seeger at 85
Mike
Whitney
Killing al Sadr
Simon
Helweg-Larsen
Shrinking the Guatemalan Military
William
A. Cook
The Unconscious Country: Righteous Indignation,
Nakedly Displayed
May
10, 2004
Robert
Fisk
From Hollywood to Abu Ghraib: Racism
and Torture as Entertainment
Wayne
Madsen
The Israeli Torture Template: Rape,
Feces and Urine-Soaked Cloth Sacks
Col.
Dan Smith
The Shame of Abu Ghraib
Joe
Bageant
John Ashcroft, Keep Your Mouth Off My Wife!
Ron
Jacobs
Rummy's Prisongate Blues: Don't Leave Mad; Just Leave
Ben
Tripp
Getting in Touch with Your Inner Savage
Ray
Hanania
Why They Hate Us: Racism, Bigotry and Abuse
Reza
Fiyouzat
"Mishandled" Invasions
Diane
Christian
Images & Abstractions &
Genitals
Website
of the Day
Crushing Iraqi Skulls with Tanks for Sport?
May
8 / 9, 2004
Cockburn
/ St. Clair
Torture: as American as Apple Pie
Adam
Jones
America's Srebrenica: What About the Hundreds of POWs Suffocated
and Shot at Kunduz?
Douglas
Valentine
Who Let the Dogs Out?: Torture, the CIA and the Press
Kurt
Nimmo
Rush Limbaugh and the Babes of Abu Ghraib
Brian
Cloughley
Humpty Dumpty is Falling
Lucia
Dailey
Forbidden Games
Joanne
Mariner
* * * *: Redacting Moussaoui
Mickey
Z.
Please Forgive U.S.? (There Are No Innocent Bystanders)
John
Chuckman
The Thing with No Brain
Doug
Giebel
Someone Knew: There Were No WMDs
Norm
Dixon
How the Bush Gang Exploited 9/11
Sam
Bahour
A Guiding Light Falls on Ramallah
Susan
Davis
Disorderly Conduct as Fine Art
Dave
Marsh
In a Pig's Eye: Alan Lomax, Dead But Still Stealing
Laura
Flanders
Life with Dick and Lynne
Dave
Zirin
Fans Push Spiderman Off Base
Carolyn
Baker
Why I Won't Vote in 2004
Prince
"Ain't No Sense in Voting"
Dr.
Susan Block
Onan for Two: Liberating Masturbation
Poets'
Basement
Smith, Sleeth, Ford, Albert and Saska
May
7, 2004
Human
Rights Watch
10 Prisons; 9,000 Prisoners: US Detention
Facilities in Iraq
Ron
Jacobs
UnAmerican? I Wish It Were So
Robert
Fisk
An Illegal and Immoral War
Ahmad
Faruqui
The 50th Anniversary of Dien Bien
Phu
Alexander
Zaitchik
From Terrell Unit in Texas to Abu Ghraib: Doesn't It Ring a (Prison)
Bell?
Mike
Whitney
The Price of Victory
Norman
Solomon
This War, Racism and Media Denial
M.
Shahid Alam
A Comic Apology
May
6, 2004
Jeffrey
St. Clair
They Did It for Jessica: Smeared with
Shit; Kicked to Death
Kathy
Kelly
May Day in Pekin Prison: Prison Labor
for the War Machine
Werther
The Sunk Cost Fallacy: War as Vegas
Casino Game
Lawrence
Ferlinghetti
Totalitarian Democracy
Robert
Fisk
"Smoke Him": Video Shows Wounded
Men Being Shot by US Helicopter
John
Janney
Torturing the Way to Freedom?
Christopher
Ketcham
Outlaw Heterosexual Marriage Now!
Alan
Farago
Dead Oceans: So Long, Thanks for the Fish
Sam
Hamod
Bush on Arab TV: Worthless and Demeaning
James
Brooks
Sullen Spring
William
S. Lind
On the Brink of Defeat in Iraq
May
5, 2004
Maj.
Gen. Antonio M. Taguba
Complete US Army Report on Abuse of
Iraqi Prisoners
Kathleen
and Bill Christison
Kerry: a Lost Cause for Progressives?
Will
Youmans
Deal with the Devil: a Palestinian
Zionist and the End of the World
Patrick
B. Barr
Terrorists R Us: the Powerful are Exempt from the Label
Lawrence
Magnuson
Nightline's All-American Morgue
Greg
Moses
Pocketbook of Denuded Ideals
Niranjan
Ramakrishnan
Tormenting Prisoners, Torturing
Truth
Lee
Ballinger
Cinco de Mayo and Unity
Gilbert
Achcar
Bush's Cakewalk into the Iraq Quaqmire
Website
of the Day
Operation Phoenix & Iraq
May
4, 2004
Human
Rights Watch
A Timeline of Torture and Abuse Allegations
and Responses
Kurt
Nimmo
The CIA Privatized Torture
David
Peterson
CBS, Self-Censorship & Iraq
Barry
Lando
CACI's Private Torture Chambers
Patrick
Cockburn
Torture: Iraqis Disgusted, But Not Surprised
Dr.
Susan Block
Indecent Insurgents: Watch What You Say
Fidel
Castro
A Mindless, Unnecessary War
Mike
Whitney
Empire of Torture
Sonali
Kolhatkar
How to Stop the War: Demonstrate Against
John Kerry
Josh
Frank
The Lost Sierra Club
Stan
Goff
The Role: Another Open Letter to US Troops in Iraq
Agustin
Velloso
Spare Us Your Disgusting Ethics
Stew
Albert
American Know-How
Website
of the Day
Scenes from a Cover-Up
May
3, 2004
Virginia
Tilley
Let the Wall of Silence Fall
May
1 / 2, 2004
Patrick
Cockburn
An Army in Disgrace, a Policy
in Tatters, the Real Prospect of Defeat
Robert
Fisk
"Good Guys" Who Can Do No
Wrong
Alexander
Cockburn
Watching Niagara: Stupid Leaders,
Useless Spies, Angry World
Heather
Williams
Gringo, We're Going Home: Latin
American Troops Flee Iraq
Diane
Rejman
An Army Vet on Torture in Iraq:
Abu Ghraib as My Lai?
Diane
Christian
Blood Spilling: Osama, Bush and
Sharon Speak the Same Language
Patrick
Cockburn
Seems Like Old Times in Fallujah
Dave
Lindorff
Bush's Torturous Logic: Shocked,
Shocked, Shocked
Chris
Floyd
Suicide Bomber: Neocons, Nihilists
and Annihilation
April
29 / 30, 2004
Dave
Zirin
A Pawn in Their Game: the Unlonesome
Death of Pat Tillman
Kathy
Kelly
The Warden's Tour
Greg
Weiher
Fallujah and the Warsaw Ghetto: the
Banality of Evil
Michael
S. Ladah
Terrorism and Assassination: the
Ultimate Depception
Patrick
Cockburn
The Fallujah Mutinies
Hot Stories
Alexander Cockburn
Behold,
the Head of a Neo-Con!
Subcomandante
Marcos
The
Death Train of the WTO
Norman Finkelstein
Hitchens
as Model Apostate
Steve Niva
Israel's
Assassination Policy: the Trigger for Suicide Bombings?
Dardagan,
Slobodo and Williams
CounterPunch Exclusive:
20,000 Wounded Iraqi Civilians
Steve
J.B.
Prison Bitch
Sheldon
Rampton and John Stauber
True Lies: the Use of Propaganda
in the Iraq War
Wendell
Berry
Small Destructions Add Up
CounterPunch
Wire
WMD: Who Said What When
Cindy
Corrie
A Mother's Day Talk: the Daughter
I Can't Hear From
Gore Vidal
The
Erosion of the American Dream
Francis Boyle
Impeach
Bush: A Draft Resolution
Click
Here for More Stories.
|
May
17, 2004
Military Conditioning
Were Abu Ghraib
Soldiers Properly "Trained?"
By LAURA SANTINA
There has been a rash of allegations
by politicians that the reason the American soldiers committed
such atrocities at Abu Ghraid and the other prisons in Iraq is
because they were not properly trained.
Their mothers would vouch for
the fact that, as babies, they were properly trained to eat from,
and then with, a spoon, and sometime later with other, more complex,
utensils. Their mothers would undoubtedly testify that they were
properly toilet trained. Their mothers and fathers would testify
as to the arduous task they undertook to guide them away from
their natural impulses to steal other children's toys and beat
up other children who interfered with their wishes. These parents
would tell us how they painstakingly and repeatedly taught them
concepts of sharing and cooperation and how they trained them
to love. Most of them learned the practice of love by being loved
by their parents and families.
Later, these youngsters were
taken to churches, synagogues and mosques and were trained in
the spiritual foundations of their families and learned the laws
of God, Yahweh and Allah. They were trained to treat their fellow
humans with kindness and respect. They discovered their own spirituality
and developed consciences. In school, the training continued,
reinforcing focus, creativity, discipline and respect for teachers
and other students and, hopefully, the full ramifications of
citizenship.
Sometime in the journey through
adolescence, this training was undoubtedly challenged by their
culture. These youngsters were exposed to cruel, violent and
brutal behavior in movies, TV shows, video and computer games.
They may have been exposed to inhumane behavior from other human
beings, themselves products of abridged or distracted childhood
training.
I would venture to say, however,
that in most cases, the early training of these young soldiers
resonated so deeply at the core of their beings, that they were
not too damaged and certainly not metamorphosed by these experiences.
However, when they became soldiers
they were trained to kill. Killing other human beings contradicted
all their previous training. It contradicted their consciences,
their ethical and religious values and their behavior patterns.
In order to train them to kill, all their prior training, in
essence, their very beings, had to be revoked and reconstructed.
A young man who works as a
counselor at one of our summer camps told me about his military
training. I'll call him Joe. Joe was an easy going, handsome
guy who played football in high school. After high school he
joined the Air Force and went to train in Colorado. His training
included watching hours and hours of film, some documentaries
edited for this purpose and some movies made to pass as documentaries.
These films were designed to define patriotism as killing. They
identified designated enemies, and then proceeded to pump the
recruits with rage and hatred for these enemies, hatred sufficient
to enable them to kill them.
The films included close-ups
of people jumping to their deaths out of World Trade Center windows
and close-ups of charred and desecrated American faces and bodies.
They included films of sinister looking Arabs plotting against
America; pictures of jeering, taunting Arabs reeking of testosterone
and prolonged close-ups of brutal acts of violence conducted
by Arabs against Americans.
Joe had a seizure while watching
the films and was sent home. He had never had a seizure before.
He felt that he hadn't measured up to his patriotic duty. When
he recovered, he tried to re-enlist, but the Air Force wouldn't
have him.
Another young man told me that
the cadence chant used by the drill sergeants in his training
was, "Napalm sticks to kids." This, I presume, was
used to immunize these young people to the fact that they will
kill and maim children. This is a critical immunization for the
military, because killing children woman and men civilians is
a given. Civilians are always the majority of those killed in
war.
A young marine told me that
his unit's cadence chants were, "Rape and pillage, burn
the village," and his commanding officer described the training
as, "Learning to kill without remorse." The ramifications
of this training are clear.
If we call the pre-military
training 'humanizing,' then we have to call the military training
'dehumanizing.' The training may work for the battle ground,
but doesn't work for functioning for the rest of their lives
within any society. Many, many soldiers who train to fight wars
never recover from this state of dehumanization or from the war
experience itself. I have uncles who were never able to talk
about their war experiences and another relative who became a
hopeless alcoholic, unable to bear his own memories of war. According
to the Department of Veteran Affairs, thirty-three percent of
the male homeless population are Vietnam and Gulf War veterans.
The Bureau of Justice verifies that thirty-five percent of the
veterans in state prisons were convicted of homicide or sexual
assault.
No other species trains its
young and then, when they are barely fully grown, injects them
into a time capsule which strips them of everything they have
learned and, in a short, efficient reconstruction process, spits
them out again as efficient killers.
The soldiers in Abu Ghraib
and their supervisors, the supervisors who gave these kids their
orders, were in this dehumanized state of mind. That was why
they were able to order and to conduct extreme sexual, mental
and physical torture and human rights abuses upon their fellow
human beings. Nobody in their government or superior in their
chain of command mentioned Article IV of the Geneva Convention
to these kids. They were all acting according to the methods
of war training prescribed by the American military.
The incidents at Abu Ghraib
have given us another chance to evaluate the experience of war
at its most basic level. The attack of September 11 was a very
sad event. The people of Iraq, including the ignominious Suddam
Hussein, had nothing to do with the attack of 9/11, but even
if they had, where do we draw the line on these dehumanizing,
brutal wars? Is this what we want for our children, or for any
children?
The soldiers at Abu Ghraib
were following orders and were "properly trained."
They were so well trained that they took pride their own actions
to the extent that they took pictures of the atrocities they
perpetuated upon prisoners, pictures which were readily passed
from computer to computer.
Laura Santina is the founder and executive director
of The Alice Hamburg Peace Leadership Camps for middle and high
school youth in Oakland and Concord, California. She can be reached
at: Lindey89@aol.com
Weekend Edition
Features for May 15 / 16, 2004
Alexander
Cockburn
Green Lights for Torture
Douglas
Valentine
ABCs of American Interrogation: Phoenix Program, Revisited
John
Stanton
Kings of Pain: UK, US and Israel
Ben
Tripp
Torture: a Fond Reminiscence
Brian
Cloughley
Where are You Heading, America? Taking a Closer Look at the Patriot
Act
Justin
E. H. Smith
Islam and Democracy: the Lesson from Turkey
Brandy
Baker
Equal Opportunity Torture: Lynddie England, the Right and Feminism
John
Chuckman
Peep Show on Capitol Hill: Sex, Lies and Videotape
Bill
Glahn
RIAA Watch: Goon Squad
John
Holt
Fencing the Sky
Ron
Jacobs
The Power of Patti Smith
Brian
J. Foley
Why the Outrage Over Abu Ghraib?
Robin
Philpot
Re-writing the History of the Rwandan Genocide
Eric
Leser
The Carlyle Empire
Ray
Hanania
From Abu Ghraib to Nick Berg: There's No Such Thing as a Good
War Crime
Jeff
Halper
Dozers of Mass Destruction
Joe
Surkiewicz
Inside the Baltimore Detention Center
John
Whitlow
Iraq Goddamn
Michael
Leon
Invitation to a Beheading: Why Bush Should Watch the Berg Video
Poets'
Basement
Krieger, Ford, LaMorticella, Smith and Albert
|