Bill Moyers had a chilling show this week. The subject was our practice of torturing those we believed to be terrorists. The show was based on work done by the ACLU and PEN. Through the Freedom of Information Act they were able to get a significant number of documents pertaining to torture: Yoo's memos, statement by detainees, regrets by some interrogators, etc. These documents can be found here at Reckoning With Torture. Moyers interviewed Doug Liman and Larry Siems who are creating a movie based on the documents. The movie will feature people - some famous, some not - reading from these documents. It will be a unique documentary.
Although I did not watch the show, I did read the transcript. Here are some interesting excerpts:
- Moyers introduced the show: Because if we really want to honor the Americans in uniform who died fighting for their country, we’ll redouble our efforts to make sure we’re worthy of their sacrifice; we’ll renew our commitment to the rule of law, for the rule of law is essential to any civilization worth dying for. So in this broadcast we’ll reckon with torture, the torture done in our name, allegedly for our safety.
- Sandra Cisneros read from Abu Zubaydah’s first-hand account of his interrogation in a secret CIA prison. Our government has admitted that he was innocent: About two and a half or three months after I arrived in this place, the interrogation began again, but with more intensity than before. Then the real torture started. I was taken out of my cell and one of the interrogators wrapped a towel around my neck, they then used it to swing me around and smash me repeatedly against the hard walls of the room. I was also repeatedly slapped in the face. […] The interrogators realized that smashing me against the hard wall would probably quickly result in physical injury. During these torture sessions many guards were present, plus two interrogators who did the actual beating still asking questions. I struggled against the straps, trying to breathe, but it was hopeless. I thought I was going to die. I lost control of my urine. Since then I still lose control of my urine when under stress.
- I, Darrel Vandeveld, declare as follows: I am a Lieutenant Colonel in the Judge Advocate General Corps. […] I was the lead prosecutor assigned to the Military Commissions case against Mr. Jawad until my resignation in September 2008. Initially, the case appeared to be a simple street crime, as I had prosecuted by the dozens in civilian life. But eventually I began to harbor serious doubts about the strength of the evidence. […] I learned that the written statement characterized as Jawad’s personal confession could not possibly have been written by him because Jawad was functionally illiterate and could not read or write and the statement was not even in his native language. I also found evidence that Mr. Jawad had been badly mistreated by U.S. authorities both in Afghanistan and Guantánamo. Mr. Jawad’s prison records referred to a suicide attempt, a suicide which he sought to accomplish by banging his head repeatedly against one of his cell walls. The records reflected 112 unexplained moves from cell to cell over a two week period, an average of eight moves per day for 14 days. Mr. Jawad had been subjected to a sleep deprivation program known as the “frequent flyer program.” I lack the words to express the heartsickness I experienced when I came to understand the pointless, purely gratuitous mistreatment of Mr. Jawad by my fellow soldiers. It is my opinion, based on my extensive knowledge of the case, that there is no credible evidence or legal basis to justify Mr. Jawad’s detention in U.S. custody or his prosecution by military commission. Holding Mr. Jawad for six years, with no resolution of his case and with no terminus in sight, is something beyond a travesty. […] Six years is long enough for a boy of sixteen to serve in virtual solitary confinement in a distant land, for reasons he may never fully understand. Mr. Jawad should be released to resume his life in a civil society, for his sake, and for our own sense of justice and perhaps to restore a measure of our basic humanity.
- David Liman: When you think about reading a book like this, you would think you're going to be subjected to some very horrific, grim, bloody scenes. You know, in fact there was not a lot of physical barbarity. You know? It's a kind of a relentless degradation, and a relentless assault on the dignity of the person. They very rarely touch a prisoner. They very rarely do, because they want to preserve the sort of mockingly, this false idea that they follow the rules. But we all know this is torture, this is what they said, so it's things like sleep deprivation. One of the most famous, and well-documented interrogations which was also the subject of you know, ongoing trench warfare, between the F.B.I. and the criminal investigative task forces in Guantanamo, saying, "Stop this." And the military, on the other hand, saying, "Do this," is the interrogation of this guy Mohammed al-Qahtani, that's carried out over several months, but the most intense period is a 50-day interrogation where they allow this man to sleep for only four hours a day, for 50 days. And then during that time, it's sleep deprivation, it's temperature manipulation. And then endless, endless humiliations. Just mocking him all the time. At one point dressing him in a bra and panties. Calling him a homosexual. Another time, inflating a latex glove, and slapping him on the face with it, and calling it-- and putting a-- making him wear a sign that says "Coward," and slapping with this sissy-slap glove. Have a female interrogator constantly getting up in his face, constantly touching him, you know, to constantly sort of just-- what things that, you know, people who looked at this would say, "Well, that constituted an assault, under the universal-- under the Uniform Code of Military Justice." But it wasn't punching him. It's just invading his space.
And here's Annie Proulx reading a document.
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