A Blueprint for Torture

The revelations that the "enhanced interrogation techniques" used by the Americans during the Bush Administration have taken the world's media by storm.  While the specific details are shocking, they are not surprising when we look back at what happened between 2002 and 2012, particularly when we look back to April 2002 when Donald Rumsfeld announced the capture of al Qaeda terrorist Abu Zubaydah, a "high value detainee" and made the following comment:

"We intend to get every single thing out of him to try to prevent terrorist acts in the future."

Thanks to Truthout, back in 2012 we had an idea of what Secretary of State Donald Rumsfeld was referring to when he stated that the captive "...will be properly interrogated by proper people who know how to do these things.".  As we found out, there is one key document that was used back in 2002 that provided the CIA, the Justice Department and key members of the Bush II Administration with a blueprint for "enhanced interrogation techniques".  This instruction manual goes by the rather innocuous-sounding moniker "Pre-Academic Laboratory (PREAL) Operating Instructions.  It was released by the Department of Defense in April 2012 under a Freedom of Information Act request.

As background, the PREAL manual was prepared by the Department of Defense and was used by instructors to teach United States military personnel in the Survival Evasion Resistance Escape or SERE courses how to withstand interrogation if they were captured by the enemy during wartime.  PREAL was designed to "...give students the most reliable mental picture possible of an actual peacetime governmental detention experiences (sic).".  Students were exposed to stressors that they may encounter during a real-life detention situation.  When reading through the manual, we find a blueprint or step-by-step guide of what took place during the detention and interrogation of suspected terrorists.  Here's an example page that provides us with the reasoning behind the laboratory:

Note that in the first round of interrogation, students were to be exposed to the "humiliation and degradation of a strip and body cavity check" in the presence of an observer whose duty it was to make a student feel degraded, an isolation experience including sleep deprivation and exhaustion and exposure to self-inflicted punishment.  It is interesting to note that a female was to observe male students and a male was to observe female students during the body cavity check; this proved to be quite useful in the case of Muslim detainees.  In the second round of interrogation, the students were exposed to the stress of watching another detainee receive abuse for their lack of cooperation with an interrogator.  During the laboratory, the students were to be kept in a situation where they were completely under the control of and dependent on their captor.  Students were not allowed to move under their own power and were to be hooded when moved.  As we now know, there are several key differences when comparing the laboratory to the real world life of detainees undergoing interrogation.  For example, prior to the laboratory, students were given a name that they could use when a real-world, non-laboratory event occurred such as a real-life medical emergency.  In addition, students were to be given water on a regular basis, they were only held in cramped confinement for a maximum of 20 minutes and they were not exposed to water-boarding.

Physical contact with students forms an important part of the role-playing process; these have the purpose of producing the a realistic situation to which the student will resist.  It is key that physical pressures not be overused or the student could become vulnerable to the effects of "learned helplessness".  Here is a list of authorized physical pressures:

It is interesting to note that the situations during the laboratory are so intense that instructors are given directions on how to deal with open defiance from their students.  Defiance most often results from students that are overwhelmed by the training as shown here:

  

This document was shared with former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice and the members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee in early 2002, the same month that the CIA took over Abu Zubaydah's interrogation from the FBI.  Attendees included NSA Rice, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Attorney General John Ashcroft.  Porter Goss, successor to George Tenet was also present.  The Principals Committee ensured that George W. Bush was not present, granting him deniability although he did admit that he was aware of the situation in 2008. 

In looking at the details of the PREAL manual, we can see that with rather simple reverse engineering, we have a guidebook for the torture of enemy combatants.  It's interesting to note that when the interrogation techniques that are used during SERE training are introduced, they are clearly stated as being employed by nations that were in violation of the Geneva Convention which states:

"Persons taking no active part in the hostilities, including members of armed forces who have laid down their arms and those placed hors de combat by sickness, wounds, detention, or any other cause, shall in all circumstances be treated humanely, without any adverse distinction founded on race, colour, religion or faith, sex, birth or wealth, or any other similar criteria.

To this end, the following acts are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever with respect to the above-mentioned persons:

            (a) violence to life and person, in particular murder of all kinds, mutilation, cruel treatment and torture;

            (b) taking of hostages;

(c) outrages upon personal dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment; 

The Use of Torture in Syria

With actions in Syria making the news on a nearly daily basis, I thought it was time to take a quick look at the recent coverage of the use of torture in Syria by Human Rights Watch followed by  examples of how the nation treats its dissidents from the country report on Syria by Amnesty International.

Through reports given by over 200 former Syrian detainees and defectors, Human Rights Watch has revealed the locations of torture centres located throughout the country and published them in a report entitled "Torture Archipelago".  This report looks at the arrests, torture and disappearances in Syria's detention system since March of 2011. 

Here is a map showing the locations and number of detention centres in the six major urban areas of Syria:

Reports show that, since the beginning of the anti-government uprising in March 2011, Syrian authorities have arrested and detained tens of thousands of people, holding them in a network of at least 27 military and intelligence agency-run detention centres.  These facilities are operated by Syria's four main intelligence agencies; the Department of Military Intelligence, the Political Security Directorate, the General Intelligence Directorate and the Air Force Intelligence Directorate.  All four agencies are collectively referred to as the mukhabarat, the Arabic term for "intelligence" or what we in the West would refer to as the "secret police".

To cope with the huge numbers of arrests, the authorities have established a network of temporary holding facilities in stadiums, schools, hospitals and military bases.  In these over-crowded facilities, inadequate amounts of food are often provided and medical assistance is denied.  In one case, 70 detainees were squeezed into a 4 by 5 metre (13 by 16 foot) cell, roughly the size of an average living room.  As well, more than 20 different overt methods of torture are used including beatings with batons, burning with car battery acid,  the use of stress positions, the pulling of fingernails, insertion of staples and nails, sexual assault and humiliation, the use of electricity and mock executions.

One of the detention centres is located at the Mezzeh military airport in Damascus shown on this Google Earth screen capture:

Here, in the words of a former intelligence officer, are the methods used to torture detainees at the Mezzeh location:

"The mildest form of torture is hitting people with batons on their arms and legs and not giving them anything to eat or drink.  Then they would hang the detainees from the ceiling by their hands, sometimes for hours or days....They used electric stun-guns and an electroshock machine, an electric current transformer.  It is a small machine with two wires with clips that they attach to nipples and a knob that regulates the current.  In addition, they put people in coffins and threatened to kill them and close the coffin....They pour hot water on people and then whip them.  I've also sen drills there, but I've never seen them being used...The put pins under your feet and hit you so that you step on them.  I also heard them threatening to cut off the detainees' penises."

From the report, here is a listing of detention centres where detainees are being abused:

Most of the former detainees interviewed for the Human Rights Watch report were young men in their 20s and 30s, however, local activists throughout Syria have recorded the detention of 635 children as young as eight years of age and 319 women by as of June 22, 2012.  Children in their early teen years are tortured as well, using electrocution and the pulling of nails using pliers among other methods.  Thirteen year old Hamza Ali al-Khateeb was tortured and killed while in custody, causing an international outcry.  As well, elderly Syrians are not immune from detention and torture.

According to Amnesty International's Country Report for Syria for the year 2011, at least 200 detainees are reported to have died while in custody under suspicious circumstances.  While, on one hand, President Bashar al-Assad lifted the national state of emergency that had been in force continuously since 1963 and granted five separate amnesties for prisoners of various types including prisoners of conscience, he introduced a law that allows detention without charge or trial for up to two months.  As well, he introduced a Peaceful Assembly Law that forces demonstrators to properly licence protests.

One of the problems with government use of lethal force appears to be the use of snipers on crowds of demonstrators or against Syrian civilians attending funeral processions of those killed in the preceding days.  On June 4th, 2011, up to 25 mourners were shot by security force snipers while attending the funeral of Basel al-Masri, a villager from Jisr al Shughour.

Security forces also appear to be targeting health care workers who have been killed for the act of treating wounded protestors or supporting the protests.  One physician who may have been targeted because he signed a petition that called for all physicians to be able to treat all injured Syrians, Dr. Sakher Hallak, was held at the Criminal Security Department in Aleppo for two days in May 2011.  When his body was returned to his family, he had broken ribs, arms and fingers along with gouged eyes and mutilated genitals. 

I think that's enough of that.  I would suggest that you take a few moments to go through the "Torture Archipelago" report.  It goes into more detail than I can cover in this short posting and may give you a sense of why it is rather urgent that something be done to help Syria's innocent civilian population.

Despite mounting evidence of what has amounted to decades of abuse of Syrian civilians under the al-Assad clan, the international community seems to have its hands tied.  While the international community was quick to act in the case of Muammar Qadafi and Libya, for some reason, actions against the despotic regime in Syria seem to be very slow in coming.  Is it possible that the reason for inaction is Syria's strategic lack of a dark-coloured liquid substance that is critical to keeping the world's economy humming along?  Oh yes, that and the billions of dollars worth of Russian MiG fighters, tactical missiles and other air defence systems along with Russia's use of the Syrian port of Tartus as its only naval base outside of the borders of the old USSR?