Opinion

Lawful applications of force

By Douglas Lummis

On March 26, an article appeared in the New York Times titled, "Pentagon will not try 17 G.I.s implicated in prisoner deaths." Investigators from the Army Criminal Investigation Command had recommended that all 17 be charged with a variety of crimes including murder. But in the military it is the commanding officer who has the power to bring charges. In this case the commanding officers chose not to, so the G.I.s will go free.

One case is of particular interest. An Iraqi colonel died at the hands of his G.I. captors, but the commanding officers determined that his death was "a result of a series of lawful applications of force." In plain language, this means that it is sometimes legal for U.S. troops to kill prisoners.

How did the colonel die? According to the investigators" report, he died of "blunt force injuries and asphyxia." Someone behind him put a baton to this throat and lifted him to his feet. Apparently this crushed his windpipe and he was strangled to death.

Does this mean he was tortured to death? The Army says no: The force that was used was "in response to repeated aggression and misconduct by the detainee." ("Misconduct"?! Is a prisoner supposed to sit quietly, and say "please" and "thank you" to his captors?) So the prisoner was not being tortured, but "restrained."

Any experienced police officer will read this report with contempt. Police know how to restrain a prisoner without killing him.

Just a couple of weeks earlier another New York Times report, titled "Army details scale of abuse in Afghan jail" (March 12), describes the deaths of two Afghans who died in U.S. military custody in 2002. One, named Mr. Dilawar (the Army report carefully uses the respectful "Mr."), was chained to the ceiling and assaulted by four interrogators with "kicks in the groin and leg, shoving or slamming him into walls/table, forcing the detainee to maintain painful, contorted body positions during interview and forcing water into his mouth until he could not breathe." He was kicked in the knees so many times that the muscle tissue in his legs was destroyed and (according to the medical examiner"s report) "even if he had survived, both legs would have had to be amputated." Note the words, "during interview." This is torture, pure and simple.

At the time of this report, only two people, a private and a sergeant, had been charged with crimes in this case, although Army investigators had named 28 G.I.s who were involved. This is the way the military handles such cases: Pick a few of the worst (and most powerless) offenders, sacrifice them to satisfy critics, and let everybody else off. Especially save the officers, the commanders who had set up the conditions for this kind of behavior, and had approved it openly or tacitly.

In army lingo, the command from above is, "Do it. But if you get caught, it's your ass."

Shukan ST: April 19, 2005

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