Tough Interrogation Tactics Were Opposed

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Despite their approval by Sec’y of Defense Rumsfeld and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, there was opposition within the ranks to aggressive interrrogation techniques;…otherwise known as torture, of course. Members of a Defense Dept. investigative taskforce were told by their commanders and attorneys not to participate. Declassified memos and emails show that they joined the FBI in reporting allegations of prisoner abuse.

This Washington Post investigative piece by Josh White assembles other evidence of pushback against the institutionalized encouragement of prisoner abuse. As an attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, which obtained the documents in a lawsuit, noted,

“This just confirms that the policies that were adopted at Guantanamo were adopted as a matter of policy and over significant objections, not just within the FBI but within units of the Army. It calls into question the adequacy of the investigations the military undertook. It underscores that high-ranking officers were responsible for the abusive techniques that were put in place.”

It makes a mockery of Rumsfeld’s baldfaced denials that high-level policy condoned or encouraged prisoner abuse and of the scapegoating of lower level military personnel being disciplined for the perpetration of these acts. Isn’t it interesting that Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who was both in charge of the Guantanamo Bay mission and then traveled to Iraq to help establish Abu Ghraib prison, this week invoked his right against self-incrimination when he testified in abuse cases brought against two low-ranking soldiers? and that his application for retirement has been accepted by the Pentagon without prejudice?

Throughout the criminal and immoral invasion and occupation of Iraq, I have tried to post items here encouraging conscientious objection and resistance to the Bush regime’s policies from within the military. I think webloggers of like mind should be conspicuously publicizing such opposition as is reported on in this WaPo piece. Since the Vietnam era, when significant numbers of (conscripted) military personnel rejected complicity in the American crimes against the Vietnamese people, the climate of disssent has eroded to the point where awareness of the possibility of such acts of conscience is much more effectively suppressed. We should do what we can to counter that. See also my note on the passing of My Lai massacre whistleblower Hugh Thompson last week.

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