The military: Afghanistan, Guantánamo, Iraq

David P. Forsythe

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511791567.005

4 - The military: Afghanistan, Guantánamo, Iraq

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012

David P. Forsythe

Show author details

David P. Forsythe: Affiliation:
University of Nebraska, Lincoln

Book contents

Get access

Summary

The CIA has always operated to a significant degree outside the law. The military, by contrast, is at its core an institution committed to discipline and order, strictly governed by the laws of war. So the fact that illegal abusive tactics were officially authorized at the Pentagon's highest levels is in some sense more shocking than the CIA's crimes. We should expect more of the military.

(David Cole, “What to Do About the Torturers?,” New York Review of Books, January 15, 2009)

As long as the United States – or any state, for that matter – has the power to detain at pleasure and in secret, abuse of detainees is inevitable.

(Michael Ignatieff, in Kenneth Roth et al., eds., Torture, New York: The New Press, 2005, p. 23)

As the previous chapters have showed, when the United States used military force in Afghanistan in the Fall of 2001 and then opened the Guantánamo prison facility in January 2002, it deconstructed the international legal framework for the protection of prisoners in war, even as it declared a Global War on Terror (GWOT). The result was extensive abuse of prisoners, much of it intended by high policy makers. Iraq was supposed to be different, since the George W. Bush Administration declared the 1949 Geneva Conventions fully applicable to a situation of armed invasion and occupation, including those provisions pertaining to prisoners. But Iraq was not fundamentally different in 2003–2005.

Information

Type: Chapter
Information: The Politics of Prisoner Abuse
The United States and Enemy Prisoners after 9/11
, pp. 95 - 135

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511791567.005 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2011

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Book purchase

Temporarily unavailable

References

Naylor, Sean, Not a Good Day to Die: The Untold Story of Operation Anaconda (New York: Penguin, 2005)Google Scholar

Myers, Richard B., with McConnell, Malcolm, Eyes on the Horizon: Serving on the Front Lines of National Security (New York: Threshold Editions, for Simon & Schuster, 2009), p. 198Google Scholar

Rashid, Ahmed, Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and Fundamentalism in Central Asia (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2nd edn., 2010)Google Scholar

Sands, Philippe, Torture Team: Rumsfeld's Memo and the Betrayal of American Values (New York: Palgrave, 2008), p. 31Google Scholar

Mayer, Jane, The Dark Side: The Inside Story of How the War on Terror Turned Into a War on American Ideals (New York: Doubleday, 2008), p. 123Google Scholar

Greenberg, Karen, The Least Worst Place: Guantánamo's First 100 Days (New York: Oxford, 2009), pp. 4–7Google Scholar

Brody, Reed, “The Road to Abu Ghraib: Torture and Impunity in US Detention,” in Roth, Kennethet al., eds., Torture: Does It Make Us Safer? Is It Ever OK? A Human Rights Perspective (New York: The New Press, for Human Rights Watch, 2005), pp. 147–148Google Scholar

Bonner, Raymond, “Detainee Says He was Abused While in US Custody,” New York Times, March 20, 2007, p. A 10Google Scholar

Worthington, Andy, The Guantánamo Files: The Stories of the 774 Detainees in America's Illegal Prison (London: Pluto, 2007)Google Scholar

Gourevitch, Philip and Morris, Errol, Standard Operating Procedure (New York: Penguin, 2008)Google Scholar

Begg, Moazzam, Enemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantánamo, Bagram, and Kandahar (New York: The New Press, 2006)Google Scholar

Murray, Craig, Dirty Diplomacy (New York: Scribner, 2006, 2010)Google Scholar

Murder in Samarkand: A British Ambassador's Controversial Defiance of Tyranny in the War on Terror (Edinburgh and London: Mainstream Publishing, 2006)

Schmitt, Eric and Rohde, David, “About 2 Dozen G.I.'s to Face Trial or Other Punishment in Deaths of 2 Afghan Prisoners,” New York Times, September 2, 2004, p. A 8Google Scholar

Shanker, Thom, “US Army Inquiry Implicates 28 Soldiers in Deaths of 2 Afghan Detainees,” New York Times, October 15, 2004, p. A 12Google Scholar

Mettraux, Guenael, The Law of Command Responsibility (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 2009)CrossRef Google Scholar

Margulies, Joseph, Guantánamo and the Abuse of Presidential Power (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2006), p. 136Google Scholar

Human Rights Brief, 14, 3 (Spring 2007)

Wright, Donald P.et al., A Different Kind of War: The United States Army in Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) October 2001–September 2005 (Fort Leavenworth: Combat Studies Institute Press, for the US Army Combined Arms Center, 2009)Google Scholar

Packer, George, The Assassins' Gate: Americans in Iraq (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2005, 2006), pp. 45 and 61Google Scholar

Forsythe, David P., The Humanitarians: The International Committee of the Red Cross (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), p. 71CrossRef Google Scholar

Graham, Bradley, By His Own Rules: The Ambitions, Successes, and Ultimate Failure of Donald Rumsfeld (New York: Public Affairs, 2009)Google Scholar

Hersh, Seymour, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib (New York: HarperCollins, 2004), pp. 2–3Google Scholar

Finn, Peter, “Most Guantánamo Detainees Low-level Fighters, Task Force Report Says,” Washington Post, May 29, 2010, p. A 03Google Scholar

White, Josh, “Abu Ghraib Tactics Were First Used at Guantánamo,” Washington Post, July 14, 2005, p. A 1Google Scholar

Glaberson, William, “Case Against 9/11 Detainee Is Dismissed,” New York Times, May 14, 2008, p. A 19Google Scholar

Olshansky, Barbara, Democracy Detained: Secret Unconstitutional Practices in the US War on Terror (New York: Seven Stories Press, 2007)Google Scholar

Jaffer, Jameel and Singh, Amrit, The Administration of Torture: A Documentary Record from Washington to Abu Ghraib and Beyond (New York: Columbia University Press, 2007), pp. 16–17CrossRef Google Scholar

Rejali, Darius, Torture and Democracy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2006)Google Scholar

Saar, Erik and Novak, Viveca, Inside the Wire: A Military Intelligence Soldier's Eyewitness Account of Life at Guantánamo (London and New York: Penguin Press, 2005)Google Scholar

Yee, James and Molloy, Aimee, For God and Country: Faith and Patriotism Under Fire (New York: Public Affairs, 2005)Google Scholar

Parry, John T., Understanding Torture: Law, Violence, and Political Identity (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2010), p. 187CrossRef Google Scholar

Fletcher, Laurel E. and Stover, Eric, The Guantánamo Effect: Exposing the Consequences of US Detention and Interrogation Practices (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009), p. 62CrossRef Google Scholar

Schmitt, Eric and Golden, Tim, “Force-Feeding at Guantánamo is Now Acknowledged,” New York Times, February 22, 2006, p. A 5Google Scholar

Warner, Daniel and Forsythe, David P. in Millennium, 34/2 (2005), pp. 449–475CrossRef

Pfiffner, James P., Torture as Public Policy: Restoring U.S. Credibility on the World Stage (Boulder and London: Paradigm, 2010), p. 29Google Scholar

Cucullu, Gordon, Inside Gitmo: The True Story Behind the Myths of Guantánamo Bay (New York: HarperCollins, 2009)Google Scholar

Miles, Steven H., Oath Betrayed: America's Torture Doctors (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2009)Google Scholar

Experiments in Torture: Evidence of Human Subject Research and Experimentation in the “Enhanced” Interrogation Program (Cambridge, MA and Washington, DC: Physicians for Human Rights, 2010)

Ricks, Thomas E., Fiasco: The American Military Adventure in Iraq (New York: Penguin, 2006)Google Scholar

Alawi, Ali A., The Occupation of Iraq: Winning the War, Losing The Peace (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2007)Google Scholar

Diamond, Larry, Squandered Victory: The American Occupation and the Bungled Effort to Bring Democracy to Iraq (New York: Time Books, 2005)Google Scholar

Liptak, Adam, “Legal Review Could Have Halted Abuse, Lawyer Says,” New York Times, May 29, 2004, p. A 14Google Scholar

Jehl, Douglas, “Officers Say US Colonel at Abu Ghraib Prison Felt Intense Pressure to Get Inmates to Talk,” New York Times, May 19, 2004, p. A 11Google Scholar

Schmitt, Eric, “2 Generals Outline Lag in Notification On Abuse Reports,” New York Times, May 20, 2004, p. A 1Google Scholar

Jehl, Douglas, “Some Iraqis Held Outside Purview of US Command,” New York Times, May 17, 2004, p. A 1Google Scholar

Moss, Michael, “American Recalls Torment as a US Detainee in Iraq,” New York Times, December 18, 2006, p. A 1CrossRef Google Scholar

Schmitt, Eric, “Pentagon Study Describes Abuse By Units in Iraq,” New York Times, June 17, 2006, p. A 1Google Scholar

Ricks, Thomas E. and Tyson, Ann Scott, “Troops at Odds With Ethics Standards,” Washington Post, May 5, 2007, p. A 1Google Scholar

Schmitt, Eric, “Army Interrogator is Convicted of Negligent Homicide in 2003 Death of Iraqi General,” New York Times, January 23, 2006, p. A 17Google Scholar

Jehl, Douglas and Schmitt, Eric, “Afghan Policies on Questioning Taken to Iraq,” New York Times, May 21, 2004, p. A 1Google Scholar

Ross, , “Black Letter Abuse: The US Legal Response to Torture since 9/11,” International Review of the Red Cross, no. 89 (September 2007), pp. 561–590Google Scholar

One Woman's Army: The Commanding General of Abu Ghraib Tells her Story (New York: Miramax Books, 2005)

Nelson, Deborah, The War Behind Me (New York: Basic Books, 2009)Google Scholar

Matheson, Michael J., American University Journal of International Law and Politics, 2 (1987), p. 434

“The Truth About Our Soldiers,” Wall Street Journal, September 9, 2004, p. A 16

Sanchez, Ricardo S., Wiser In Battle: A Soldier's Story (New York: Harper, 2008)Google Scholar

Mestrovic, S. G., The Trials of Abu Ghraib: An Expert Witness Account of Shame and Honor (Boulder: Paradigm, 2007)Google Scholar

“Talk of the Town: Comment – Interrogating Torture,” The New Yorker, May 11, 2009, p. 33

Schmitt, Eric, “Army Moves to Advance 2 Linked to Abu Ghraib,” New York Times, June 25, 2005, p. A 19.Google Scholar

Schmitt, Eric, “Pentagon Officials are Hurrying to Correct Conditions in Iraqi Prisons,” New York Times, September 9, 2004, p. A 14Google Scholar

Bowden, Mark, “How to Break a Terrorist: The Ploy,” The Atlantic, May 2006, starting at p. 54Google Scholar

Farer, Tom, Confronting Global Terrorism and American Neo-Conservatism: The Framework of a Liberal Grand Strategy (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008)CrossRef Google Scholar

Accessibility standard: Unknown

Accessibility compliance for the PDF of this book is currently unknown and may be updated in the future.