The Torture of Innocents and the Method to the Madness

The Torture of Innocents and the Method to the Madness

by Toby O'Ryan

Revolution #007, June 26, 2005, posted at revcom.us

The article in Revolution #5--"The Brutal Logic Behind the Torture Madness"-- reminded me about a play I saw last fall, Guantánamo.The dialogue of Guantánamo comes from the actual testimony of prisoners who were held in Guantanamo, the notorious U.S.-run prison camp in Cuba. In watching this play, you come to see very dramatically how people with no real connection to any sort of anti-U.S. movement have been rounded up, held incommunicado, and tortured into giving false, and sometimes ridiculously absurd, confessions.

After the play I talked with one of the actors, a very progressive person who expressed confusion over the whole thing. "It's so counterproductive--they're just taking innocent people and making more enemies, and they're not even getting good intelligence. I don't see why they're doing it even from their own standpoint."

But the seemingly senseless and often-random character of their violence and torture is very much part of the imperialist plan. I thought of this again when I read of the torture of the Afghani taxi driver Dilawar, in the Revolution article "The United States of Torture," and the fact that the U.S. troops who tortured him to death at Bagram prison had already concluded that he had no useful information! In other words, they did it just to show that they could.

And that they would.

(snip)

http://rwor.org/a/007/torture-of-innocents.htm

[Burried News]

1. The Dilawar case bothers me alot and I use it often on boards.

But I don't think the conclusion in the last sentence (below)is evident or supportable unless there are details (statements of prison personnel etc.)that I'm not aware of. Hyperbole at this particular time, on this topic (think Durbin) is not good idea IMHO.

<< and the fact that the U.S. troops who tortured him to death at Bagram prison had already concluded that he had no useful information! In other words, they did it just to show that they could.>>