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The global publication of photographic 'trophy shots' taken by US soldiers showing their gross ill-treatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib raises important questions about the growing use of torture internationally. This is despite the fact that the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, Degrading Treatment or Punishment has been signed and ratified by most states and reaffirmed in recent regional conventions on specific forms of human rights abuse and cruelty. Depressingly however Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have been documenting the growth in torture over the last decade. As the Amnesty International Report 2003 comments 'governments around the world appeared to take on board the message that human rights standards could be jettisoned in times of emergency.'
US government reactions to the Abu Ghraib photographs has been to justify the 'harsh interrogation' of detainees in order to save innocent American lives, to deny these interrogation techniques amount to torture, and to hold responsible a few low ranking individuals presently being prosecuted before US military courts. US policy on torture in Iraq is effectively doing the political work of the 'resistance' by winning it Iraqi support. The US finds itself in a classic colonial predicament where the 'resistance' seeks to achieve politically what it cannot do military by provoking the colonial (here occupying) power into harsh retaliation. Recruits appear to grow in response to the outrages of US as occupier instead of Iraqis becoming alienated from the resistance as a consequence of the atrocities by are committing against civilians. Cruelly it is Iraqi civilians who are the overwhelming victims of the present terror in Iraq estimated at around 10,000.
What the US policy on torture in Iraq, via Bagram and Guant?namo Bay, amounts to is an administrative technique to further political goals in the 'war against terror'. Torture is not just about producing pain but knowing how to deepen its effects and make it long lasting. Torture needs to be culturally informed to maximize its effects. Hence the particular forms of cruelty, degradation and humiliation evident in the Abu Ghraib trophy shots - nudity, sexual abuse, being leashed like a dog, denial of toilet facilities leading to urination or defecation on themselves. All of these are particularly humiliating in Muslim and Arab culture. But the degradation at Abu Ghraib for many Iraqis is just an extension of what they have experienced as the occupation.
In the absence of WMDs the justification of the invasion and occupation of Iraq has now been reduced to overthrowing Pres. Saddam Hussein for his gross human rights abuses. But if the occupation fails to uphold human rights then it will surely defeat its declared mission of realizing a democratic Iraq.
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