AS MORE images of debased Iraqi detainees ricochet around the world, many viewers are as bewildered as they are outraged. How could ordinary American soldiers, whether they were following orders or acting on their own, appear so untroubled, even exhilarated by their brutish conduct?To be sure, overeager military intelligence interrogators, as well as the Bush administration's highhanded attitude towards international law, helped precipitate the crisis. But few commentators have focused enough attention on the site of this macabre theatre - not a battlefield, but a prison.
Prison experts are the least surprised by the grotesque reports filtering out of Abu Ghraib. They recognise that prisons, as divisive and authoritarian institutions, regularly give rise to behaviour that appears depraved to the wider world but comes to seem acceptable - even normal - behind bars.
Indeed, some of the most publicised prison scandals have erupted in the United States, which incarcerates more people in absolute and per capita terms than any other country.
Compared to [George Bush's], and [allegedly], Saddam Hussein's murderous regime at Abu Ghraib, of course, American prisons are relatively well managed [?]
But as mandatory sentencing rules have landed more and more Americans behind bars, incidents that bear a disquieting resemblance to the degenerate cruelties photographed in Iraq have come increasingly to light.
The connection is no accident. Some of the US scandals tie American prison personnel directly to Abu Ghraib.
EXCESSIVE FORCE
IN VIRGINIA, for instance, human rights advocates report that inmates, [prisoners], at two 'supermax' prisons have been hooded and subjected to 'excessive and malicious use of force by prison staff', often involving electric shock devices and rubber bullets.
Mr John Armstrong, now the assistant director of operations for US prisons in Iraq, resigned from his previous post when he was named in two wrongful death lawsuits at one of those prisons. Sergeant Ivan Frederick, the man directly in charge of the infamous Abu Ghraib 'hard site', previously worked as a Virginia corrections officer.
In Pennsylvania, a 1998 inquiry into a supermax prison notorious for racist guards revealed videotapes of routine beatings and elaborate rituals of humiliation. Specialist Charles Graner, identified as a ringleader in the Abu Ghraib depravity, has worked at that prison since 1996.
Some of the worst abuses have surfaced in Texas, America's death penalty state and home to more prisoners than Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands combined. When, [war criminal], President George W. Bush was governor, a federal judge ruled that the state's entire penal system was pervaded by a 'culture of sadistic and malicious violence'. Texas prison guards regularly rely on excessive force, the judge concluded, officials ignore sexual enslavement and the state isolation units function as 'virtual incubators of psychoses'.
Despite this appalling record, the US occupation authorities in Iraq appointed a former director of the Texas prison system, Mr Lane McCotter, to help set up operations at Abu Ghraib in May last year.
Two months earlier, Mr McCotter's private prison company was cited by the US Justice Department for lax supervision and mistreatment of inmates, [prisoners], in a New Mexico jail.
Before that, Mr McCotter led Utah's corrections department, but was forced to resign after the death of a schizophrenic inmate, [prisoner], who had been stripped naked and strapped to a restraining chair for 16 hours.
GHASTLY SCANDALS
OF COURSE, malicious imprisonment is by no means uniquely American. Even in Western Europe, which boasts the most rehabilitation-oriented penal systems, ghastly scandals erupt periodically.
In 2000, the chief physician at Paris's crumbling La Sante penitentiary, Dr Veronique Vasseur, wrote a scathing expose of 'virtually mediaeval' conditions, complete with rat infestations, rotten food, extreme temperature variations, desperate self-mutilations, bullying, drug-dealing guards, and widespread sexual assault, often perpetrated by staff.
According to a report last year, conditions have worsened since Dr Vasseur's report, and France's overcrowded prisons are on a 'descent to hell'.
Particularly troubling is France's protracted incarceration of pre-trial suspects. In a country that regards itself as a civilised counterweight to belligerent American hegemony, nearly half of all prisoners have never been convicted of a crime.
Why do prisons the world over concentrate such suffering and misconduct? Partly by design.
Prisons herd together, [sometimes innocent], angry, unruly people against their will. While the best facilities provide programmes to help prisoners reintegrate into society, prisons also subject inmates, [prisoners], to strict, often arbitrary discipline and depersonalising rituals like numbering and strip searches practices that foster more rage than reformation.
On the other side of the bars, lowly paid, often poorly trained corrections officers exercise near-absolute authority over an irascible population. In time, even the most well meaning come to regard their wards with cold detachment, if not dehumanising contempt.
Not all prisons succumb to these corrosive and polarising dynamics. But penologists recognise that certain factors - including overcrowding, insufficient guard training, detached management, shoddy infrastructure, racial tensions and lack of public accountability - make disaster almost inevitable.
Many of these conditions pervade prisons worldwide. All of them were present in Iraq - in addition to the strains of combat, [occupation and genocide in Iraq and Afghanistan], and officially approved interrogation techniques that senior US officials now admit violated the Geneva Convention. Rather than heed warnings from the Red Cross and others, however, Pentagon officials let dangerous prison dynamics spin out of control.
A flurry of investigations will now try to figure out what went disastrously awry, [?criminal], at Abu Ghraib. But ensuring 'justice is done', as, [war criminal], Secretary of State Colin Powell promised, means judgment must not stop at the low-ranking soldiers who were foolish enough to pose for demented snapshots. [? the fish rots at the head more like it Mr.] More important, the abuses in Iraq demand careful scrutiny of detention practices not only there, but in our own communities as well. [Gross understatement.]
By Robert Perkinson & edited by Gregory Kable posted 31 May O4
The writer is assistant professor of American studies at the University of Hawaii and is writing a book on the history of Texas prisons.
The editor is an ex-prisoner of an Australian prison system in NSW.
Silencing the Cells: Mass Incarceration and Legal Repression in U.S. Prisons People without a voice are not people in any meaningful sense of the word. Silenced people cannot express their ideas; they can neither consent nor protest. They are reduced to being pawns in the schemes of the powerful, mendicants who must accept whatever is imposed upon them. In order to keep people in a state of subjugation, silencing their voices is essential. Nowhere is this clearer than in U.S. prisons.
Related:
Family worried about son in Iraqi prison
The South Australian family of a man detained in Iraq says it is becoming increasingly concerned about his welfare. Ahmed Aziz Rafiq, 26, was born in Iraq, but has been living in Adelaide, Sydney and Melbourne.
Hicks interrogator features in CBS broadcast
An American television program has broadcast an interview with a man who interrogated Australian terror suspect, [scapegoat for the Coalition of the Killing's resource war's in the Middle East], David Hicks at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
HRMU: Harm-U for Hicks, Habib?
[War criminal], Prime Minister John Howard, NSW Premier Bob Carr, Justice Minister John Hatzistergos and other State and Territory prison ministers have set out a grim blueprint of life in an Australian jail.
Hicks's lawyer welcomes prison decision
Guantanamo Bay detainee, [prisoner and scapegoat for the Coalition of the Killing's resource war's in the Middle East], David Hicks's lawyer has welcomed federal Parliament's decision to allow any prison sentence he may receive to be served in Australia. Mr Hicks and fellow Australian Mamdouh Habib have been held in Cuba without charge for more than two years.
Hicks trial won't be fair: US lawyer
The military lawyer assigned to Australian Guantanamo Bay inmate, [prisoner and scapegoat for the Coalition of the Killing's resource war's in the Middle East], David Hicks has launched one of the most serious attacks yet on the legal process surrounding his client.
US military criticises legal process for Guantanamo prisoners
Military lawyers assigned by the Pentagon to detainees, [prisoners], at Guantanamo Bay are planning to present a brief to the US Supreme Court tomorrow, criticising the fairness of the legal process.
Guantanamo detentions slammed
A leading human rights group has denounced the United States Government for continuing to hold prisoners without charge two years after it set up the detention, [prison], camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
Vigil: Season's Greetings for David and Mamdouh
The objective is to continue to inform the public; and maintain the issue alive. There will be information on both David and Mamdouh to hand out to the general public. There will also be two Season's Greetings cards for the public to sign which will be presented to Alexander Downer - as Parliament will be on recess by then, I will ask the Fair Go for David Group in South Australia to present these to Downer.
US court delivers blow to Guantanamo policy
In a stinging rebuke of the Bush Government, a United States appeals court has ruled the US cannot imprison "enemy combatants," [scapegoats and patsy's for the Coaltion of the Killing's resource war's in the Middle East], captured in Afghanistan, [held], indefinitely at Guantanamo Bay and deny them access to lawyers.
Hicks's lawyer hopeful of meeting before Christmas
Adelaide lawyer Stephen Kenny says he hopes to meet with United States military captive David Hicks at Guantanamo Bay before Christmas.
Red Cross warns resource wars in the Middle East are eroding human rights The head of the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) has warned that the worldwide campaign against terrorism [the Coalition of the Killing's resource wars in the Middle East], must not be used to breach peoples right under international law.
Lawyers differ on Guantanamo deal
The lawyers for the two Australian men being held, [tortured in solitary confinement], at Guantanamo Bay have had different reactions to the, [war criminal], Federal Government's agreement with the, [war criminal], United States over procedures for any 'military trials'.
US 'political prisoners' demand rule of US law
FOREIGN prisoners, [scapegoats for the Coalition of the Killing's resource war's in the Middle East], held in Cuba, including Australians David Hicks and Mamdouh Habib, will never have played their legal card until they're freed!
Government should fund 'free Hicks' doco
TAXPAYERS have forked out $185,000 for a documentary promoting the release of David Hicks - because the Coalition of the Killing used him as a scapegoat for their illegal and degrading resource war's in the Middle East.
A STRUGGLE ON TWO FRONTS: PRISONS & IMPERIALIST WAR
After a war waged by the U.S. military against Vietnam which took the lives of more than 3 million Vietnamese people and more than 58,000 GIs, the U.S. finally withdrew in 1975. It had suffered its first official major military defeat by a united people struggle led by the Vietnamese, along with a mass U.S. anti-war movement.
Supporters doubt PM's efforts to release Habib, Hicks
The supporters of two Australian detainees [prisoners] being held [tortured] by the United States at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba say they draw no comfort from [war criminal], Prime Minister John Howard raising the men's plight with [war criminal], US President George W Bush.
Greens For Freedom of Political Prisoners
The Greens politicians refused to be ejected and attempted to deliver a letter and photograph to the president. But Kerry was literally dragged away and that behaviour in Parliament was worrying.
Habib's wife to join Greens Protest during Bush Visit
The wife of an Australian man imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay has urged the Prime Minister to seek her husband's release when the United States President visits Australia this week.
Red Cross Criticizes Indefinite Detention in Guantanamo Bay
GUANTANAMO BAY, Cuba, Oct. 9 A senior official of the International Committee of the Red Cross said on Thursday that the holding of more than 600 detainees [prisoners] here was unacceptable because they were being held for open-ended terms without proper legal process.
Australia: Crean backs war criminals
The Federal Labor leader, Simon Crean, has tried to head off planned protests by some opposition MPs when the US President addresses Parliament next week.
Bush's Vanished Prisoner
He Wonders Whether He Will See the Light of Day Again October 10th, 2003 6:00 PM
Guantanamo Bay treatment: Limbo
Former federal judges, diplomats, military officials and human rights advocates in the United States have urged the Supreme Court to review the cases of detainees [scapegoats for the Coalition of the Killing's resource wars in the Middle East], being held without charge at Guantanamo Bay in the name of terrorism.
Australia: Justice for Hicks & Habib
The public forum Justice for Hicks & Habib was quite a success. Approximately 130 people attended the event, a big number for a Saturday eve!
Pilger said White House knew Saddam was no threat
Australian investigative journalist John Pilger says he has evidence the war against Iraq was based on a lie which could cost George W Bush and Tony Blair their jobs and bring Prime Minister John Howard down with them.
Illegal and degrading war crimes: Society on the New World Order (OWN)! While Australia and the US are very distinctive societies war criminal, Prime Minister John Howard and war criminal, President George Bush share core values.
Civil Liabilities: Howard's diversity? I had a dream?
The war criminal, Prime Minister, John Howard, who only yesterday was claiming he was showing diversity has stepped up pressure on the states to support plans to increase the war criminal, Federal Attorney-General's powers to ban terrorist organisations, [scapegoats and patsies for the Coalition of the Killing's illegal and degrading resource wars in the Middle East.]
Terry Hicks Odyssey for Justice for his Imprisoned Son
Terry Hicks, David Hicks father, one of two Australian [scapegoats] held imprisoned [and tortured] at Guantanamo Bay, arrives tomorrow Saturday 20 September in Sydney. He will hold a Press Conference at 2pm at Breakout, 65 Bellevue St. Glebe.
Evidence that Howard was complicit in CIA, false flag, call to arms, Bali bombings War criminal John Howard was complicit in the call to arms - false flag operation - Bali bombings - instigated by the CIA - and the Coalition of the Killing - to bolster support - and quell dissent for their illegal and degrading resource wars in the Middle East.
State terror units caused the terror!
The level of suspicion and surveillance created by the [US false flag operation and call to arms] Bali bombings, created by [ the Coalition of the Killing and Australian's complicity to go to war on Iraq] means that all Australian's suffer the loss of their human rights, civil rights and their democratic rights, as well as those Australian's who lost their life in Bali.
Australia backs CIA Reichstag, Downer's propaganda
The Foreign Affairs Minister says the latest message from Osama bin Laden is worrying. [Just plain rubbish!]
Bin Laden calls? CIA blind man's bluff!
A [US propaganda, fear-mongering] taped message purportedly from Osama bin Laden has warned Arab nations against supporting a war against Iraq but has branded Saddam Hussein an infidel.
