Letter to the Editor

Editor, 

While President Bush may wish to dismiss the torture of Iraqi prisoners as "the wrongdoing of a few", it is actually standard US policy used for many decades. The very fact that US soldiers were able to smile and pose for photographs indicates that they had every reason to believe that their behavior was fully sanctioned from above.

The torture techniques used on the Iraqi prisoners are quite similar to
those used by the CIA in Central America in the 1980's. A CIA training manual declassified under the Freedom of Information Act in 1997 details torture methods used against "insurgents" in Central America. These methods included stripping suspects naked and keeping them blindfolded in dark, windowless interrogation rooms with no toilet, etc. In El Salvador and Guatemala it was not uncommon for trained CIA professionals to be standing right there while civilians - not charged with any crime - were beaten, shocked, suffocated, raped, humiliated and often murdered. Mutilated bodies were sometimes dumped on the street to strike fear into the hearts of others.

Numerous detainees from Afghanistan and Iraq have been taken to other countries specifically because they can be tortured there "legally". Activists have tried for years to get the major media to focus on US sanctioned torture elsewhere in the world. The only reason it's happening now is that Bush's war is turning into a fiasco - something in which genuine fans of freedom, democracy and human rights can find limited solace.

Robert Bolman