The Sundance Channel is currently reshowing the 2005 documentary by investigative reporter Andrew Gilligan and producer Sarah McDonald Torture: The Dirty Business. The whole one hour documentary is well worth the time: see it if you can! It exposes the multinational torture industry, HQed by the U.S. The U.S. and U.K. lead this industry by both creating supply and demand. They supply victims through the practice “extraordinary rendition”: kidnapping unconvicted, unindicted, uncharged (!) Al Queda suspects who are then exported to other countries for torture processing and then purchasing the torture “information product” for U.S. and U.K. consumption. Perhaps the most ironic part is the fact the “information” obtained this way is so useless it would best be sent straight to the dust bin. Let’s us fast forward to the last segment of the documentary [jump down]:
Craig Murray is the former U.K. ambassador to Uzbekistan. Murray’s investigations uncovered the Uzbekistan government’s widespread engagement torture of thousands every year manufacture disinformation about Al Queda to feed to MI6 and the CIA. It would not be exaggerating to call this torture business a Uzbekistan government industry for disinformation export. He wrote a strong report to his superiors making it clear that the torture “product” the U.K. and U.S. are purchasing from Uzbekistan was in his words “useless” and was entirely confabulated to conform to what the CIA and MI6 wanted to hear and coined the phrase “selling our souls for dross” to describe this.
Upon receiving Murray’s report, rather than halt the practice, the U.K. government actually sacked Murry from his ambassadorship! Afterwards Murray expected public and media outrage to swell and stop the British practice of encouraging torture by proxy. He was taken aback when that didn’t happen and now reports he’s concluded that the UK doesn’t stand for the values that he thought it did any longer.
See also the Scotland Herald review of this documentary by Damien Love entitled “Pain But No Gain: The reality of torture”.
Murray may be somewhat relieved at this point since the House of Lords just this past week that it will no longer admit any evidence produced by the torture industry and meanwhile the McCain amendment is being hammered out in Washington. Will this truly halt the U.S. and U.K.’s consumption of “torture product”? Officially anyway maybe yes. We’ll see if MI6 and the CIA stop it in reality.
It looks like most of the business is marked dry clean only on the label. The portion of it that is legally reported is run through the offshores to limit the tax liability and general accountability to the nations involved….all just my opinion of the situation.
It looks like the countries are also playing a shell game like the one that happened last fall, I think it was, when network servers were seized without due process in Texas and in Britain by a reported request from Italian officials.
Aren’t there already executive orders in the US and similar in other countries that protect whatever information they want by simply declaring State Secrets? I’m nearly positive that Bush also exempted many of the contractors and military from as many possiblities of criminal prosecution early on. As far as that goes, if a contractor could claim several countries of origin or if several could team up to cover for each other, they’ll find loopholes. Same goes for the military and intel agencies of these countries.
I listen to the specific words they use because they sound like they are generally written by lawyers and proofed by pr teams. It’s kept them out of jail so far.
One thing that doesn’t get much mention is the use of this for industrial espionage, control, ownership rights and trade secrets. That will be the next excuse they use once the falsified part of the GWoT is finally exposed.
If the PMCs are acting as international bounty hunters under executive orders protected by state secret privelidge, how will the evidence be usable?
too much of a boutique business to really get the economic engine stoked, but then when you consider it feeds the whole war industry then you realize the enormity of impact the torture market has on world affairs.
Torture is a propaganda device, not an investigatory technique, and it’s primary use is to militarize the planet and enrich the weapons makers and dealers.
I have always been at a loss for how to answer those who say well they do it to get those false confessions.
Any entity that seeks a false confession from a victim to whom no one else has any access, especially, does not need to torture the victim.
He can simply make the false confession out of whole cloth, not unlike he might make claims of yellow cake from Niger…
that there’s a show business component to it all as well. Putting on a show trial and having the victim allocute to the desired crimes is often part of the spectacle, and in addition, the torturer regimes know very well that their populations know torture is being used and that this knowledge on the public’s part is welcomed because it means the use of torture is more effective in terrorizing the public. (Why do you think the torture scenarios at Abu Ghraib and in Afghanistan and Guantanomo were so obvious? To inspire terror in the Iraqi/Afghani populations.) And, of course, there is, for the perpetrators, the sadistic thrill they experience when they finally “break the will” of their victim and achieve the dominance and control their sick psyches crave. They think this makes them look powerful to their citizenry.
And even when the torturers get carried away and simply forget to ask their questions because they’re so engrossed in their “work”, they’re so sick and twisted they will still believe they’re gaining stature of some sort. Cheney and his lunatic neocons surely feel this way; that their mercilessnes is a sign of strength and resolve, rather than one of depravity and insanity.
Finally found this link, I have been meaning to post it here forever. And yes, you are right, and Miss Naomi agrees with both of us 🙂
Fear is always the #1 weapon in the tyrant’s arsenal. without fear, they go nowhere.
Great article by Naomi Klein by the way. I don’t know how I missed it when it first appeared.
It should be on the required reading list of everyone attempting to make the case against torture in the public discourse.
I can’t believe that all of the surrounding circustances don’t also play into this program of intimidation. The cases of Arar and Amalki especially hint at global control of the technology for the future. These same torture mongers at the top have been running a hidden campaign in acquiring ownership of ideas,…thought…concepts….creativity and when they can’t own the people who are involved in the processes, then they must eliminate or silence them.
I’ve seen other articles, besides this great work here that show these people are not the same. They’ve had to sign documents without even knowing the contents. In Arar’s case, it was with thumb and fingerprints.
These guys aren’t ice cream truck drivers. They are well written in their fields, have earned difficult degrees and have been on the leading edge of technology. Amalki looked to be set up in advance and was cooperating with casual conversations as part of the CAIR-Can program, I think it was. The main claim against him was that his wireless technology that he sold to the govt of Pakistan ended up in other hands. I’m pretty sure he, if not both of them, had been involved in humanitarian causes in that area but I’ve seen nothing remotely close to terrorist ties.
The only catch is….these guys may have been caught up in the Israel-Palestinian conflict by way of heritage and family. There were possible connections with relatives lost in Jenin, it’s reconstruction and the global funding of honest groups that have been accused of terrorist ties to cover others’ wrongdoing.
Ashcroft, Spicer, The World Bank, Africa, mining technology, datamining, Canadian companies in lawsuits, funding from Saudi Arabia, Ashcroft’s position as AG to force antitrust suits to divest technology companies of valuable tech patents….contracts for that technology for years to come. The connections could fill the page but it appears to be all business and only terrorist types guarding the evidence by claiming state secrets.
that I hadn’t considered. Thank you for your contribution.
Yup.
See my diary Torture as Terrorism. Torture as Spin. Shock and Awe. For EVERYBODY for more.
AG
You’re diary is right on the money.
I want to add one more dimension to this, an at least another partial answer to the “why” of torture. It’s simply this;
*Nothing excites the masses into a frenzy like “bloodlust”, and when a government institutionalizes torture, when it makes it part of it’s modus operandi and the people generally go along with it, the leaders then know that they can mobilize their supporters to advocate for, turn a blind eye to, or commit any atrocity no matter how abominable. When the public approves torture, the government knows they’ve succeeded in “demonizing” their opponents to a point where the public will deem no punishment too great.
Every religious war is in large part waged by utilizing this principle to mobilize the “crusaders” into a frenzy where they murder, rape and pillage without restraint. Most other wars employ this basic formula to one degree or another.
When you condone or commit torture, you deny another’s humanity, and you legitimize atrocity against them because they no longer deserve any better.
“Homicide is not entertainment.”
The great American jazz composer, Tom Pierson. Nw an expatriate living in Japan.
AG
Tragically, homicide is entertainment to some people.
Witness the Aegis shooting video in Iraq.
I know.
The Roman Catholic doctrine of Original Sin sometimes has its attractions.
AG
Have you read Walter Wink’s theory about the Myth of Redemptive Violence? If you haven’t you really should. It really fleshes out what you’re talking about. People love to see the “bad guy” whomped. Its the same motivation for capital punishment. Very primitive, low level animalistic response to the world.
Yup.
See my diary Torture as Terrorism. Torture as Spin. Shock and Awe. For EVERYBODY for more.
AG
P.S. Sorry for the double post. .Hit the wrong button.
.
Coverage in half-hour news broadcast on BBC World Radio.
TASHKENT (BBC News) Oct. 11, 2004 — The UK ambassador to Uzbekistan has criticised MI6 for using intelligence allegedly gained through torture, according to newspaper reports.
In a confidential internal document leaked to the Financial Times, Craig Murray said Uzbek officials abused prisoners to extract information. The intelligence was used by MI6 after being passed on by the CIA, he alleges.
According to the FT, Mr Murray says “Torture dupes are forced to sign up to confessions showing what the Uzbek government wants the US and UK to believe.” And he claims the Uzbeks exaggerate the activity of local militants and their links with al-Qaeda.
Tashkent City of UzbekistanMr Murray has been an outspoken critic of the regime’s human rights record throughout his two years as ambassador. The private Foreign Office memo reportedly shows Mr Murray’s concerns about Britain’s use of intelligence gained by such means.
The Foreign Office has responded saying the British government, including intelligence agencies, has never used torture to obtain information or incited others to do so.
● UZBEK RIOTS or another “Orange Revolt”?
The Hague, 17 July 2003 — The OSCE Chairman-in-Office, Netherlands Foreign Minister Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, returned from a five-day visit to Central Asia convinced that there is no alternative to continued dialogue with the Central Asian states.
“I am satisfied that I have been able to visit Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan and that I had discussions with the highest authorities of these countries as well as with representatives of the civil society”, the Chairman-in-Office said. “I hope that the personal contact I have established with the Presidents and Ministers of Foreign Affairs of the four countries will help us translate the priority this Chairmanship has given to Central Asia into intensified activities and cooperation.”
“Treason doth never prosper: what’s the reason?
For if it prosper, none dare call it treason.”
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