Israel Prison Tactics - A Longtime Dilemma For Israel

[2RHPZ]

Israel Prison Tactics A Longtime Dilemma For Israel
Nation Faced Issues Similar to Abu Ghraib

By Glenn Frankel
Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, June 16, 2004; Page A01

NABLUS, West Bank -- The accounts of physical abuse of Iraqis by American guards
at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad sounded achingly familiar to Anan Labadeh.
The casual beatings, the humiliations, the trophy photos taken by both male and
female guards were experiences he said he underwent as a Palestinian security
detainee at an Israeli military camp in March of last year.

There was, he added, a significant difference: The Israelis have rules, he said,
and their techniques for breaking down prisoners are far more sophisticated. "What
the Israelis do is much more effective than beatings," he said. "Three days
without food and without sleep and you're eager to tell them anything. It just
shows us the Americans are amateurs. They should have taken lessons from the
Israelis."

Many of the questions raised by the Abu Ghraib scandal, and by the United States's
self-declared war on terrorism, are the kinds that Israel has been wrestling
with for decades. Where is the line in a democracy between coercion and torture?
What kinds of interrogation techniques are morally acceptable when dealing with
a suspect who may have knowledge of a "ticking bomb" -- an imminent attack? And
what about the damage those techniques inflict on relations between an occupying
power and its subjects?

"Unfortunately, when you're fighting a war against terror there are many
difficult issues you face every day," said a senior Israeli government lawyer
who defended Israel's policy on interrogating suspects. "Maybe the United States
is beginning to discover what Israel has had to deal with for a long time."

Although its officials never use the word "torture," Israel is perhaps the only
Western-style democracy that has acknowledged sanctioning mistreatment of
prisoners in interrogation. In 1987, following a long debate in legal and
security circles, a state commission established a set of secret guidelines for
interrogators using what the panel called "moderate physical and psychological
pressure" against detainees. In 1999, Israel's Supreme Court struck down those
guidelines, ruling that torture was illegal under any circumstances.

But after the second Palestinian uprising broke out a year later, and especially
after a devastating series of suicide bombings of passenger buses, cafes and
other civilian targets, Israel's internal security service, known as the Shin
Bet or the Shabak, returned to physical coercion as a standard practice,
according to human rights lawyers and detainees. What's more, the techniques it
has used command widespread support from the Israeli public, which has few
qualms about the mistreatment of Palestinians in the fight against terrorism. A
long parade of Israeli prime ministers and justice ministers with a variety of
political views have defended the security service and either denied that
torture is used or defended it as a last resort in preventing terrorist attacks.

While the issue surfaces periodically, with a small but vocal minority of
Israelis advocating an end to all physical coercion, fears of a new outbreak of
terror inevitably take precedence.

"We are not Holland, and we do not live in the environment of Benelux," Ehud
Barak told the parliament four years ago, when he was prime minister, referring
to the economic grouping of Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg. "We are a
state that is faced with a constant threat of terror. Yet on the other hand, we
are a democratic state that is part of the international community. There must
be sensitivity to both needs."

Broad Public Support

When she first saw cases of alleged torture cross her desk at the Association
for Civil Rights in Israel in the late 1980s, staff worker Hannah Friedman said
it was very difficult to get human rights advocates to deal with them.
Eventually, she and Hebrew University law professor Stanley Cohen, who
immigrated to Israel from South Africa, set up their own organization, the
Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, to deal exclusively with the
allegations.

Shabak interrogators in those days were bound by the 1987 guidelines. While
never made public, the procedures were well known to virtually every Palestinian
security detainee. Prisoners were forced to stand for days at a time or were
shackled in tightly contorted positions on low stools, in a procedure known as
shabah. They were violently shaken, deprived of sleep, bombarded with loud,
continuous music, exposed to extremes of cold and heat and forced to relieve
themselves in their clothing. Their heads were often covered with canvas hoods
that reeked of urine or vomit.

These techniques had widespread public support. A 1996 poll commissioned by the
human rights group Btselem found that 73 percent of Israelis condoned the use of
force.

Sometimes interrogators went beyond the guidelines. In October 1994, after
militants abducted a 19-year-old Israeli army corporal, Nachshon Waxman, Yitzhak
Rabin, then the prime minister, acknowledged that the suspected driver of the
kidnap car had been tortured.

"If we'd been so careful to follow the Landau Commission, we would never have
found out where Waxman was being held," Rabin said, referring to the 1987
guidelines. (Waxman was killed by his captors during an Israeli commando raid.)

Over time, interrogation techniques became less brutal and more refined. Ziad
Arafeh, 40, a political activist who lives in the Balata refugee camp outside
the West Bank city of Nablus, estimated he had been arrested 14 times over the
past two decades. Each time, he said, his interrogators seemed to have mastered
a new technique.

In the early days, he said, crude physical and ****** abuse was commonplace.
When he was first arrested, in 1983, an interrogator put on rubber gloves and
squeezed his ********s until he cried out in pain. On another occasion Arafeh,
who was suspected of involvement in the killings of alleged Palestinian
collaborators, said he was kept in his underwear in a small, cold cell and
splashed with water every few hours. Now the emphasis is on psychological
pressure. During his arrest a year ago, Arafeh said, he was deprived of sleep
for several days but not beaten.

There is a big difference between soldiers who make arrests and Shabak
interrogators, Arafeh said. The soldiers are often casually cruel, he said,
kicking and humiliating detainees in ways similar to the behavior reported at
Abu Ghraib. But once the interrogators take over, treatment is far more
calculated and professional.

"Their strategy is much improved," he said. "They give you food without salt
that makes you weak, and they prevent you from sleeping. They're more clever and
more experienced."

New Techniques

A turning point in Israel's treatment of detainees came in September 1999 when
the Israeli Supreme Court, after a year and a half of deliberations, banned all
forms of physical abuse. "Violence directed at a suspect's body or spirit does
not constitute a reasonable investigation practice," the court declared.

The justices left open several loopholes. Interrogators who used force
preemptively to prevent a terrorist attack could invoke the "defense of
necessity" if faced with prosecution. The court also made allowances for "prolonged"
interrogation, even if it involved sleep deprivation, and shackling, "but only
for the purpose of preserving the investigator's safety."

Nonetheless, the ruling was a landmark. Shabak officials complained that the
decision stripped them of the tools they needed to combat terrorism. An
opposition lawmaker introduced a bill allowing interrogators to use force in "ticking
bomb" cases. Barak supported the idea at first but later reached a compromise
that gave the agency a bigger budget, a larger staff and more tools to help it
solve cases without cracking heads.

Most of the specific methods used before the 1999 decision all but vanished
after the ruling. Yet slowly but surely, human rights lawyers said, new
techniques took their place.

The latest report by the committee against torture, covering the period from
September 2001 to April 2003, alleged that detainees faced a new regime of sleep
deprivation, shackling, slapping, hitting and kicking; exposure to extreme cold
and heat; threats, curses and insults; and prolonged detention in subhuman
conditions.

"Torture in Israel has once more become routine, carried out in an orderly and
institutional fashion," concluded the report, which was based on 80 affidavits
and court cases.

The committee accused the Israeli legal system of effectively sanctioning
torture by routinely rejecting petitions seeking to grant detainees access to
lawyers. Not one Shabak interrogator has been prosecuted despite hundreds of
allegations, the report said.

In retrospect, said Habib Labib, an Israeli Arab lawyer who has handled dozens
of security cases, the Supreme Court decision was a brief, shining moment that
quickly faded. "It's like many things in this country," he said. "The theory is
one thing, but on the ground things are done differently."

The case of Anan Labadeh, 31, became a cause célčbre because he is a paraplegic
who has used a wheelchair since he fell from a third-story balcony while being
chased by Israeli soldiers during a stone-throwing incident in the late 1980s.
Labadeh was arrested in February of last year in his home town of Nablus on
suspicion of helping militants who had set up a network of suicide bomb
factories in the city. He was held for a month and released without being
charged.

Labadeh said he was routinely punched and kicked by the soldiers who escorted
him to a military detention center at nearby Hawara and then by other soldiers
at the center itself over three days. He said he was blindfolded, denied food
and water, left outside in the rain and cold, deprived of sleep and forced to
urinate and defecate in his clothing.

"I was exhausted," he recalled. "Time became irrelevant. In the second day, it
continued to rain and I couldn't tell if it was morning or afternoon."

Each night, a group of soldiers, men and women alike, held social gatherings in
the courtyard where he was being held. On the second night, they took turns
posing with him while he sat blindfolded and handcuffed to his wheelchair, he
said.

"For a person like me to be surrounded by a group of soldiers, punched, insulted,
peeing on myself, my dignity was insulted," he recalled. "Here I was, a
handicapped person, and not one soldier came to say stop this, not even one."

The experience increased Labadeh's contempt for Israelis. But for all his
complaints about the way he was treated, Labadeh believes the Israelis have
higher standards than their American counterparts. He recalls a case when an
Israeli military officer was accused of ******ly abusing young Palestinians.
Another officer turned him in, and the accused man was arrested immediately.

A government lawyer designated to discuss the questions raised by this article
insisted that internal safeguards protect Palestinian detainees from random
abuse, and he characterized Israel's treatment of suspected terrorists as a
matter of self-defense. "The first priority of the government is keeping people
safe," said the lawyer, who insisted on anonymity. "That's the basic social
contract between a government and its people."

A key moment, he said, was the spate of suicide bombings in March 2002 that
killed 135 Israelis and injured hundreds more. "It became a question of a
ticking bomb -- how do you balance the need to find that bomb before it goes off
at a restaurant or a pizza shop or a checkpoint with the need to respect human
rights?" Israelis understood, he said, "there has to be a balance -- you can't
just do whatever you want."

What is most striking, the lawyer added, is how united the Israeli public is on
the subject. "For most people it's not the central story here," he said. "It's
not even one of the top ten questions I get asked about the Supreme Court."

But for many Palestinians, torture is the heart of the matter. Labadeh said
abuses like those that took place in Abu Ghraib or in Hawara were inevitable
when people were subjected to military occupation. That is why the photos from
Abu Ghraib did not shock or surprise him.

"In the end, when you put a person in jail because of political reasons and you
give someone power over him, you can expect to see such films," he said. "The
camera is always rolling."

[usa320]

People, the press in particular, need to realize that jail isnt supposed to be a fun place. And that interrogating jailed terrorists is a KEY method of gaining intelligence, and we need to do whatever is necessary to get them to talk, as it could save thousands of lives.

[2RHPZ]

People, the press in particular, need to realize that jail isnt supposed to be a fun place. And that interrogating jailed terrorists is a KEY method of gaining intelligence, and we need to do whatever is necessary to get them to talk, as it could save thousands of lives.

I agree with you at all. I thought over posting this article since morning and then decided to do it because clever, experienced people know what it is all about. To live or to die ... as my friend says ... all this fight on terrorism is simple indeed.

[Secret Squirrel]

People, the press in particular, need to realize that jail isnt supposed to be a fun place. And that interrogating jailed terrorists is a KEY method of gaining intelligence, and we need to do whatever is necessary to get them to talk, as it could save thousands of lives.

But it hasnt worked in the past. Historically, torture has always done more harm than good when trying to gather intel (and yes theres a rather large body of scholarship on this topic). Unless you can post some examples of the importance of torture?

[UkrainianAmerican]

People, the press in particular, need to realize that jail isnt supposed to be a fun place. And that interrogating jailed terrorists is a KEY method of gaining intelligence, and we need to do whatever is necessary to get them to talk, as it could save thousands of lives.

But it hasnt worked in the past. Historically, torture has always done more harm than good when trying to gather intel (and yes theres a rather large body of scholarship on this topic). Unless you can post some examples of the importance of torture?
Genghis Khan might disagree with you. His anti-terror tactics were brutal, but seemed to work.

[UoUo]

People, the press in particular, need to realize that jail isnt supposed to be a fun place. And that interrogating jailed terrorists is a KEY method of gaining intelligence, and we need to do whatever is necessary to get them to talk, as it could save thousands of lives.

But as you see in the article torture arn't the best way to get this info...you can use far less awful methods..and still get the info.

But when everything faild and there is life that depend on the info..i think evreything is kosher.

[Freibier]

People, the press in particular, need to realize that jail isnt supposed to be a fun place. And that interrogating jailed terrorists is a KEY method of gaining intelligence, and we need to do whatever is necessary to get them to talk, as it could save thousands of lives.

But it hasnt worked in the past. Historically, torture has always done more harm than good when trying to gather intel (and yes theres a rather large body of scholarship on this topic). Unless you can post some examples of the importance of torture?
Genghis Khan might disagree with you. His anti-terror tactics were brutal, but seemed to work.
What a stupid but funny comment rofl
Torture is not acceptable, you pro-torture guys are disgusting barbarians :P
Don't lower yourself to the same level as your enemies.

[UkrainianAmerican]

People, the press in particular, need to realize that jail isnt supposed to be a fun place. And that interrogating jailed terrorists is a KEY method of gaining intelligence, and we need to do whatever is necessary to get them to talk, as it could save thousands of lives.

But it hasnt worked in the past. Historically, torture has always done more harm than good when trying to gather intel (and yes theres a rather large body of scholarship on this topic). Unless you can post some examples of the importance of torture?
Genghis Khan might disagree with you. His anti-terror tactics were brutal, but seemed to work.
What a stupid but funny comment rofl
Torture is not acceptable, you pro-torture guys are disgusting barbarians :P
Don't lower yourself to the same level as your enemies.
I am not saying we should pull peoples fingernails out (except if we get Osama, or maskhadov or... p-) ) but sometimes such tactics ARE effective.

[Secret Squirrel]

People, the press in particular, need to realize that jail isnt supposed to be a fun place. And that interrogating jailed terrorists is a KEY method of gaining intelligence, and we need to do whatever is necessary to get them to talk, as it could save thousands of lives.

But it hasnt worked in the past. Historically, torture has always done more harm than good when trying to gather intel (and yes theres a rather large body of scholarship on this topic). Unless you can post some examples of the importance of torture?
Genghis Khan might disagree with you. His anti-terror tactics were brutal, but seemed to work.

yea and what happened to his empire? try find some examples from the 20th century at least (preferably in the last 30 years or so)

[UkrainianAmerican]

People, the press in particular, need to realize that jail isnt supposed to be a fun place. And that interrogating jailed terrorists is a KEY method of gaining intelligence, and we need to do whatever is necessary to get them to talk, as it could save thousands of lives.

But it hasnt worked in the past. Historically, torture has always done more harm than good when trying to gather intel (and yes theres a rather large body of scholarship on this topic). Unless you can post some examples of the importance of torture?
Genghis Khan might disagree with you. His anti-terror tactics were brutal, but seemed to work.

yea and what happened to his empire? try find some examples from the 20th century at least (preferably in the last 30 years or so)
Um, his empire was one of the biggest in known history. Eventually it dissolved, but NOT because of it military interrogation tactics.

[Secret Squirrel]

People, the press in particular, need to realize that jail isnt supposed to be a fun place. And that interrogating jailed terrorists is a KEY method of gaining intelligence, and we need to do whatever is necessary to get them to talk, as it could save thousands of lives.

But it hasnt worked in the past. Historically, torture has always done more harm than good when trying to gather intel (and yes theres a rather large body of scholarship on this topic). Unless you can post some examples of the importance of torture?
Genghis Khan might disagree with you. His anti-terror tactics were brutal, but seemed to work.

yea and what happened to his empire? try find some examples from the 20th century at least (preferably in the last 30 years or so)
Um, his empire was one of the biggest in known history. Eventually it dissolved, but NOT because of it military interrogation tactics.

and was his empire dependent on torture, or on the time it occurred? I think it speaks volumes that the first example you post was from the 13th century.

[UkrainianAmerican]

People, the press in particular, need to realize that jail isnt supposed to be a fun place. And that interrogating jailed terrorists is a KEY method of gaining intelligence, and we need to do whatever is necessary to get them to talk, as it could save thousands of lives.

But it hasnt worked in the past. Historically, torture has always done more harm than good when trying to gather intel (and yes theres a rather large body of scholarship on this topic). Unless you can post some examples of the importance of torture?
Genghis Khan might disagree with you. His anti-terror tactics were brutal, but seemed to work.

yea and what happened to his empire? try find some examples from the 20th century at least (preferably in the last 30 years or so)
Um, his empire was one of the biggest in known history. Eventually it dissolved, but NOT because of it military interrogation tactics.

and was his empire dependent on torture, or on the time it occurred? I think it speaks volumes that the first example you post was from the 13th century.
Fair enough. I think its only fair that I ask you to post a more recent example where it DID not work.

[Secret Squirrel]

Fair enough. I think its only fair that I ask you to post a more recent example where it DID not work.

French in Algeria.

[S'13]

But it hasnt worked in the past.

In the article one example was already brought forth...


Sometimes interrogators went beyond the guidelines. In October 1994, after militants abducted a 19-year-old Israeli army corporal, Nachshon Waxman, Yitzhak Rabin, then the prime minister, acknowledged that the suspected driver of the kidnap car had been tortured.

"If we'd been so careful to follow the Landau Commission, we would never have found out where Waxman was being held," Rabin said, referring to the 1987 guidelines.

[Tane Angle]

Just keep in mind the difference between stated information and valid, actionable intelligence, no? Something said just to make it stop only gets our people killed and actually puts more distance between terrorists and their trackers. Have a good one, and just some thoughts...

[UkrainianAmerican]

Fair enough. I think its only fair that I ask you to post a more recent example where it DID not work.

French in Algeria.
Care to expand on that (I dont really know much about it, so I would appreciate if you were to educate me on the subject, thanks)

[Javehn]

Just keep in mind the difference between stated information and valid, actionable intelligence, no? Something said just to make it stop only gets our people killed and actually puts more distance between terrorists and their trackers. Have a good one, and just some thoughts...

Yes , that is the point . Sometimes when some big dude squizing your balls , you just might say something to stop it , and this something will not always be true .

Offcorse there are life and death cases where the gray area is stepping into an action .

[Fredd00]

People, the press in particular, need to realize that jail isnt supposed to be a fun place. And that interrogating jailed terrorists is a KEY method of gaining intelligence, and we need to do whatever is necessary to get them to talk, as it could save thousands of lives.

So there are two standarts home and abroad. What is the difference between 11y old girl's rapist and murderer in US and suspected terrorist in Iraq? Both did evil. So the first have the right to take the fifth the latter is tortured. The first say "ughh, f... I want layer" and interrogation is over - the latter can say I want to speak with Allah, at best.

[UkrainianAmerican]

Just keep in mind the difference between stated information and valid, actionable intelligence, no? Something said just to make it stop only gets our people killed and actually puts more distance between terrorists and their trackers. Have a good one, and just some thoughts...

Yes , that is the point . Sometimes when some big dude squizing your balls , you just might say something to stop it , and this something will not always be true .

Offcorse there are life and death cases where the gray area is stepping into an action .
Hehe, did big-Israeli squeeze your balls a lot? :lol:

[Secret Squirrel]

Fair enough. I think its only fair that I ask you to post a more recent example where it DID not work.

French in Algeria.
Care to expand on that (I dont really know much about it, so I would appreciate if you were to educate me on the subject, thanks)

Torture forced "loyal" Algerians to cooperate, but after the battle, they either ended their loyalty to France or were assassinated. Torture forced a politics of extremes, destroying the middle that had cooperated with the French. In the end, there was no alternative to the FLN.

"We all had the same reaction. We tried not to see it. We were shocked, but powerless. At first, revolted; by the end, indifferent. It has to be said, it's shameful." These are the words of a French soldier, Raymond Dumas, who witnessed torture during France's war in Algeria in the 1950s. They could, however, be the words of torturers everywhere and in every era.

The French case provides eerie parallels to today, when we are faced every day with new allegations about the use of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. A democracy like the United States, France has long affirmed support for human rights. Like the United States, it resorted to extreme forms of coercion as part of a war against what it called "terrorists."

France won key battles by torturing suspects for intelligence. But the bigger lesson is that it lost the war. The fact that French military leaders resorted to the extensive use of torture shows that they had lost the support of the populace at large. It is a lesson that seems to have been ignored by American leaders as they prosecute a war in Iraq.

The French use of torture in Algeria didn't happen overnight. It was a reaction to a deepening crisis in which the French military, originally looking for suspect Algerians, came to see all Algerians as suspects. A signatory to the Geneva Conventions on war, the French government nonetheless insisted that these conventions weren't applicable to the Algerian situation. Its rejection of Geneva protections, and the consequent acceptance of harsher methods of interrogation of prisoners, proved to be fertile breeding ground for torturers.

Since late 2001, because the attacks against al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, the U.S. government has, like the French in Algeria, displayed a clear ambivalence toward the Geneva Conventions. At times it has professed adherence; at others, it has scoffed. Even the reasoning for rejecting these conventions is identical to earlier French arguments: like the United States today, the French military argued that countering terror required harsh methods.

In Algeria, concerned about countering a "revolutionary war," French generals increasingly seized authority from civilian leaders. They ran roughshod over legal protections for the population. The main opposition to French rule, the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN), seized the initiative. But the FLN was not simply the virtuous revolutionary force beloved of the left; like many weak revolutionary forces (for example, the Vietnamese Viet Minh at the beginning of its war against the French), it too resorted to terror to achieve its aims.

In Iraq, frustrated with the rising use of terror attacks, the U.S. military has, understandably, pushed aggressively for more and better intelligence. In the process, it has ignored its own regulations against extreme forms of coercion. The French experience in Algeria should have driven home, however, the danger in linking intelligence and torture.

In Algeria, faced with the threat of the FLN, French officers pushed for better intelligence. At the end of 1956, they set up the Detachments Operationnels de Protection, autonomous military intelligence units whose primary function was to dismantle the FLN networks. These French units exploited the unclear lines of their own command authority to act somewhat independently of the rest of the military. This ambiguous command authority also allowed them to set up a vast network of detention camps in which torture was widely practiced.

When we look at Iraq today, many parallels to Algeria jump out at us: the ambivalence toward the Geneva conventions on war, the diminished civilian judicial authority over the conduct of war, the problem of ambiguously defined command authority and the creation of "extra legal" spaces in which clandestine use of coercion can thrive.

The French failure in Algeria also suggests some questions that must be asked about Iraq. The vast majority of American attention has been focused on one place: Abu Ghraib prison. But other detention centers exist. In Algeria, much of the torture took place in "temporary" or transitional detention camps, some of them clandestine. For suspects, the time between being rounded up as a suspect and officially documented as a prisoner was particularly dangerous. Suspects were often tortured; if they tried to escape, French soldiers were allowed to shoot to kill.

It is imperative that U.S. military clarify whether or not it engages in similar practices toward "suspects." In the short term, intelligence operatives can use torture to extract information that will save lives. But in the long term, the widespread use of torture destroys a population's acceptance of occupation. As Gen. Jacques Massu, commander of the army corps in Algiers, who played a leading role in the Algerian war, admitted in 2001, "Torture is not indispensable in time of war, we could have gotten along without it very well."

Torture helped the French army win the Battle of Algiers; it also helped the country lose the Algerian War. That defeat, and the role that torture played in it, is one that the United States should heed today as it confronts the crisis in Iraq.

Dr. Shawn McHale

[Javehn]

Just keep in mind the difference between stated information and valid, actionable intelligence, no? Something said just to make it stop only gets our people killed and actually puts more distance between terrorists and their trackers. Have a good one, and just some thoughts...

Yes , that is the point . Sometimes when some big dude squizing your balls , you just might say something to stop it , and this something will not always be true .

Offcorse there are life and death cases where the gray area is stepping into an action .
Hehe, did big-Israeli squeeze your balls a lot? :lol:

I think Bigisraeli squized mine balls ones , or it was kickin the balls ... :( Anyway , that was unforgetable experience .... :|

[UkrainianAmerican]

Fair enough. I think its only fair that I ask you to post a more recent example where it DID not work.

French in Algeria.
Care to expand on that (I dont really know much about it, so I would appreciate if you were to educate me on the subject, thanks)

Torture forced "loyal" Algerians to cooperate, but after the battle, they either ended their loyalty to France or were assassinated. Torture forced a politics of extremes, destroying the middle that had cooperated with the French. In the end, there was no alternative to the FLN.

"We all had the same reaction. We tried not to see it. We were shocked, but powerless. At first, revolted; by the end, indifferent. It has to be said, it's shameful." These are the words of a French soldier, Raymond Dumas, who witnessed torture during France's war in Algeria in the 1950s. They could, however, be the words of torturers everywhere and in every era.

The French case provides eerie parallels to today, when we are faced every day with new allegations about the use of torture in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo. A democracy like the United States, France has long affirmed support for human rights. Like the United States, it resorted to extreme forms of coercion as part of a war against what it called "terrorists."

France won key battles by torturing suspects for intelligence. But the bigger lesson is that it lost the war. The fact that French military leaders resorted to the extensive use of torture shows that they had lost the support of the populace at large. It is a lesson that seems to have been ignored by American leaders as they prosecute a war in Iraq.

The French use of torture in Algeria didn't happen overnight. It was a reaction to a deepening crisis in which the French military, originally looking for suspect Algerians, came to see all Algerians as suspects. A signatory to the Geneva Conventions on war, the French government nonetheless insisted that these conventions weren't applicable to the Algerian situation. Its rejection of Geneva protections, and the consequent acceptance of harsher methods of interrogation of prisoners, proved to be fertile breeding ground for torturers.

Since late 2001, because the attacks against al-Qaida and the Taliban in Afghanistan, the U.S. government has, like the French in Algeria, displayed a clear ambivalence toward the Geneva Conventions. At times it has professed adherence; at others, it has scoffed. Even the reasoning for rejecting these conventions is identical to earlier French arguments: like the United States today, the French military argued that countering terror required harsh methods.

In Algeria, concerned about countering a "revolutionary war," French generals increasingly seized authority from civilian leaders. They ran roughshod over legal protections for the population. The main opposition to French rule, the Algerian National Liberation Front (FLN), seized the initiative. But the FLN was not simply the virtuous revolutionary force beloved of the left; like many weak revolutionary forces (for example, the Vietnamese Viet Minh at the beginning of its war against the French), it too resorted to terror to achieve its aims.

In Iraq, frustrated with the rising use of terror attacks, the U.S. military has, understandably, pushed aggressively for more and better intelligence. In the process, it has ignored its own regulations against extreme forms of coercion. The French experience in Algeria should have driven home, however, the danger in linking intelligence and torture.

In Algeria, faced with the threat of the FLN, French officers pushed for better intelligence. At the end of 1956, they set up the Detachments Operationnels de Protection, autonomous military intelligence units whose primary function was to dismantle the FLN networks. These French units exploited the unclear lines of their own command authority to act somewhat independently of the rest of the military. This ambiguous command authority also allowed them to set up a vast network of detention camps in which torture was widely practiced.

When we look at Iraq today, many parallels to Algeria jump out at us: the ambivalence toward the Geneva conventions on war, the diminished civilian judicial authority over the conduct of war, the problem of ambiguously defined command authority and the creation of "extra legal" spaces in which clandestine use of coercion can thrive.

The French failure in Algeria also suggests some questions that must be asked about Iraq. The vast majority of American attention has been focused on one place: Abu Ghraib prison. But other detention centers exist. In Algeria, much of the torture took place in "temporary" or transitional detention camps, some of them clandestine. For suspects, the time between being rounded up as a suspect and officially documented as a prisoner was particularly dangerous. Suspects were often tortured; if they tried to escape, French soldiers were allowed to shoot to kill.

It is imperative that U.S. military clarify whether or not it engages in similar practices toward "suspects." In the short term, intelligence operatives can use torture to extract information that will save lives. But in the long term, the widespread use of torture destroys a population's acceptance of occupation. As Gen. Jacques Massu, commander of the army corps in Algiers, who played a leading role in the Algerian war, admitted in 2001, "Torture is not indispensable in time of war, we could have gotten along without it very well."

Torture helped the French army win the Battle of Algiers; it also helped the country lose the Algerian War. That defeat, and the role that torture played in it, is one that the United States should heed today as it confronts the crisis in Iraq.

Dr. Shawn McHale
Thanks for the response.
I guess you are right. It really did do more harm then good to the French it seems :|
Once again, thanks for taking the time to write it out.

[Secret Squirrel]

i didnt write it out, its an article by Shawn McHale.

[UkrainianAmerican]

i didnt write it out, its an article by Shawn McHale.
Yeah, I meant thanks for finding the article, for it was indeed pretty convincing in my opinion.
Regards :)

[Secret Squirrel]

i didnt write it out, its an article by Shawn McHale.
Yeah, I meant thanks for finding the article, for it was indeed pretty convincing in my opinion.
Regards :)

no problem, i should prob. put it in a topic of its own, so it doesnt get buried and the affectiveness of torture seems like a hot topic.

[Javehn]

http://projects.edtech.sandi.net/lewis/womrights/images/torture.jpg


???????

http://homepage.mac.com/leperous/.Pictures/torture.jpg
:roll: :( :) (sorry for the smillie combination ;) ) .

[Sayeret]

My opinion on torture is that it is almost never works and thats why I don't support it, ususally. If authorities need to figure out something right away and they have tried all other interrogation methods then I would agree with torture. Like someone mentioned earlier torture isn't that effective because the captive will usually say whatever the interrogator wants to get him to stop. I don't think we should be nice to the terrorists torturing them to get information isn't as effective as it may seem. Theres other things that can be done to make someone talk and tell useful information but torture isn't one them.

[Fredd00]

WTF with you ppl?

http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/cgi-bin/getcase.pl?court=US&vol=384&invol=436


MR. CHIEF JUSTICE WARREN delivered the opinion of the Court.

The cases before us raise questions which go to the roots of our concepts of American criminal jurisprudence: the restraints society must observe consistent with the Federal Constitution in prosecuting individuals for crime. More specifically, we deal with the admissibility of statements obtained from an individual who is subjected to custodial police interrogation and the necessity for procedures which assure that the individual is accorded his privilege under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution not to be compelled to incriminate himself. [384 U.S. 436, 440]

We dealt with certain phases of this problem recently in Escobedo v. Illinois, 378 U.S. 478 (1964). There, as in the four cases before us, law enforcement officials took the defendant into custody and interrogated him in a police station for the purpose of obtaining a confession. The police did not effectively advise him of his right to remain silent or of his right to consult with his attorney. Rather, they confronted him with an alleged accomplice who accused him of having perpetrated a murder. When the defendant denied the accusation and said "I didn't shoot Manuel, you did it," they handcuffed him and took him to an interrogation room. There, while handcuffed and standing, he was questioned for four hours until he confessed. During this interrogation, the police denied his request to speak to his attorney, and they prevented his retained attorney, who had come to the police station, from consulting with him. At his trial, the State, over his objection, introduced the confession against him. We held that the statements thus made were constitutionally inadmissible.

This case has been the subject of judicial interpretation and spirited legal debate since it was decided two years ago. Both state and federal courts, in assessing its implications, have arrived at varying conclusions. 1 A wealth of scholarly material has been written tracing its ramifications and underpinnings. 2 Police and prosecutor [384 U.S. 436, 441] have speculated on its range and desirability. 3 We granted certiorari in these cases, 382 U.S. 924, 925 , 937, in order further to explore some facets of the problems, thus exposed, of applying the privilege against self-incrimination to in-custody interrogation, and to give [384 U.S. 436, 442] concrete constitutional guidelines for law enforcement agencies and courts to follow.

We start here, as we did in Escobedo, with the premise that our holding is not an innovation in our jurisprudence, but is an application of principles long recognized and applied in other settings. We have undertaken a thorough re-examination of the Escobedo decision and the principles it announced, and we reaffirm it. That case was but an explication of basic rights that are enshrined in our Constitution - that "No person . . . shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself," and that "the accused shall . . . have the Assistance of Counsel" - rights which were put in jeopardy in that case through official overbearing. These precious rights were fixed in our Constitution only after centuries of persecution and struggle. And in the words of Chief Justice Marshall, they were secured "for ages to come, and . . . designed to approach immortality as nearly as human institutions can approach it," Cohens v. Virginia, 6 Wheat. 264, 387 (1821).

Over 70 years ago, our predecessors on this Court eloquently stated:

"The maxim nemo tenetur seipsum accusare had its origin in a protest against the inquisitorial and manifestly unjust methods of interrogating accused persons, which [have] long obtained in the continental system, and, until the expulsion of the Stuarts from the British throne in 1688, and the erection of additional barriers for the protection of the people against the exercise of arbitrary power, [were] not uncommon even in England. While the admissions or confessions of the prisoner, when voluntarily and freely made, have always ranked high in the scale of incriminating evidence, if an accused person be asked to explain his apparent connection with a crime under investigation, the ease with which the [384 U.S. 436, 443] questions put to him may assume an inquisitorial character, the temptation to press the witness unduly, to browbeat him if he be timid or reluctant, to push him into a corner, and to entrap him into fatal contradictions, which is so painfully evident in many of the earlier state trials, notably in those of Sir Nicholas Throckmorton, and Udal, the Puritan minister, made the system so odious as to give rise to a demand for its total abolition. The change in the English criminal procedure in that particular seems to be founded upon no statute and no judicial opinion, but upon a general and silent acquiescence of the courts in a popular demand. But, however adopted, it has become firmly embedded in English, as well as in American jurisprudence. So deeply did the iniquities of the ancient system impress themselves upon the minds of the American colonists that the States, with one accord, made a denial of the right to question an accused person a part of their fundamental law, so that a maxim, which in England was a mere rule of evidence, became clothed in this country with the impregnability of a constitutional enactment." Brown v. Walker, 161 U.S. 591, 596 -597 (1896).

In stating the obligation of the judiciary to apply these constitutional rights, this Court declared in Weems v. United States, 217 U.S. 349, 373 (1910):

". . . our contemplation cannot be only of what has been but of what may be. Under any other rule a constitution would indeed be as easy of application as it would be deficient in efficacy and power. Its general principles would have little value and be converted by precedent into impotent and lifeless formulas. Rights declared in words might be lost in reality. And this has been recognized. The [384 U.S. 436, 444] meaning and vitality of the Constitution have developed against narrow and restrictive construction."

This was the spirit in which we delineated, in meaningful language, the manner in which the constitutional rights of the individual could be enforced against overzealous police practices. It was necessary in Escobedo, as here, to insure that what was proclaimed in the Constitution had not become but a "form of words," Silverthorne Lumber Co. v. United States, 251 U.S. 385, 392 (1920), in the hands of government officials. And it is in this spirit, consistent with our role as judges, that we adhere to the principles of Escobedo today.

Our holding will be spelled out with some specificity in the pages which follow but briefly stated it is this: the prosecution may not use statements, whether exculpatory or inculpatory, stemming from custodial interrogation of the defendant unless it demonstrates the use of procedural safeguards effective to secure the privilege against self-incrimination. By custodial interrogation, we mean questioning initiated by law enforcement officers after a person has been taken into custody or otherwise deprived of his freedom of action in any significant way. 4 As for the procedural safeguards to be employed, unless other fully effective means are devised to inform accused persons of their right of silence and to assure a continuous opportunity to exercise it, the following measures are required. Prior to any questioning, the person must be warned that he has a right to remain silent, that any statement he does make may be used as evidence against him, and that he has a right to the presence of an attorney, either retained or appointed. The defendant may waive effectuation of these rights, provided the waiver is made voluntarily, knowingly and intelligently. If, however, he indicates in any manner and at any stage of the [384 U.S. 436, 445] process that he wishes to consult with an attorney before speaking there can be no questioning. Likewise, if the individual is alone and indicates in any manner that he does not wish to be interrogated, the police may not question him. The mere fact that he may have answered some questions or volunteered some statements on his own does not deprive him of the right to refrain from answering any further inquiries until he has consulted with an attorney and thereafter consents to be questioned.

So go f*** yourself, rules apply only to criminals who made some most abhorent crimes, and ordinary Arab from street of Baghdad don't have any of them. Go f*** yourself. :bash:

[Freibier]

Fredd00, you have a ****ty avatar ...

[Fredd00]

Fredd00, you have a ****ty avatar ...

What it has to do with the topic?

[Freibier]

Fredd00, you have a ****ty avatar ...

What it has to do with the topic?
Nothing,
I just don't like your avatar, dunno where you're from but this kind of logo is popular among skinheads over here and I hate those guys

[Tane Angle]

So go f*** yourself, rules apply only to criminals who made some most abhorent crimes, and ordinary Arab from street of Baghdad don't have any of them. Go f*** yourself.

Sorry, could you clarify this? Are you saying that that ordinary Arabs do not have rules? Also, we're trying to keep the swearing to a minimum around here for a while, so it'd be much appreciated if everyone worked on that. Thanks.

Have a good one, and just some thoughts...

[/McH\]

Fredd00,

Just a question.. Why did you choose to put this Avater, and what is your story behind it?

[UkrainianAmerican]

I dont think hes serious about it, but if he actually believes in that **** he got problems.

[Sayeret]

Fredd00 your avatar is like one that some KKK memember or skin head would have, is there any reason why you chose that one?

[usa320]

I think we really need to stop flinging the word torture around so much.

Torture is using electric shock, pulling off nails, cutting off limbs. Pulling teeth. Stuff like that.

So far i have yet to see any kind of phsyical torture by our forces.

What ive seen is interrogation techniques... Scaring them with dogs, strip searches, extreme hot/cold temperatures, make them sit in uncomfortable positions, bright lights, dark rooms. Loud music. What were doing is more or less breaking down their will to resist, thereby making it easier to get them to talk.

Lets face it, if we were really willing to torture people, instead of blasting linking park in their ears we would be knocking them with a golf club or something.

[Secret Squirrel]

I think we really need to stop flinging the word torture around so much.

Torture is using electric shock, pulling off nails, cutting off limbs. Pulling teeth. Stuff like that.

So far i have yet to see any kind of phsyical torture by our forces.

What ive seen is interrogation techniques... Scaring them with dogs, strip searches, extreme hot/cold temperatures, make them sit in uncomfortable positions, bright lights, dark rooms. Loud music. What were doing is more or less breaking down their will to resist, thereby making it easier to get them to talk.

Lets face it, if we were really willing to torture people, instead of blasting linking park in their ears we would be knocking them with a golf club or something.

what about the former Iraqi general who suffocated and died during his "interrorgation"? You dont call that torture? I call it torture and plain stupidity if you have morons who are going to kill a high value target.

[usa320]

I feel absolutely no sympathy for him...

Now if someone is "suspected" of something, then we shouldnt be rough on them...

But considering how many people that former Iraqi general probably tortured, raped and killed, i think suffocation was too easy on him.

[Secret Squirrel]

I feel absolutely no sympathy for him...

Now if someone is "suspected" of something, then we shouldnt be rough on them...

But considering how many people that former Iraqi general probably tortured, raped and killed, i think suffocation was too easy on him.

and i think its amusing how you try to dodge questions when someone asks you for specifics.

[One?]

People, the press in particular, need to realize that jail isnt supposed to be a fun place. And that interrogating jailed terrorists is a KEY method of gaining intelligence, and we need to do whatever is necessary to get them to talk, as it could save thousands of lives.


and when a "black" guy gets beat up by cops its alright. But if it happens to a white male all hell would break loose. Again we see double standards.

[UkrainianAmerican]

People, the press in particular, need to realize that jail isnt supposed to be a fun place. And that interrogating jailed terrorists is a KEY method of gaining intelligence, and we need to do whatever is necessary to get them to talk, as it could save thousands of lives.


and when a "black" guy gets beat up by cops its alright. But if it happens to a white male all hell would break loose. Again we see double standards.
What are you talking about? Who said it's all right? :cantbeli:

[usa320]

Its not... Police brutality and wartime interrigation methods are two totally different things in different context.

[tacticalmanta]

Maybe we should do something more accepted like the Chinese do.. organ harvesting anyone? We can start with just the corneas.

[Fredd00]

Its not... Police brutality and wartime interrigation methods are two totally different things in different context.

Allow me to disagree, first they were bunch of guys who didn't care much about the Geneva Conventions saying "it's war time, no time for conventions, at all". As yoy may recall, ended up in Nuremburg.


Sorry, could you clarify this? Are you saying that that ordinary Arabs do not have rules?

Here you are I content that an ordinary Arab have no RIGHTS at all. It sufficient he is suspected of terrorist - activity, and can be held indefenetely, without any rights.

As, of "wartime interrigation" Where is war in Iraq? Who fighting with whom. Because I always hear" 'it's not a war, it's stabilisation opp'

[gilgoul]

The thing about soldiers kicking is BS, i`ve been involved in the guard of several wanted people, and participated in the arrest of two.
SO ok, you blind fold them, and restrain them with those plastic handcuffs, so it`s not comfy, but we braoght them fresh water and sat them in the shadow waiting for their transfer.
I didn`t hear of any kicking, or mistreatment whatsoever between the arrest and the transfer for intelligence gathering.
Afterward, I recently did a stint in a prison facility, you`d be surprised by the freedm of movemet of the innmates, their chutzpah and the level of privileges they are granted, such as receiving packages from their families and family visit.
I can`t talk about the interrogtion process since i don`t know it, just heard of it, but violence in the other stage of the penal process is just a huge pile of BS, if a prisonner doesn`t resist arrest and doesn`t create problems during his time, no one will ever touch him

[Mongrel]

Genghis Khan might disagree with you. His anti-terror tactics were brutal, but seemed to work

I can't believe I just read this. He didn't have 'anti terror tactics'..he was terror, pure and simple. The Bin Ladens, and Saddams of this world wouldn't be bad assed enogh to wash his war ponys tube steak.

Also I don't by this 'neccisary evil crap' (for lack of a better word), when one stoops to the level of the terrorist then they become no better. Besides I though Isreal was a safe place to live? Why the need to act like a sadist to prisoners?

I mean when the guy gets out after spending days getting that sort of treatment do yah think he is going to go off and grow Olives for a living? More like he is going to go out and get ready to get even to his captors.
Seems counter productive to me.

Just my two bitz.

Cheers!
M.

[citizen-k]

rofl

"white power" member is talking about human rights - and you people bother to answer him :cantbeli:

Go eat a mayonnaise sandwich or go **** a family relative and leave us intelligent people to discuss "tortures", will you?

[Fredd00]

rofl
go f*** a family relative

Well, seems you doing it all the time :lol: Mum presumably :D

[UoUo]

rofl
go f*** a family relative

Well, seems you doing it all the time :lol: Mum presumably :D


What you avatar means????????

[Fredd00]

What you avatar means????????

My avatar means "I am white and I am proud of this fact" merely this - this have nothing to do with other races.

Besides you may noticed I profess disgust at use of torture agianst human being regardless of race so if you want call me a rasist then be my quest but its not the truth

Regards!

[Secret Squirrel]

Its not... Police brutality and wartime interrigation methods are two totally different things in different context.

Then why do you constantly compare police using dogs against suspected crimminals and MPs using dogs against prisoners/detainees/whoever if they are two different things?

[Moledet]

The thing about soldiers kicking is BS, i`ve been involved in the guard of several wanted people, and participated in the arrest of two.
SO ok, you blind fold them, and restrain them with those plastic handcuffs, so it`s not comfy, but we braoght them fresh water and sat them in the shadow waiting for their transfer.
I didn`t hear of any kicking, or mistreatment whatsoever between the arrest and the transfer for intelligence gathering.
Afterward, I recently did a stint in a prison facility, you`d be surprised by the freedm of movemet of the innmates, their chutzpah and the level of privileges they are granted, such as receiving packages from their families and family visit.
I can`t talk about the interrogtion process since i don`t know it, just heard of it, but violence in the other stage of the penal process is just a huge pile of BS, if a prisonner doesn`t resist arrest and doesn`t create problems during his time, no one will ever touch him
They also get money from Israel for their families if they work in the Jail. They are allowed and encouraged to study (everything except of Chemistry and Physics) in the open university (most of them study politics). The tereorists that still didn't finish school are allowed to learn and graduate. We give them more than any other country give to terrorists that killed tens of civilians.
Ofcourse if they are being mistreated they can sue the country while they are serving jail time and also after they are being released.

[citizen-k]

rofl
go f*** a family relative

Well, seems you doing it all the time :lol: Mum presumably :D

That was sooooo deep man!!! (coming from white trash that is)

[citizen-k]

What you avatar means????????

My avatar means "I am white and I am proud of this fact" merely this - this have nothing to do with other races.

Besides you may noticed I profess disgust at use of torture agianst human being regardless of race so if you want call me a rasist then be my quest but its not the truth

Regards!

rofl

White trash is white trash, no matter what YOU think about tortures.

Unless you are thinking about ruling the world in tenderness...

(you know, helping old black ladies to cross the street etc?)

[citizen-k]

rofl
go f*** a family relative

Well, seems you doing it all the time :lol: Mum presumably :D


What you avatar means????????

You were in Poland a few month ago, right?

I don't know how things are going over there now - but ten years ago "white power" (anti-tortures group rofl ) were the biggest neo-nazi group visible on the streets.

(A Beita"r gang from Kiryat-Shmona hospitalized some of them a week before we got there...)

[Fredd00]

That was sooooo deep man!!! (coming from white trash that is)

Not as deep as your previous post or this statment



White trash is white trash

I ensure you I am doing my best - thanks for your valuable assistance I have some prospect for writing deeper post. So what funny story can you tell, about white trashes preferably ;)

[IDFM203]

The thing about soldiers kicking is BS, i`ve been involved in the guard of several wanted people, and participated in the arrest of two.
SO ok, you blind fold them, and restrain them with those plastic handcuffs, so it`s not comfy, but we braoght them fresh water and sat them in the shadow waiting for their transfer.
I didn`t hear of any kicking, or mistreatment whatsoever between the arrest and the transfer for intelligence gathering.
Afterward, I recently did a stint in a prison facility, you`d be surprised by the freedm of movemet of the innmates, their chutzpah and the level of privileges they are granted, such as receiving packages from their families and family visit.
I can`t talk about the interrogtion process since i don`t know it, just heard of it, but violence in the other stage of the penal process is just a huge pile of BS, if a prisonner doesn`t resist arrest and doesn`t create problems during his time, no one will ever touch him
They also get money from Israel for their families if they work in the Jail. They are allowed and encouraged to study (everything except of Chemistry and Physics) hehe :lol: I had to laugh (in a breath a sigh of relief type of way ;) ) when I read this for I didn’t know that before but indeed that makes a whole lot of sense!! ;) :D


Fredd00,

Just curious, what do you think of whites that practice the Jewish religion?

Also is your avatar taken from the Stormfront website?

Shalom :D

[Mr Gently Benevolent]

Also is your avatar taken from the Stormfront website?
Well spotted IDFM203 ;)

[IDFM203]

Also is your avatar taken from the Stormfront website?
Well spotted IDFM203 ;)Well thanks, you know me well enough by now to know that I try to adhere to the dictum of "know thy enemy" ;) so I follow up and I usually know these sort of things ;)


Shalom :D

[Fredd00]

Fredd00,
Also is your avatar taken from the Stormfront website?
Shalom :D

No, mine is taken from the Anti Deflamation League (see here: http://www.adl.org/hate_symbols/groups_stormfront.asp - thanks guys for an assisntance :lol: )


Just curious, what do you think of whites that practice the Jewish religion?

Well, as generally being liberal I think nothing. Same story as with a white dude practising bizzare *** - well, errare humanum est :(

as usually regards!

[IDFM203]

Fredd00,
Also is your avatar taken from the Stormfront website?
Shalom :D

No, mine is taken from the Anti Deflamation League (see here: http://www.adl.org/hate_symbols/groups_stormfront.asp - thanks guys for an assisntance :lol: )


Just curious, what do you think of whites that practice the Jewish religion?

Well, as generally being liberal I think nothing. Same story as with a white dude practising bizzare *** - well, errare humanum est :(

as usually regards!I will say you got a sense of humor there ;) (with regards to "getting" it from the ADL :roll: )...anyways so indeed you do use the symbol of that racist site :roll:

As for white Jews, I don’t quite get your “I think nothing” answer, so let me put it this way……. if there were ever to be a white only nation as people from Stromfront expose as a desire, you wouldn’t mind having white Jews living there, yes or no?

I must say you seem like one strange “white only” dude, but hey lets see how your responses progress to see how really unique you are or if it’s just some "clever" attempt at trying to sound a bit moderate ;)

Shalom :D