Berkeley Journalism Prof Sheds Light on U.S. Response to Torture
By Ioana Patringenaru | February 21, 2006
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| Four panelists discussed torture, human rights and the law after Mark Danner’s lecture. From left to right: Michael D. Ramsey, law professor at the University of San Diego, William Aceves, professor at California Western School of Law, Mark Danner, journalism professor at UC Berkeley and Robert Horwitz, chair of UCSD’s department of communications. |
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Naked Iraqi prisoners strike humiliating poses. Some have been beaten. Others wear hoods. Their pictures and their stories have now become familiar. And that’s cause for concern, said Mark Danner, a UC Berkeley journalism professor and staff writer for The New Yorker.
“Torture has survived its exposure,” he said.
Danner spoke Wednesday to a packed audience at the UCSD Price Center, as more pictures and new videos of abuses dating back to 2003 at Abu Ghraib prison surfaced in the Australian media and were quickly picked up by U.S. news outlets. That made his lecture all the more relevant, Chancellor Marye Anne Fox told the audience. “As a person, and as a scholar, each of us must formulate a response,” she said.
U.S. officials quickly crafted theirs. A spokesman for the U.S. Department of Defense said Wednesday that the abuses at Abu Ghraib have been fully investigated. The department also investigated the way it handles detentions worldwide, leading to 200 prosecutions, spokesman Bryan Whitman said in a news story posted on the Defense Department’s Web site.
"When there have been abuses, this department has acted upon them promptly, investigated them thoroughly and, where appropriate, prosecuted individuals," Whitman said.
Watch Mark Danner’s lecture on UCSD-TV:
March 13 at 8 p.m.
March 14 at 10 p.m.
March 17 at 6 p.m.
March 19 at 8 p.m.
March 28 at 11 p.m.
March 31 at 6 p.m.
April 2 at 11 p.m.
For more information: www.ucsd.tv |
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Danner begs to differ. Low-level operatives have been punished, he said before the lecture. But there haven’t really been any consequences for those who were supervising them and those who crafted the policies that allowed the abuses to happen, he added.
In his latest book, “Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib and the War on Terror,” Danner compiled scores of documents showing how the Abu Ghraib prison scandal came about. As tales of abuse at Abu Ghraib and elsewhere surface, Americans have to confront the moral questions they raise, Danner said. Sadly, many have learned to live with them, he told his audience at UCSD.
To make his point, Danner quoted a wide array of sources, from the German philosopher Immanuel Kant, to President George W. Bush and New York Times reporter James Risen. He talked about secret CIA prisons, torture techniques and the Bush administration’s attitude toward power.
Danner started his talk with a Washington Post story. A few months after Sept. 11, a CIA plane was picking up two suspected radical Islamists in Stockholm. Masked agents strip-searched the men, gave them a sedative and strapped them to mattresses in the back of the plane, according to the Post. Then the plane took off for Egypt, where the captives were reportedly tortured. Since Sept. 11, there has been a lot of talk about balancing human rights and security, Danner said.
In Stockholm that day, “security was the only concern,” he said. “Human rights had no place here.”
Danner said he believes these abuses stem from the Bush administration’s attitude toward power and international law. Officials seemed to believe they couldn’t fight terrorism effectively if they played by existing rules, he said. “We’re going to take the gloves off” was a sentence he heard a lot, from CIA officials to an Abu Ghraib interrogator.
Danner also challenged the government’s assertion that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were the work of a “few bad apples.” He gave graphic descriptions of two incidents, one involving a detainee at Abu Ghraib, the other several reporters detained at a combat base near Falluja in Iraq. Their tales included beatings, sexual violations and other humiliations. There are hundreds of similar accounts, he said, and it’s clear that the abuses were systematic.
After the talk, freshman Melissa Custer said this was the most striking part of Danner’s talk, because it showed a pattern.
“It was really insightful and really shocking at the same time,” said the human biology major.
After his lecture, Danner took part in a panel discussion with California Western School of Law Professor William Aceves, University of San Diego law professor Michael Ramsey and moderator Robert Horwitz, chair of UCSD’s department of communications.
The DeWitt Higgs Memorial Lecture is held yearly in honor of the late UC Regent, attorney and San Diego community leader DeWitt “Dutch” Higgs, and is focused on a contemporary legal topic. It is sponsored by UCSD’s Warren College, the Law and Society Program and California Western School of Law.
Danner also is a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books. He has written for The New York Times, Harper’s and many other newspapers and magazines. He also teaches at Bard College. He has covered conflicts in the former Yugoslavia, Latin America, Haiti and most recently Iraq. He has written several books, including “The Massacre at El Mozote: A Parable of the Cold War” and “The Road to Illegitimacy.”
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