Roundup and milblogger

I have spent an enjoyable few hours reading posts from Bloggers Against Torture. It's wonderful to see so many well-informed, passionate bloggers, and I'll be highlighting them in the coming weeks.

Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying has a very informative post on John Yoo and the legal justifications the Administration developed to support their torture policy. He also has a round-up of posts from other Bloggers Against Torture, including Donkephant's refresher course on torture in the WOT.

A special welcome goes out to military blogger, The Man from Missouri. I emailed The Man asking what the main issue most non-military people would miss in considering torture. He sent me the the following post, and this message

... we should think of how torture effects the torturers as well as the tortured. These are people who we expect to follow the most heinous of orders and then return to normal lives as our neighbors, co-workers, and friends.

To me, that is the point that we miss. That when we accept sending Americans to do these things for a year or two, they carry those marks with them - secretly - every day for the rest of their lives. Not everyone is changed in the same way, but many are.

Blogger Round Table discusses what the Stanley Milgram experiment revealed about the effects of torture on the torturer: One experimental subject said
he felt like a "basket case" and an "emotional wreck" which continued afterward when he realized "that somebody could get me to do that stuff".

Aunty Ism picks up a similar theme:

What better way to create a platoon of terrorists than by addicting them to adrenalin, and setting them loose after years of panic induced delirium to get their fix by enacting revenge on their captors.

What better way to train a platoon of soldiers capable of torturing what is perceived to be a group of dehumanized objects. They then return home to walk the civlian streets of America. Who would be better able to enforce Martial Law: someone trained to respect the Geneva Convention and Human Rights Laws, or, someone who has experienced the power of unrestrained authority over a objectified prisoner, treated as less than human, with no rights. Once one has treated another human as an object, it is easier to do it again. We are all capable of training; some resist, but some succumb.

The Lady Speaks reiterates what's becoming a theme this week: that all people can be made into torturers. Again, the tools are: dehumanisation, racism, othering, willingness to exclude the victim from the protection under a moral code (can anyone say "unlawful combatant"?), gradual escalation, and a power differential between perp and victim.

Despite the fact that these contributors have been known for some time, the policy makers are not only neglecting to address the cultural and situational factors that could promote detainee abuse, but are actively fostering them. Lasting News has a pretty significant post called US Army Bans Geneva Convention from its Manuals. From the article

"The overall thinking," said the participant familiar with the defense debate, "is that they need the flexibility to apply cruel techniques if military necessity requires it."

UPDATES: A few follow-ups from around the blogroll.

Blogroll psychologist Dr James says

As I've mentioned elsewhere [ed: see here] this is precisely the sort of distal influence that makes atrocities such as torture more likely.

The Nether-World and Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying also give their perspective.