VAU Afgh 101: Torture

M. Cherif Bassiouni, The Institutionalization
of Torture by the Bush Administration:
Is Anyone Responsible?

This is part of a series of eight "virtual teachins" on U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan.

The crime of Torture is described on the website for Mike Haas' book, George W. Bush, War Criminal? The Bush Administration’s Liability for 269 War Crimes. Here, we will look at the specific legal basis for charging perpetrators as war criminals for Torture, and list sources reporting relevant U.S. actions in Afghanistan.

Viewers of this page are strongly encouraged to contribute comments and additional sources in the comments section!

If the American public knew the nature of the crimes that its government was committing in Afghanistan, could it possibly sit still and not force an end to the war, and the removal of U.S. military, intelligence, and contractors from Afghanistan?

LEGAL BASIS
The crime of Torture is described on the website for Mike Haas' book, George W. Bush, War Criminal? The Bush Administration’s Liability for 269 War Crimes.

REPORTS FROM AFGHANISTAN
Read this important blog post on U.S. complicity in torture in Afghanistan as captured prisoners are turned over to prisons that are known to torture them. "[E]ven though our coalition partners had already stopped transferring detainees to Afghans known to use torture in interrogations, the US continued doing so until last month."

Torture and other outrages against detainees is the focus of the mass action in Washington, D.C. and around the country on the 10th anniversary of the establishment of the detention center at Guantanamo - taking place January 11, 2012.


Related posts

What is the total number of prisoners held in the detention archipelago set up by the U.S. in Afghanistan? Five thousand? Ten thousand? More?

(See THE ARCHIPELAGO: U.S./NATO's Parting Gift to Afghanistan)

Virtual Antiwar University (VAU) 101 focuses on eight categories of U.S. war crimes, selected from Mike Haas' book, George W. Bush, War Criminal? The Bush Administration’s Liability for 269 War Crimes.

(See VAU Afghanistan 101: US War Crimes )

It is perhaps the signal achievement of the film "Beneath the Blindfold" that it portrays four different survivors, each of whose experience of torture was distinct from that of any of the others, and each of whom has an otherwise unique personality, and yet each makes clear that they share a long-lasting trauma. One leaves the film with a deeply-felt sense of the lasting trauma caused by torture of any kind.

(See The Revelations of "Beneath the Blindfold" )



Chicago was the site of major protests against U.S. detention practices in Guantanamo, as well as in Bagram, other prisons throughout Afghanistan, and elsewhere in the world, on and around January 11, 2012. We called for an end to indefinite detention, unfair trials, and torture.

(See Chicago Protests Guantanamo Detention)