Torture Made in USA is a documentary film which premiered on French television (ARTE) in 2009.
The topic is the CIA’s controversial interrogation method known as Enhanced Interrogation Techniques (EIT) which is (according to numerous observers) another word for torture.
Here is some basic information about this film:
** Writer, producer and director: Marie-Monique Robin
** Released on DVD in 2011
** Run time: 85 minutes
If you have the DVD, you have access to three versions of the film:
# 1. A French version
# 2. A German version
# 3. An English version
Several persons are interviewed in the film. Here are the names of the participants (in alphabetical order):
** Mark Benjamin – journalist – Salon.com
** David Debatto – officer, 205th Military Intelligence Brigade
** Scott Horton – lawyer – former president of the International League for Human Rights
** John Hutson – former Rear Admiral – now Dean of the School of Law, New Hampshire University, Concord
** General Janis Karpinski – prison commander in Iraq 2003-2004
** Harold Koh – Dean of the School of Law, Yale University
** Jane Mayer – journalist – The New Yorker – author of the book The Dark Side (2008)
** Alberto Mora – General Counsel of the US Navy
** Malcolm Nance – Instructor, SERE school program
** Joe Navarro – FBI agent
** Michael Posner – President of Human Rights First
** Kenneth Roth – executive director, Human Rights watch
** Lt. General Ricardo Sanchez – commander of the multi-national force in Iraq 2003-2004
** Michael Scheuer – CIA agent
** William Taft – legal advisor to Colin Powell
** Matthew Waxman – Special Assistant to Condoleezza Rice
** Larry Wilkerson – Chief of Staff to Colin Powell
Archive footage is used between the talking heads. Archive footage is used when the narrator is speaking.
In many cases, archive footage is a clip from a public hearing organized by a committee under the Senate or the House of Representatives. In some cases, a clip from a public hearing is used to introduce an interview with a participant.
Secret government documents which have been de-classified are often shown on the screen and significant passages are highlighted in order to support the presentation.
The film focuses on events which happened between 2001 and 2004. The interviews were made in 2008.
The story begins in 2004 when a series of pictures from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were published.
The pictures show Iraqi prisoners who are being humiliated by American prison guards. The pictures may be an illustration of the so-called Enhanced Interrogation Technique.
When these pictures were published, members of the public were horrified and top members of the US government were embarrassed. This did not place the US in a good light.
The leaders of the US government were caught off guard. Now they were searching for a way to respond. They knew they could not just ignore these pictures. They had to come up with a good explanation. They could not admit that torture of inmates was a common practice in American prisons.
What was their response?
What was their solution?
They decided to use the theory of the rotten apples.
It goes like this:
What we see is true. What we see is horrible. But what we see is not typical. It is not normal. These acts were committed by a few rotten apples. There are often a few rotten apples at the bottom of a large barrel.
The US army and the CIA have high moral standards. Prisoners are treated well. They do not suffer. They are not humiliated.
What we see in the pictures from Abu Ghraib is an exception: an aberration. Those responsible with be found and they will be held to account.
Having presented the official explanation, French reporter Marie-Monique Robin begins to investigate. Is this explanation true or not? In this film, she shows that the official explanation is not true at all. It is a cover-up, an attempt to avoid the truth.
Her findings can be summarized in three points:
# 1. The horrible treatment shown in the pictures was not an exception. It was the normal way of doing business in the prison.
# 2. The inspiration did not come from prison staff in Iraq. It came from prison staff of the detention camp at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba.
# 3. Did top leaders of the US government condone torture of prisoners? No, this is not correct. Did they encourage torture of prisoners? No, this is not correct. The truth is that top leaders of the US government ordered prison staff to use torture. They demanded that torture be used on prisoners. They said this was the only way to make the prisoners talk.
But when evidence of the truth was leaked to the public, they refused to admit what they had done. They refused to stand by their own policy. Instead, they invented a cover-story which was accepted as plausible and after a while the story began to fade away.
The cover-story worked quite well, until it was exposed. But when this happened, the top leaders who were responsible had all left office and now it was too late to hold them accountable. It was too late to do anything about it. In other words:
They managed to get away with it!
What do reviewers say about this film? I have not found many reviews. On Amazon there are only two global ratings. Both offer five stars. On the website Bull Frog Films, there are several statements about the film.
I will quote three of them here:
Statement # 1
“The powerful testimonies of the well-informed insiders are a valuable, truthful corrective to the euphemism-ridden and sanitized official accounts.”
*** Henry Shue, Professor of Politics and International Relations, Centre for International Studies, University of Oxford, Author of the book Basic Rights: Subsistence, Affluence, and U.S. Foreign Policy
Statement # 2
“Torture Made In USA is critical reconstruction of the political and legal steps that led the US to depart from the tradition of international human rights and its own history.
“This film is vital to keep this history alive for the current generation of Americans and concerned global citizens around the world. This film is also a perfect classroom resource to introduce students to the law and context of American torture after 2001 and its ongoing consequences for US law and society.”
*** Jonathan Simon, Professor of Law, Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Society, University of California at Berkeley, Author of the book Governing through Crime: How the War on Crime Transformed American Democracy and Created a Culture of Fear
Statement # 3
“Powerful and impressive...This is a meticulous step by step explanation of how the United States embraced and implemented torture as official policy. Marie-Monique reveals the conflict between the career legal and military personnel on the one hand, and the political members of the Bush administration on the other...
“The film reveals that, although torture is ineffective and illegal, the Bush administration was committed to torture as a critical element of the rhetoric and framing of the war on terror.”
*** Dr. Charles Anthony Smith, Associate Professor of Political Science, University of California - Irvine, Author of the book The Rise and Fall of War Crimes Trials: From Charles I to Bush II
I agree with the positive statements. This film covers an important topic, and it is covered very well.
I want to go all the way to the top with this product. I think it deserves a rating of five stars (100 percent).
PS # 1. Several participants had high-ranking positions in the US government system from 2001 to 2004. Since then, they have retired from government service. Some of them speak quite freely in this film and use quite harsh words when talking about the policy of the US government.
One example is Larry Wilkerson.
Another example is Janis Karpinski who says she was chosen to be the scapegoat for the scandal caused by the pictures taken in Abu Ghraib prison.
Google both names to find more details about these persons and their public statements after leaving office.
PS # 2. William J. Haynes (born 1953) was general counsel of the Department of defense while George Bush was president. Haynes appears more than once in this film. He is in several clips from public hearings. He does not want to answer hard questions. He does what he can to avoid giving a clear answer to hard questions.
His favorite trick is to say that he saw so many documents while he was in office. He says he cannot recall if he saw a certain document or not.
Using poor memory as an excuse for not remembering important events and significant decisions is a common trick used to avoid telling a direct lie.
REFERENCES
** The Torture Question (2005) – an episode of Frontline
** Torturing Democracy (2008) – a documentary film
** Secrecy (2008) – a documentary film
** Secrets, Politics and Torture (2015) – an episode of Frontline
** The Mauritanian (2021) – a historical drama based on a true story
*****
The Dark Side
By Jame Mayer
(2008)
*****
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