Torture Under the Pretext of ‘Terrorism’ in CIA Black Sites: US Leaders’ Justification and Human Rights Condemnation

Since the 9/11 dramatic events, arbitrary arrests and torture in US black sites under the pretext of countering terrorism inside and outside the country have become a common practice triggering controversy. While Congress and many political leaders attempt to justify the abuses, human rights organizations and judicial institutions urge to stop the violations claiming that they have done lasting damage to US moral standing.

The New York Times published the article of Major Aaron Shepherd, an attorney on the US Navy Judge Advocate General's Corps, explaining that all over the world, American agents have arrested people on flimsy allegations of terrorist activity and driven them to secret "black sites," where they have been tortured for years, referring to the process as "enhanced interrogation."

Aaron said that: “The American leaders often justify misconducts in these black sites and in the Guantanamo prison in particular as an end that justifies the means. However, even if we neglect the immoral and illegal aspects of those measures, they have proven to be ineffective and counterproductive, because they prompted this country to more incursion into the path of eternal war and countless losses.”

 

First Public Abuse Account

On October 2021, Carol Rosenberg reported in The New York Times: “A suburban Baltimore high school graduate turned Al Qaeda courier, speaking to a military jury for the first time, gave a detailed account of the brutal forced feedings, crude waterboarding and other physical and sexual abuse he endured during his 2003 to 2006 detention in the CIA’s overseas prison network."

She added: “Appearing in open court, Majid Khan, 41, became the first former prisoner of the black sites to openly describe, anywhere, the violent and cruel 'enhanced interrogation techniques' that agents used to extract information and confessions from terrorism suspects.”

She emphasized: “He spoke about dungeon-like conditions, humiliating stretches of nudity with only a hood on his head, sometimes while his arms were chained in ways that made sleep impossible. Being intentionally nearly drowned in icy cold water in tubs at two sites, once while a CIA interrogator counted down from 10 before water was poured into his nose and mouth.”

 

The Black Cell

Last September 2021, former Afghan detainees of Bagram prison, recounted details of their torture during the Americans' running of the infamous prison.

After the United States launched its comprehensive military operations in Afghanistan, it built many prisons to detain those it described as "terrorists," especially members of the Taliban movement.

Among the most prominent of these prisons is Bagram, located 50 kilometers north of the capital, Kabul. It was built by the Americans in 2002 inside the Bagram Air Base, and it includes 120 cells.

The prison, which was run by the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), witnessed the arrest of thousands of Afghan citizens on various allegations, where they were subjected to interrogation and torture by various means until it became known as "Guantanamo of Afghanistan."

 

US Leaders Policies

The George W. Bush administration was the first to make a decision that is core to the violations in CIA black sites, which is the determination that the Geneva Conventions did not apply to the detention of al-Qaeda and Taliban prisoners. However, the legal propositions were rebuffed by the US Supreme Court years later.

Jonathan Masters expressed, on the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), that: “In a 2004 case, the Supreme Court rejected the administration’s attempt to keep federal courts from reviewing Guantanamo cases, ruling that even foreign nationals held outside the United States could challenge their military detention.”

Yet, Obama’s taking office in 2009 was a pivot point. Jonathan stressed that: “He ordered Guantanamo to be closed within one year and, in the meantime, suspended the use of military commissions. He also created a task force to review the legal status of each detainee.”

He added: “However, the plan was shelved in 2011 following backlash from Congress and political leaders in New York. Congress tied the president’s hands by passing legislation that effectively banned the administration from transferring Guantanamo detainees to the United States.”

The Guardian newspaper stated that Trump reversed Obama’s policies. “While Obama argued that maintenance of a detention facility beyond the reach of US law undermined American global leadership on human rights, Trump believed that the move to close Guantánamo reflected softness in the fight against terrorism.”

“I am also asking the Congress to ensure that, in the fight against Isis and al-Qaida, we continue to have all necessary power to detain terrorists—wherever we chase them down, wherever we find them, and in many cases, it will now be Guantánamo Bay,” former US President Donald Trump said.

The Guardian emphasized that: “Biden administration, like the Trump administration before it, says the information about black sites should not be disclosed because it would do significant harm to national security.”

It added: “The United States has declassified a significant amount of information about the former CIA program but certain information, including the locations of former CIA detention facilities, cannot be declassified without a risk to national security, the administration says.”

 

Condemnations and Worries

“The President can sign whatever executive orders he likes. But the law is the law. We are not bringing back torture in the United States of America,” Senator John McCain, a Republican who was a victim of torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said in a statement when Trump tried to re-open the black sites.

Reuters pointed out that: “Critics say the harsh interrogations would inflame tensions in Muslim countries and be counterproductive.”

Homer Venters, director of programs at Physicians for Human Rights, pointed out: “The facility is a symbol of US torture and injustice known around the world. It represents the unlawful, immoral, and harmful regime of indefinite detention and should be shuttered immediately.”

 

European Complicity

Amnesty pointed out in a report published in 2020 that: “The United States did not act alone in the black sites. At least three EU member states have hosted secret CIA sites as part of the 'Global War on Terrorism.' Men who appeared in court at Guantánamo have been tortured and ill-treated in Poland, Lithuania, and Romania. However, these countries' complicity in torture, which is a crime under international law, was not mentioned even once in the US courtroom.”

The human rights organization emphasized that: “Everyone in the US court was prohibited from saying or implying that European countries hosted black sites and facilitated the abuses they witnessed. No one in the mentioned countries has been charged with facilitating these crimes.”

The organization said: “The European Court of Human Rights has previously ruled in a civil case against Poland for its complicity in the enforced disappearance and torture of CIA detainees, Muhammad al-Nashiri and Abu Zubaydah. The two are still in Guantanamo Bay.”