A former Abu Ghraib interrogator's story

I just attended a presentation by Joshua Casteel, a former Army interrogator at Abu Ghraib who turned conscientious objector and left the military.  It's interesting on a number of levels:

* Casteel's evangelical upbringing and faith played a large role in his conversion, and therefore this is not simply a story of "I disagree with the Iraq War."

* Casteel comes from a family tradition of military service, including a grandfather who fought in Korea and Vietnam.

* Casteel had a number of opportunities to get out of going to Iraq but went anyway.

Anyway, what I found particularly interesting were the parts of his talk about his training as an interrogator and his actual experience as one.

Although he had had internal struggles about the legitimacy of warfare, he was heartened by his initial training as an interrogator because there was a stress on following the Geneva Conventions.  In fact, he said the easiest way to fail a mock interrogation was to approach violating the Geneva Convention.

He was sent to Abu Ghraib as part of the unit that had to "clean up" the place after the scandal, and so his actual interrogations did not involve any of the infamous "techniques" that we read about.  In fact, he said that defiling the Koran or berating Islam were forbidden.  Berating the individual, on the other hand, . . . .

For the first three weeks, he had a sort of naivete that the detainees would respond to logic, to our values, and so forth.  What he found was that he would ask questions, and they would respond, "I don't know."  His sense of duty began to flag; of the 133 detainees he interrogated during his time there, he could count on one hand the number that he thought had actually done bad things.  The rest were cab drivers, imams, storekeepers, and so on.  Saying his prayers became "torture" because he was eating well at the mess hall and then interrogating hungry people.

Part of the problem seemed to be an "utter lack of understanding of the difference between terrorism, insurgency, and tribal defense."  Any male Iraqi with an AK-47 might be arrested, even though many of them were simply defending their tribes.

He was under pressure to meet a quota of "10 reports" per week, but most of the prisoners had no useful information.  He grew weary of the verbally aggressive tirades that were the standard interrogation technique, as well as the tactic of promising to do "everything in his power" to help the prisoner -- a misleading but true statement, since he had no power at all to carry out the offered incentives.

Finally, he interrogated a self-described Jihadist from Saudi Arabia.  The Jihadist freely confessed to coming to Iraq to kill people like Casteel.  It was an odd interrogation, though, because the Jihadist was at peace with detention because of his own faith and "wished that I would have the same kind of faith."  The Jihadist said that Casteel wasn't "following the teachings of Jesus, to turn the other cheek."  Casteel was at a loss for words, because he agreed.

Having broken objectivity as an interrogator, Casteel stopped the interrogation and told his commanding officer that he couldn't continue.  He applied for conscientious objector status and got it three months later.

Comments

[joe]

I also attended the talk and thought it was interesting. I'm not that acquainted with the theory of pacifism, how it's actually supposed to work. So what follows are simply first impressions rather than a solidified position.

The Saudi Jihadist story reminded me of Luke 4 (my background is similar to Mr Casteel's) when Jesus is tempted by Satan for forty days in the desert. Satan quotes from Psalms in trying to get Jesus to throw himself off the temple. What Jesus doesn't do is say, "Yes, you're right. Your interpretation of that passage is right and therefore I must do what it says." Instead he counters with a different passage. Of course, Jesus had slightly more knowledge about the correct interpretation than Mr Casteel. Still, when someone who wants to beat me up tells me that I'm obligated turn the other cheek, I'm going to ponder whether turning the cheek is something I'm obligated to do under every circumstance or if there are other, competing obligations that I have. What I'm saying is that rather than precipitate a moment of pacifist clarity, the Saudi's statement would have had the opposite effect of making me question whether pacifism is a viable answer to all uses of force or only a subset.

Conscientious objection would seem more conscientious to me if it was more closely tied to just war theory, less so to a pacifism that has to oppose involvement in all wars.

[D. Henry Patterson]

I went to High School with Josh. It's funn - Josh and I had many heated discusions regarding faith and politics. We never saw eye-to-eye, yet held a mutual respect for each other.

What a fascinating discussion regarding his recent talks. I produce a podcast called the Creepy Sleepy Show. On the podcast, we've interviewed Senators, musicians and a host of activists. None match the intensity of two Iraq vets we recently had on the show. They echoed similar sentiments I've found here. Thanks for the interesting discussion. I'm glad to know that Josh is doing well.

DHP

[Dave]

Joe,
I couldn't have put it better myself. Comming from Clownshoe's (Casteel) same background... My retort to this ridiculous story of an incompetent interrogator would have had a bit more anger, and less clarity. thanks for you're wonderful insight, and knowledge on the subject.

Dave