Secret Afghan Prisons May Trump GTMO Abuses

Could the now infamous revelations of torture and abuse at Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan’s Bagram Air Base be just the tip of the iceberg? Hard to believe, no doubt. But, in an explosive story published in The Nation last week, Anand Gopal writes that the U.S. military in Afghanistan has regularly been conducting violent night raids in Pashtun villages, arresting suspects on scanty evidence, and transferring them to secret detention sites throughout the country where they are being aggressively interrogated and possibly even tortured.

Former prisoners held at these small and highly covert Field Detention Sites –- operated by U.S. Special Operations Forces –- allege widespread abuse and torture, claims that have been corroborated by Afghan government officials and the Afghan Independent Human Rights Commission.

Among the many alleged offenses, former detainees claim that U.S. interrogators working at the underground jails have employed some of the harshest interrogation tactics to date, including: blindfolding and chaining prisoners to the ceiling for hours, beating, slapping, and physically mutilating detainees, and unleashing dogs on inmates.

In some cases, U.S. interrogators may have outright murdered prisoners in the process of questioning.

These latest allegations follow the equally harrowing reports from November 2009 that the Pentagon’s Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) is also operating a secret prison located somewhere on the Bagram Air Base known to prisoners as the “Black Jail,” where detainees have reportedly been subjected to forced nudity, sleep deprivation, extended isolation, and sexual humiliation.  According to reports, prisoners held at the secret jail have also been detained for weeks at a time without access to the International Committee of the Red Cross.

So much for ‘winning’ the hearts and minds of the Afghan people.

Shrouded in an impenetrable cloud of secrecy, these secret detention sites have bred anger and resentment amongst the Afghan people, some of whom say they now fear U.S. military night raids and interrogation tactics more than the Taliban itself.

On just his second day in office, President Obama issued Executive Order No. 13491, designed to shut down secret prisons and ban torture practices utilized during the Bush administration. Yet, while CIA prisons may have been eliminated, interrogations sites operated by the Department of Defense clearly remain in place, and the abusive treatment of suspected insurgents has continued.

Given that the success of the Obama administration’s Afghan strategy is predicated on the ability to enlist the Afghan people in the fight against the Taliban and al Qaeda, the JSOC secret detention system is directly undermining America’s mission in the country.

Human rights organizations are already calling on the Obama administration to launch an independent and comprehensive investigation into the use of the secret prisons. If President Obama does not heed these calls, address the latest allegations of abuse, and explain to the American and Afghan public why the JSOC is operating a network of secret prisons across the country, he surely risks losing the battle for the hearts and minds of the Afghan people, along with his ongoing fight to repair America’s tarnished image across the world.

Photo credit: ACS