How torture becomes an accepted practice in the United States : on the formation and preservation of an enemy in the ‘War on Terror’

Abstract

Since the release of the infamous photographs, which depicted the torture of Iraqi prisoners by American military personnel at the Abu Ghraib prison, it has come to an increased international public awareness that U.S. authorities are systematically using cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment as an interrogative technique in secret detention facilities around the world. Most of the detainees have been found innocent at a later stage. This is problematic because the prisoners have no available means to prove their innocence. This study attempts to identify the processes that allow torture of detainees suspected of affiliation with Islamic terrorist organizations to be enacted by U.S. military personnel and to be legitimized in the United States society. The dissertation focuses on the discursive practices that define meanings of torture and that create and dehumanize an ‘Enemy Other’ and images of dangerous terrorist in the aftermath of September 11th attack. The dissertation uses discourse analysis as a methodological and analytical tool. That is, it analyzes the discourses that produce meaning of what constitutes torture and the effect of these discourses on the enactment and legitimization of torture. The dissertations also analyzes the discourses that dehumanize Arab Muslims and create images of an Enemy Other and of dangerous terrorists, and how these discourses in turn influence the utilization and endorsement of torture. The dissertation concludes that the monopolization and maintenance of these discourses enable the enactment of torture by U.S. military authorities, and allow the practice to not only be overlooked, but to also be conceptualized and perceived as legitimate by the American public.

Keywords: human rights, torture, the ‘War on Terror’, dehumanization, discourse, Geneva Conventions, the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman, or Degrading Treatment, denial, ‘clash of civilizations’.