The Psychology of Torture: Interview with Rory Kennedy, Director of 'Ghosts of Abu Ghraib'

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The Psychology of Torture: Interview with Rory Kennedy, Director of 'Ghosts of Abu Ghraib' — Feb 15th 2007

By Karina Longworth

Rory Kennedy opens her latest documentary, The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib, with footage of the Milgram Experiment, a 1961 behavioral study designed to ask the question, "Could the entire Holocaust really have been the work soldiers following orders?" The results demonstrated that most people will step way beyond their personal moral boundaries if directed to do so by an authority figure. In the Milgram case, subjects thought they were inflicting near-fatal electroshock treatments on unseen prisoners (in reality, they were causing no harm). Conversely, Kennedy demonstrates that the American soldiers involved in the infamous Abu Ghraib torture incidents were made to think that they were doing nothing wrong. When images of the extreme interrogation techniques leaked and the government needed a scapegoat, many of those same soldiers were then sent to prison for following orders.

Netscape sat down with Kennedy last month at the Sundance Film Festival. It was the morning after President Bush's State of the Union speech, and the director, a member of America's most famous left-leaning political family, discussed not only her film but the War on Terror, military history, governmental transparency, and why she thinks the majority of Americans "are mad as hell and are not going to take it anymore." Ghosts of Abu Ghraib premieres Thursday, February 22 on HBO.

The film uses the Milgram Experiment as a structuring metaphor. Did you begin the project with that in mind?

I had originally planned to do a very different film, which was more about the nature of ordinary people who commit extraordinary acts of evil. We were looking to genocides to exemplify that. And then, like so many other people, I was horrified by the photographs that came out of Abu Ghraib, and continued to be haunted by them years after. I found myself asking: Who were these people and what motivated them? Were they the kids next door or were they psychopaths? What was their childhood like? And so I then went back to HBO, where I had been developing the film on genocide, and I said, "How would you feel if we were to change direction and look at Abu Ghraib as our example?'" They were excited about that, and I was then able to get access to a number of the soldiers involved in the abuse--and ultimately to the detainees.

When I talked to these people and asked the question, "Why did you do this?'", they all said the same thing: "I did it because I was told to do it." So Ghosts of Abu Ghraib became much more of an investigative film, and less of a psychological film.
If I'm reading your thesis correctly, it was a combination of factors that caused the soldiers to commit these acts. They were given orders, of course--but in addition, a lot of these people were very young, and they were in a climate that limited their ability to make rational or moral decisions.

I think that's right. I mean, the film still maintains that original intention, which is to explore the psychological component of how these things transpire. But it also addresses the larger, structural elements that were in play: the systems that were there, the people who authorized a lot of the behavior, the policies that were put in place.

I was wondering how you got John Yoo to speak with you. It seems like many documentary filmmakers who have a critical view of the government or the Iraq War are having trouble convincing current and former Administration officials to speak on camera.

We had a lot of trouble getting access to people within the administration or the military. We approached everybody from General Geoffrey Miller to President Bush to Vice President Cheney to Don Rumsfeld, and none of them agreed to speak with us on camera. [Yoo] was in a bit of an unique position because he's no longer part of the administration. I'm very grateful that he was willing to speak with us, because I think it's really important to understand all sides of this debate, rather than just seeing it from a single perspective. I really tried to respect where John Yoo is coming from and what he had to say, and what the administration was thinking at the time, to the degree that he was able to represent that.

Yoo argues that the actual wording of the Geneva Convention is vague. At one point he says that he thinks the people who ordered these abuses thought they were following Geneva. Do you believe that?

He does say that. There's a real disconnect, because the Geneva Conventions say that you have to treat people humanely, you can't abuse them, right? And what Sanchez had authorized was sleep deprivation, stress positions, hooding, nudity. No matter what your interpretation of the Geneva Conventions may be, that's not treating people humanely, that's not respecting human dignity. So it's hard for me to imagine anybody interpreting the Geneva Conventions in such a way that would legitimize those techniques. Ultimately Sanchez did rescind those techniques. But people on the ground were confused about what was authorized and what was not. There wasn't a clear message down the ranks that they could no longer engage in these techniques.

All of this happened after General Miller came to Iraq and ordered Abu Ghraib to be "Gitmoized." What did that mean?

Miller arrived in August of 2003, and a lot of his recommendations were then approved by General Sanchez and other people locally. What he did was to transform one portion of the prison, which was known as "the hard site," into an interrogation center. And that's where they placed their high-value detainees. Then these MPs, who weren't even trained to be prison guards in the first place, were brought into the interrogation staff. They were basically asked to prepare the detainees for the interrogations, to do things like sleep deprivations and stress positions. All the detainees in this area were naked for the duration (some would get their clothes back if they performed in a way that pleased the officials). So [Miller's recommendations] radically transformed the way this part of the prison operated. And the MPs were told that this is how they were going to save America and fight the War on Terror.

So you think the soldiers who were actually involved with this went into it with good intentions, and with faith that they were being told to do the right thing?

I do. I do think that. I don't know about all of them, but I would say absolutely most of them had very good intentions. They went into this war in an effort to protect America, and wanted to fight terrorism, and wanted to save this country, and were thrown into an environment in which they had absolutely no way to navigate.

And the people who were navigating for them--

Were encouraging them to engage in very abusive behavior.

What long-term impact do you see this saga having on the reputation of the United States?

The film is about America, and who we are, and the policies we're engaged in. It's not just looking back to the Geneva Conventions, in the late 1940s--you can go all the way back to the American Revolution. During that time, George Washington was faced with a similar issue. The British soldiers were treating Americans absolutely horrendously. They were chopping off our heads and they were treating us like dogs, like animals, and Washington was asked, "How do you want to treat the British prisoners?" He said, "Treat them with respect and dignity." Because if we lose our moral compass, this battle's not worth fighting. And that has been the mission that has dictated American foreign policy for the past 200 years--with the exception of the last six.

I know there's a lot of legitimate fear of terrorism, and it's a different world. But maintaining our moral compass during these difficult times, and the integrity of who we are as a people, is enormously critical, especially right now. So to me, this isn't just a film about Abu Ghraib. It's about the policies that are still in place, right now, that can contribute to another Abu Ghraib--that contribute to a sense of our country having lost that moral platform. That was the reason why you could travel anywhere in the world and say, "I'm an American," and people would look at you with admiration and respect. Well, that doesn't happen anymore, and it has all changed in six years. Which is the saddest part of this whole thing.

Can we fix it?

I do think it is fixable. But as citizens, we have to demand more transparency from this government. We've passed this legislation, and we have our leaders saying we don't torture, but if you look between the lines of the legislation, there's still lots of room for abuse. In [The Military Commissions Act of 2006], they say we don't torture, but a different set of standards applies to the CIA. And so you ask, what are those standards? And you get the answer, "Well, you can understand why we can't tell you that."

I think the average person is so confused as to what our policy on torture actually entails.

Right. Nobody knows what our policy is. The policy makers don't know what our policy is! You really have to analyze it with a fine-toothed comb to understand that there is still ample room for abuse. So I'm deeply, deeply concerned. I mean, we've taken away habeas corpus, we've taken away the rights of prisoners--constitutional rights that we've maintained for hundreds of years in the country. We've just taken them away from prisoners who don't have the right to an attorney, who don't have the right to represent themselves, who may be held in prison indefinitely. That sounds like a country that is completely unfamiliar to me. It's frightening that America is representing these ideals and policies to the rest of the world.

We're heading into a new presidential election. Do you feel that eight years of damage will be too much for the next administration to correct? Or can change in the opposite direction happen just as quickly?

I think it can happen. I mean, yesterday they had a poll that said the President's approval rating is at a new low, which is 33 percent--

Actually, this morning, it fell to the high 20s. After the State of the Union.

Really? [laughs] So, I think people are mad as hell and they're not going to take it anymore. That's where we are when you have 75 percent of the country saying, "We're heading in the wrong direction, Mr. President." The American people feel emboldened to take this presidency to task, and to halt the abuse of power.

Portions of this interview previously appeared here.

Tags: abughraib, documentary, ghosts of abu ghraib, GhostsOfAbuGhraib, interview, iraq, netscape reports, NetscapeReports, prison, rory kennedy, RoryKennedy, torture

13 Comments

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Pat Cuviello — 3:55AM on Feb 16th 2007

1. Rory's film sounds interesting and I look forward to viewing it on DVD. However she must be incredibly naive or just plain ignorant of U.S. history to make the statement that it has only been in the last six years that we have lost our moral compass and have stopped treating our "enemies" with respect and dignity. Is she really unaware of the countries with democratically elected leaders that the CIA has destabilized in the interests of America's business community, thereby establishing brutal dictators who rule their people in the most oppressive manner. Is she ignorant of the "School of the Americas", in Georgia, which teaches military leaders of brutal dictatorships ways to torture people. Was she not taught our history of the wars against the natives of this country to oust them from their homes and their ways of life. Maybe Washington went to war with dignity and treated his enemies with dignity and respect, I don't know, but that has certainly not been the guide for our war policies since then.

David Stirewalt — 2:19PM on Feb 16th 2007

2. Extreme interrogation? Torture incidents? Have you seen what they do to our people when they are captured? GIve me a break, the left wing liberal mouthpieces that spout off this nonsense and push thier agenda on the rest of us need to take a true look at the facts, and get a grip on reality. Wake up!

kurt mcnally — 3:52PM on Feb 16th 2007

3. We must face the truth. If we are not willing to bring the real 9-11 mass murderers
to justice then we have failed as a nation.

Bill Smith — 6:03PM on Feb 16th 2007

4. David, we are all painfully mindful of what "they" do to captured prisoners (Allied Soldiers, innocent Iraqui's, journalistz, etc.). Their practices of torture are WHY we call them terrorists. When American military at Abu Ghraib are encouraged to commit these inhumane acts, it serves as "proof" to the world-at-large that Americans are little better than the enemy. If America is to succeed in the war-on-terror, then we must demonstrate by rule of law and execution of the treatment of prisoners that we operate from the moral highground.

Pat, I sincerely hope the next President (Republican or Democrat) outlaws the "School of the Americas". I envision a country which learns from its errors. Show me any reasonable American who thinks that the forced internment of Japanese-Americans in WWII was justified. General George Washington WAS right about how we should treat prisoners. And he would have been appalled by the incidents at Abu Ghraib. We have at steak not just our international "reputation", but also our own moral and spiritual values.

And by the way, David, I am a liberal. But I get along famously with my MANY conservative friends who feel just as disgusted as I do with what happened in Abu Ghraib and also with the renewed revelations about the CIA's illegal transportation of prisoners from one country to another in order to faciliate torture.

You might think that this is all a liberal rant, but it's not. In fact, I hear my conservative colleagues apply that old "slippery slope" argument. If we allow for torture of enemy combatants, how soon before we start to consider similar practices with American citizens detained or arrested for suspicion of a crime? Eliminate "habeous corpus" and allow for beatings and torture, and it starts to sound like we (citizens of the USA) are like German Nazi's.

Bill Smith — 6:13PM on Feb 16th 2007

5. Your comments: David, we are all painfully mindful of what "they" do to captured
prisoners (Allied Soldiers, innocent Iraqi's, journalists, etc.).
Their practices of torture are WHY we call them terrorists. When
American military at Abu Ghraib are encouraged to commit these
inhumane acts, it serves as "proof" to the world-at-large that
Americans are little better than the enemy. If America is to succeed
in the war-on-terror, then we must demonstrate by rule of law and
execution of the treatment of prisoners that we operate from the
moral highground. Pat, I sincerely hope the next President (Republican
or Democrat) outlaws the "School of the Americas". I envision a
country which learns from its errors. Show me any reasonable
American who thinks that the forced internment of Japanese-Americans
in WWII was justified. General George Washington WAS right about how
we should treat prisoners. And he would have been appalled by the
incidents at Abu Ghraib. We have at steak not just our international
"reputation", but also our own moral and spiritual values. And by the
way, David, I am a liberal. But I get along famously with my MANY
conservative friends who feel just as disgusted as I do with what
happened in Abu Ghraib and also with the renewed revelations about
the CIA's illegal transportation of prisoners from one country to
another in order to facilitate torture. You might think that this is
all a liberal rant, but it's not. In fact, I hear my conservative
colleagues apply that old "slippery slope" argument. If we allow for
torture of enemy combatants, how soon before we start to consider
similar practices with American citizens detained or arrested for
suspicion of a crime? Eliminate "habeous corpus" and allow for
beatings and torture, and it starts to sound like we (citizens of the
USA) are like German Nazi's.

Maurice A — 6:25PM on Mar 1st 2007

6. This film really shows the world what really goes on. First of all war an terror cause of 9/11 where is bin laden who was the one that started all this war. Are we even looking for him huh, weapons of mass destruction "where", and along with other films I have saw I'm kinda scared to leave the country and say I'm an american. Truth like this let's me know how we beacme the power of the world and the cost other countries paid, think of the stories we have not heard about, the countless victims and death. I know some things must take place but there is a fine line between, for the good of man and for the good of our selfs.

Ron Hollan — 9:33PM on Mar 20th 2007

7. I watched Rory on the View this morning, and I give her alot of credit for doing something like this. She really did her homework on this project. I am looking forward to seeing this on hbo, or when it comes out on dvd. The Bush Administration is responsible for this damn mess in Iraq, and he should be impeached. I am a registered Democrat. I really think Bush went into Iraq to finish what his Father started, and it has to been one of hell of a disaster. The troops need to come home, and let these people in Iraq fend for them selfs.

Andrea Stone — 11:23PM on Mar 20th 2007

8. The US Government is not only torturing POWs, they are torturing US citizens and using them as lab rats. It is truly a dark, evil time in US history when the government uses Directed Energy Non-Lethal Weapons on its own citizens. They use microwaves, ground penetrating radar and satellites to lock onto their targets(innocent US citizens)and deliver burning and intense pain to all parts of their body and move nerves and muscles in their bodies. This is all done remotely while the cowards sit in their hiding places striking everywhere their target goes. They also use the technology to perform "remote neural monitoring" accessing the target's brain to listen to their thoughts and to make the target listen to the psychological attacks these monsters decide to deliver. I am one of those targets and there others. One group holds conference calls on Saturdays; contact information for that call can be found at http://www.freedomfchs.com. There others like mcactivism. If you can get my story to Rory Kennedy and give her my email address perhaps she will bring this monstrous government practice to light.

Betty Knowlton — 11:06PM on Mar 23rd 2007

9. Ms. Kennedy,

What authority can you cite for your claim on The View Tuesday, March 20 that the British beheaded anyone during the American Revolution?

Betty Knowlton
9545 Circle Dr.
Pickerington, Ohio 43147
614-868-0523
raillone@aol.com

Janis L — 10:37AM on Mar 24th 2007

10. In 1997 I turned over tapes to the FBI that contained information regarding the Olympic Park Bombing via a local detective that had been threatened by the same man on the tapes. In 2001 the FBI entered my house while I was not home and stole pictures and money from me. They opened my mail and then glued it back shut. They broke a large picture frame in my house and entered a locked room where my computer was leaving the door knob hamging loose. I hired n investigator who supported the fact that I was fallowed by the Southeast Bomb Task Force. In fact they followed me from NC to Wyoming twice then they followed me on the river where I worked for over a year. They used tug boats and fishing boats and I came to recognize these agents. They followed me to Pa. and back to NC where they began using this technology to interrogate me in my sleep and they raped and sodomized me until I had internal injuries. They also used a mock execution style shot to the head complete with the sticky substance on y face, my body going numb and cold and then told me that this is what it feels like to be shot in the head. My head shook and my ears rang and they reduced my hearing from that mock execution. WHY? They only followed me for two years until Rudolph was arrested and then they began the harassment and I became a target. WHY? Because they had returned the tapes without listening or copying them and they did not want anyone to know what they had done. First of all the defense would have had a right to the tapes even though Rudolph was guilty. They did not investigate the man on the tapes and I believe he knew Rudolph. So, once again there is another person that may have been involved in the crime and the FBI let him go. The third man in the OK bombing is still just a third man and this man is just a second man. Rudolph is guilty and I never told the FBI that the man in the tapes was the bomber. I said he had porior knowledge of the bombing and had they done their job they may have saved the lady in Alabama.

Soleilmavis — 11:24PM on Mar 24th 2007

11. I wish to bring you some of victim's stories. http://soleilmavis.googlepages.com/comments2

There are different kinds of Mind Control Weapons, such as: Drug Mind Control Weapons, Electronic Chip “implant” Mind Control Weapons, Nano technology “implant” Mind Control Weapons, Microwave or Electromagnetic Mind Control Weapons. The main differences between Mind Control Weapons and other weapons are that Mind Control Weapons harm human beings by attacking brain and nervous system.
Victims stories are different because of different kind of Mind Control Weapons.
Here is some details information of different Mind Control Weapons:
http://soleilmavis.googlepages.com/links

Zeitgeist — 2:42AM on Mar 26th 2007

12. 10:37AMJanis L
In 1997 I turned over tapes to the FBI that contained information regarding the Olympic Park Bombing via a local detective that had been threatened by the same man on the tapes. In 2001 the FBI entered my house while I was not home and stole pictures and money from me. They opened my mail and then glued it back shut. They broke a large picture frame in my house and entered a locked room where my computer was leaving the door knob hamging loose. I hired n investigator who supported the fact that I was fallowed by the Southeast Bomb Task Force. In fact they followed me from NC to Wyoming twice then they followed me on the river where I worked for over a year. They used tug boats and fishing boats and I came to recognize these agents. They followed me to Pa. and back to NC where they began using this technology to interrogate me in my sleep and they raped and sodomized me until I had internal injuries. They also used a mock execution style shot to the head complete with the sticky substance on y face, my body going numb and cold and then told me that this is what it feels like to be shot in the head. My head shook and my ears rang and they reduced my hearing from that mock execution. WHY? They only followed me for two years until Rudolph was arrested and then they began the harassment and I became a target. WHY? Because they had returned the tapes without listening or copying them and they did not want anyone to know what they had done. First of all the defense would have had a right to the tapes even though Rudolph was guilty. They did not investigate the man on the tapes and I believe he knew Rudolph. So, once again there is another person that may have been involved in the crime and the FBI let him go. The third man in the OK bombing is still just a third man and this man is just a second man. Rudolph is guilty and I never told the FBI that the man in the tapes was the bomber. I said he had porior knowledge of the bombing and had they done their job they may have saved the lady in Alabama.

-------------------------------------

Lady...you are insane.

nomi — 11:54AM on Mar 26th 2007

13. Directed energy weapons, including but not limited to, microwave weapons, electromagnetic weapons, radio-frequency weapons, are being used experimentally on selected, targeted individuals widely dispersed across the United States. They cause extreme pain and suffering.

These weapons are extremely violent, but when the targeted individual tries to talk about it, people think it is imaginative, fanciful, or chimerical thinking.

Would The View be interested in doing a show about directed energy weapons being used on unarmed, defenseless, innocent, private citizens.

At NewsQuake!, the Netscape staff blogs about breaking news of every stripe. Looking for context, commentary, and lively reportage? You’ve come to the right place.

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