This piece by David Tell in the Weekly Standard has been getting a lot of play in the right blogosphere. The bit the conservatives are focusing on? Tell’s accusation that the ACLU has told terrible lies which the mainstream press has uncritically repeated.
A frequent complaint of conservative blogs is that the mainstream media didn’t factcheck the ACLU before releasing its report. For instance, Media Lies writes:
But as far as I can tell, none of the conservative bloggers bothered to check David Tell’s “facts.” If they had, they might have known that this story is not as clear-cut as they believe. From Tell’s article: That number wasn’t even close to accurate. The documents show that military medical examiners attributed 19 of the 43 deaths to natural causes, 2 others to factors as yet “undetermined,” called one further death an “accident,” and left the “manner of death” box in 8 case files entirely blank. There were 13 official “homicides,” not 21. And documents associated with at most 5 of those homicides contain even the vaguest hint of possible wrongdoing by American personnel. The other 8 appear to have been “homicides” only in the technical sense that mortuary physicians use the term…to indicate any nonaccidental death resulting from human agency, whether sinister or innocent. And what would an entirely innocent homicide look like, you ask? Innocence is in the eye of the beholder, of course, but try this on for size: Two of the very same “homicides” the ACLU has for two months now been content to cite as evidence of “widespread” human rights abuses involve wounded Iraqi insurgents captured after armed engagements with American troops. Both men were evacuated to U.S. hospitals where surgeons attempted to save their lives. But neither man survived his injuries. Not the sort of thing they investigate on “Law and Order.” And not the sort of thing that American newspapers and television networks any longer investigate either, apparently. The ACLU’s October 24 press release was extensively covered in the press. And its “21 homicides, many under questionable circumstances” datum has since become a “fact,” inevitably cited in an endless stream of stories about our current government’s peculiar propensity for torture and other such subhuman activities. No one seems to have noticed that the whole thing is bogus. Let’s take Tell’s last paragraph first – was the ACLU press release “extensively covered in the press”? I did a Lexis search for stories in major newspapers since October 20 with the words “ACLU” and “detainees” anywhere in the text. I found one full story reporting on the ACLU’s claim (“Autopsies Support Abuse Allegations,” LA Times, 10/25/2005), and three other mentions (“21 die from interrogation,” The Advertiser, 10/26/2005; “National Briefs,” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, 10/26/2005; “Controversy grows over legal status of detainees,” Financial Times, 10/27/2005). Contrary to Tell’s narrative, it’s clear that that mainstream newspapers virtually all ignored this story. (I want to point out that The Advertiser‘s headline is egregiously wrong, although the story below the headline was accurate. But since I’ve never heard of The Advertiser before today’s Lexis search, I doubt it’s a major media organ.) Furthermore, every one of those four stories prominently mentions an important fact that Tell left out. Here’s the first paragraph of the LA Times story: Here’s the second paragraph of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazzette’s coverage: The other two reported it the same way – “The ACLU said eight detainees appeared to have died during or after interrogation by Navy Seals, Military Intelligence and OGA,” as The Financial Times put it, and “the group characterised 21 as homicides, and said at least eight resulted from abusive techniques by military or intelligence officers,” as The Advertiser put it. So every story I could find in the press mentions that the ACLU claimed that eight – not 21 – died from being tortured or abused by U.S. personnel. And that’s what the ACLU’s press release says, too: So, in fact, the ACLU and the press have only claimed that “at least eight” of the deaths are attributable to abuse by U.S. personnel. If the ACLU’s documents contain “at least eight” such deaths – and as we’ll see, they do – then the accusations that the ACLU has lied are unfounded. But first, let’s look at another of Tell’s claims. Tell writes: That number wasn’t even close to accurate. […] There were 13 official “homicides,” not 21. But hold on a moment – the ACLU’s press release never claims that “the Pentagon itself had labeled 21… deaths ‘homicide.'” The ACLU report never refers to “official homicides.” But you’d never know that from Tell’s account. The truth is, both Tell and the ACLU are being squirrley here. The ACLU claims that “according to the documents,” there are 21 homicides – but, technically, it never says that the Pentagon itself has officially labeled all them as homicides. Still, the phrasing could easily be read that way. 3 of the 4 newspaper reports I found didn’t get misled – all three attribute the 21 homicide count to the ACLU, not to the government – but one paper, The Financial Times, got it wrong. The ACLU press release gives details about some of the deaths they classified as “homicide.” The first death they describe is this one: Note that cause of death is “undetermined,” not “homicide.” So despite a single misleading phrase, the ACLU’s press release didn’t hide the fact that their homicide count includes deaths not classified as “homicide” by the government. I do agree with Tell that the ACLU appears to be counting some ambiguous cases as “homicide,” merely because the government has officially labeled them homicides (for an example, a case of a prisoner suffering fatal injuries during an escape attempt). So a point goes to Mr. Tell there. Finally, let’s look at the most important, substantive point: Are there, in fact, 8 deaths described in the ACLU documents that could reasonably be described as caused by abuse or torture by U.S. personnel? Yes, there are. The ACLU press release lists the following four cases in enough detail to convince me, and I think most reasonable people, that we’re talking about homicide due to actions by US personnel. An Iraqi detainee (also described as a white male) died on January 9, 2004, in Al Asad, Iraq, while being interrogated by “OGA.” He was standing, shackled to the top of a door frame with a gag in his mouth at the time he died. The cause of death was asphyxia and blunt force injuries. […] A detainee was smothered to death during an interrogation by Military Intelligence on November 26, 2003, in Al Qaim, Iraq.[…] A detainee at Abu Ghraib Prison, captured by Navy Seal Team number seven, died on November 4, 2003, during an interrogation by Navy Seals and “OGA.” A previously released autopsy report, that appears to be of Manadel Al Jamadi, shows that the cause of his death was “blunt force injury complicated by compromised respiration.” […] The other four deaths aren’t described in much detail in the ACLU press release – but reading the documents and researching the names has convinced me that the ACLU’s assessment is certainly defensible, and probably correct. From the ACLU’s press release: The autopsy report (pdf link) indicates that his beaten-to-death body was found “under guard by the Afghanistan Militia Forces.” So why is the ACLU blaming this one on the US Military? Because this appears to be Abdul Wahid’s autopsy, and the US Military has admitted that Abdul Wahid died in American custody (see this CBS news report). To me, this seems like the only one of the 8 deaths the ACLU refers to that can reasonably be questioned; and even here, the only question is if he was beaten to death by us or by our allies, and the US military appears to believe that it’s us. Then there’s this case: The ACLU’s press release should have mentioned that he was strangled to death while “in isolation,” according to the autopsy report (pdf link). I guess Tell would say that we don’t really know who killed this man; however, it doesn’t seem plausible that anyone who wasn’t part of the US military could manage to murder a prisoner in isolation in a US military prison. Finally, there are the cases of Mullah Habibullah, a 30-year-old beaten to death in a U.S. prison “with his arms shackled and tied to a beam in the ceiling”; and Dilawar, who was “beaten by guards and interrogators, some of whom stood with their full weight on top of him, concentrating on his groin.” Although neither case was described in detail by the ACLU’s press release, both are in the ACLU’s document collection, and both are certainly cases of homicide by US personnel. Total score: Six clear-cut cases of deaths caused by abuse and torture by American personnel, plus two likely but somewhat ambiguous cases. Tell’s claim that “at most 5 of those homicides contain even the vaguest hint of possible wrongdoing by American personnel” is not only nonsense, it’s reprehensible nonsense. By characterising six fairly clear-cut cases of prisoners being beaten and/or tortured to death as just “the vaguest hint of possible wrongdoing,” Tell is in effect minimizing and excusing murder and torture. Shame on him. On the whole, neither the ACLU nor The Weekly Standard‘s Tell looks perfect – but from what I can tell, the ACLU has much less reason for shame than The Weekly Standard. 1) On the anti-ACLU side, the ACLU may have messed up its count of homicides; its press release contained one sentence which could be read as saying that the “homicide” count was according to the US military’s official designations (the press release as a whole clearly discussed homicides regardless of official designation); and its count included some officially-designated homicides that I think are actually ambiguous. Finally, the ACLU’s primary claim was that 8 detainees have been murdered by American personnel; however, it seems to me that only 6 of the 8 cases are certain. 2) On the anti-Weekly Standard side, the Weekly Standard failed to mention that the ACLU’s primary claim was that 8 detainees have been murdered by American personnel, and that this was how the ACLU’s claim was reported in the mainstream press. Judging from a Lexis search of major newspapers, the Weekly Standard also vastly exaggerated the coverage the ACLU press release received; in fact, this story was overwhelmingly ignored by mainstream media. Finally, and most inexcusably, the Weekly Standard characterized clear-cut cases of detainee death due to inexcusable abuse by American personnel as containing only “the vaguest hint of possible wrongdoing.” In the ensuing discussion, let’s not forget that quibbling over how many documented torture deaths there are in this report (six? eight?) shouldn’t become an excuse for brushing aside the real moral point: even one such death, let alone six or eight, is entirely inexcusable. * * * By the way, check out the comments following this post on Protein Wisdom, in which several of the participants are discussing, in apparent seriousness, “Is there anyway the government could have [the ACLU] shut down once and for all?” Nothing at all fascist about that…
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So how does this prove the ACLU are not telling lies? You admit they are being sneaky. Shut em down!
Jay, it’s the difference between the politics of substance and the politics of “gotcha!”
The ACLU’s primary claim – that the records they released included 8 people tortured to death by US personnel – is likely to be correct, or if wrong only wrong in a morally trivial way (torturing 6 people to death is about as morally unacceptable as torturing 8 to death). Since that’s the important claim, that’s what should be focused on, if we’re concerned with substance.
On the other hand, if all you care about is playing “gotcha!,” then there’s no difference between my claim and The Weekly Standards; both my post and TWS point out that the ACLU made errors.
Fact-checking is important, and that’s why I’ve tried to acknowlege where I think the ACLU went wrong. But on the whole, we should aim for a politics of substance, not a politics of gotcha.
Okay, but think of this from the perspective of the person (or people) writing the report. There’s an ambiguous case that official reports call “homicide”. How do you categorize it? It seems that there is more justification for calling it homicide than not – it’s not the ACLU’s job to carefully determine each prisoner’s cause of death. And to do so would merely distract them from the more important task of calling attention to prisoner abuse.
The ACLU should, in my opinion, have counted them as homicides, but also pointed out in their press release that some of the government-labeled homicides seem a bit ambiguous.
(Of course, it’s also possible that ACLU researchers have information about those cases I wasn’t able to find. But, assuming I’ve found the relevant material, my answer above stands.)
Uck. I just read the comment thread you linked to. My law professors would have a field day with those boneheads. Even the conservative professors–in fact, in some cases, especially the conservative professors.
Protein Wisdom is full of the irony-challenged, is it?
I tend to be very distrustful of the ACLU (which is often really concerned more about equality than liberty). But when it comes to issues invlving the War on Terror or Iraq, I distrust the neocons even more.
Why do you all hate freedom?
Raznor writes
I disagree. To the extent that the ACLU misrepresents the facts, they reduce their credibility, which hurts their cause of calling attention to abuse.
Ampersand, great job of digging up the facts. I’ve added an update to my post to point out that your analysis reveals that Tell played fast and lose with the ACLU’s release. I agree with you that both sides misrepresent the truth. Unfortunately, that just pushes people farther into the various “camps”.
Being a Navy vet from the Vietnam war, I’m very sensitive to any criticism of the military and tend to react with anger.
It may be picking nits for some, but I disagree that some of what you’ve quoted amounts to torture. Things like being hooded, exposure to cold and heat and sleep deprivation are not, in my opinion, torture. In fact, any military person can tell you that we’ve been subjected to the same things during training (especially SEALs!)
But even cases that appear to have been torture, may not have been. For example, a man who dies from blunt force trauma may not have been beaten at all. If you’re standing within a few feet of an artillery shell (depends on the type of ordnance how close you can be and still survive) when it lands and explodes and you survive, you could easily look like you’d had the crap beaten out of you, even if you didn’t get hit by any shrapnel. (Believe it or not, it can happen.)
If you have a captive who was brought in from the battlefield with those types of injuries (but no visible trauma at the time of capture), he could easily have died in custody without even having been interrogated or even noticed before he died. An autopsy would find the blunt force injuries, and it would be easy to assume they were received during a beating. (That’s why we have courts martial.)
My point is not to excuse abuse but that, without more of the facts, it’s really difficult to know what happened in specific cases. (The strangulation and suffocation cases are, in my opinion, clear cut.)
I can’t dislike the ACLU. They were willing to sue on my and others behalf here, if necessary(It wasn’t.) They do a lot, even though they have limited resources.
I think they balance liberty and equality fairly well, in that not only should people be able to access the liberties, but all people, regardless of race, gender, etc. should be able to access them equality.
O.C. has an active chapter, and we don’t. Life just isn’t fair.
“O.C. has an active chapter, and we don’t. Life just isn’t fair.”
If you join the national organization, the closest chapter near you will receive some funding from your contribution. $75.00 per year. (Card Carrier, here).
Why do you all hate freedom?
We’re diseased liberty-enlargers. We just can’t help ourselves.
Why do you all hate freedom?
I don’t hate freedom. I love it so much in fact that I want everyone to have it without regard to race, religion, gender, age, affirmity, national origin, or any other thing that people use to discriminate against other people.