War LanguagesWomen and the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo tortures

Vesa Matteo Piludu

University of Helsinki

Department of Art Research

Photos of torture and humiliations at Abu Ghraib Prison

Photos of torture and humiliations at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib Prison: use of dogs

An Iraqi detainee appears to be restrained after having suffered injuries to both legs at Abu Ghraib

Photos of torture and humiliations at Abu Ghraib Prison

Photos of torture and humiliations at Abu Ghraib Prison

Photos of torture and humiliations at Abu Ghraib Prison

Photos of torture and humiliations at Abu Ghraib Prison

Photos of torture and humiliations at Abu Ghraib Prison

Photos of torture and humiliations at Abu Ghraib Prison

Photos of torture and humiliations at Abu Ghraib Prison

Photos of torture and humiliations at Abu Ghraib Prison

"This is international standards," said Karpinski, in an earlier interview with CBS. "It's the best care available in a prison facility."

Abu Ghraib: unrespecting dead bodies

ABC News has obtained two new photos taken at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq showing Spc. Charles Graner and Spc. Sabrina Harmon posing over the body of a detainee who was allegedly beaten to death by CIA or civilian interrogators in the prison's showers. The detainee's name was Manadel al-Jamadi.

Abu Ghraib

Similarity with high school bullism: adolescent gestures and facial expressions

Photographs of triumph and victory, perverse trophies

Pornographic logic: men are abused, debased, humiliated, naked

Idea of reverse of male-female power attitude

Colonialist ideology

Colonialist logic, clear racist attitude

Naked native – Clothed conqueror

Racist ideas about the Muslim attitudes towards women

Continuity with the Saddam’s regime

The prison was previously used by the Saddam’s regime for tortures

Tortures with fake menstrual blood in Guantanamo

Female interrogators tried to break Muslim detainees at the U.S. prison camp in Guantanamo Bay by sexual touching, wearing miniskirts and thong underwear and smearing men’s face with fake menstrual blood

Women and torture

Precedents: some nazi women became infamous for their tortures

Ilse Koch, the so-called Bich of Buchenwald, was known for riding the camps on horseback looking for interesting tattoos on prisoners that she could turn into lamp shades made from human skin

During Pinochet’s regime some detainees reported that ”among torturers the women were the worst”

Women soldiers as scapegoats?

Even if in the photos there are also men, the women soldiers became the scapegoats of all the matter, as all the tortures were born from the mind of few perverse girls

The complexity of tortures, and their repetitions, indicated that there are clear orders coming from high spheres of secret services

If the soldiers has done photos, they were quite sure about their impunity: they send the photos to their “buddies”

Similar torture systems were used in Guantanamo

Similarities with torture systems of past Latin American dictatorial governments, often supported by CIA