US open about its evils?

The Torture Report and the Indian Wars

By Steve RussellWe are told we should cool our jets about torture because no other country has aired as much dirty laundry as we are wanting hung up for all to see.

Really?

Foreign Policy recently suggested that argument fails with a look at South Africa’s Commission of Truth and Reconciliation (1995-2002); the Netherlands’ report—Dossier Srebrenica (2002)—on the role of the Dutch army in the 1995 genocide in Bosnia-Herzegovina; Brazil’s National Truth Commission report (2014); Germany’s two truth commissions in 1992 and 1995; Sweden’s investigation into the treatment of the Roma population (2010); Guatemala’s Commission for Historical Clarification (1997-1999); Bolivia’s National Commission for Investigation for Forced Disappearances (1982-1984); or Ecuador’s Truth Commission to Impede Impunity (2007-2009).

No, the United States is not out in front of the world in admitting the evil it has done.

No, a report on ethnic cleansing of American Indians, bounties on R**skin scalps and hides, confiscation of Indian property, and brainwashing Indian children would not be without historical precedent. There are reasons not to do it, but the novelty of the idea is not one.

Historical antecedents of police brutality

With the protests against police shootings in Ferguson and New York City, Native writers are noting that violence against minorities is nothing new.

The I Can’t Breathe Movement

By Dana LonehillBeing shot and killed by police is nothing new to people with darker skin. Maybe some people think it is because of the recent civil rights movement dubbed I Can’t Breathe, in honor of the many killed by police and justified. Natives, Blacks, and other minority groups alike all know this story. They make up most of the prison system to this day and have never been under represented in anything to do with acts of genocide. Police brutality and militarization of police are something that date back slave days and days of putting Indians on a reservation.

In researching and preparing to write this, I asked many people their opinions or for quotes. I found many. I could and should post them here, but instead in the simplest terms, I will just throw it down like this. This country was founded on brutality and racism, resulting in genocide. This country was never about apple pie and baseball.

And all the muddy, messed up past is not recorded in the history books. Sure they talk about slavery and praise Lincoln for “freeing the slaves” but do the schoolbooks include Lincoln signing the death sentences of 264 Dakota prisoners? Or the mass hanging of 38 of those prisoners in what is now the largest mass execution in America? The history books will tell you what they want you to think, like you will remember or care, but they won’t tell you the truth.

Violence in the form of brutality and death is nothing new in this country. It has been happening for hundred of years, it is the foundation of this country.Where's the Senate Torture Report on All the Violence Done to Natives?

By Boyd CothranFollowing the attacks of September 11, 2001, the George W. Bush administration began constructing its legal response to the perceived terrorist threat. This response consisted of a series of legal opinions from the Department of Justice, many of them written by John C. Yoo, a University of California law professor who was then serving as a deputy assistant attorney general. The memorandums provided legal arguments to support the administration’s claim that detainees from the war in Afghanistan did not enjoy the protections of either the U.S. Constitution or the Geneva Convention and that the War Crimes Act of 1996 also did not apply. Despite considerable disagreement from Secretary of State Colin Powell and others, the administration went ahead, and by December 2002, the Defense Department had drafted detailed policies for interrogation techniques. Then, in early March 2003, Yoo authored one of his most sweeping legal briefs in what came to be known as the infamous Torture Memos. In it, he set out not only a legal justification but also a historical connection between unlawful combatants in the current conflict and Indigenous peoples in the nineteenth century.

Reading the eighty-one-page memorandum after it became available to the public in April 2008, I was surprised to discover that at a crucial point in his memorandum Yoo relied on U.S. attorney general George H. Williams’s 1873 opinion regarding the legality of denying Indian P.O.Ws fifth amendment due process rights. The opinion provided a legal justification for circumventing civilian jurisdiction to try the Modocs for murder by a military tribunal. “It cannot be pretended that a United States soldier is guilty of murder if he kills a public enemy in battle,” Williams wrote in 1873, “which would be the case if the municipal law was in force and applicable to an act committed under such circumstances.” The Modocs, Williams had argued, could be legally prosecuted and executed by the U.S. military as long as they were first declared criminals; the U.S. Army, in other words, could kill Indians who were deemed murderers without themselves becoming murderers.

One hundred thirty years later, Yoo resurrected this legal theory to support his expansive articulation of executive power and to maintain American innocence in the Global War on Terror. “The strictures that bind the Executive in its role as a magistrate enforcing the civil laws have no place in constraining the President in waging war,” Yoo argued. Enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, could be used on enemy combatants because federal criminal laws prohibiting assault and battery simply do not apply to such criminals. Within the eyes of American law, the enemy combatant was a criminal because the Modocs were criminals; the use of torture in the Global War on Terror was justified because hanging the Modoc was justified.

What does this all mean? Why is it important to recognize the historic roots of our current conversation about torture? Because history matters. Setting the record straight matters. In reckoning with the legacy of the September 11, 2001 and its aftermath Americans must confront the violence of the past and say "never again." But in doing so we must not think that these sort of judicially expedient accommodations are unprecedented. Too often we forget that the colonization and subjugation of the powerless are often carried out under the guise of the law. Williams constructed a legal opinion in 1873 to justify ends, which most Americans at the time would have viewed as necessary and justified. But in doing so, he created a means for others. A true accounting for the history of the use of torture in the war on terror will have to look far beyond the last decade to understand our longer use of the law to justify the unjust.Comment:  For more on the subject, see "Hands Up, Don't Shoot!" and Grand Juries Won't Indict Killer Cops.

"America, nation of torturers"

America, nation of torturers: Stop saying “this isn’t who we are”—here’s the real truth

Terrible findings in the torture report "are not who we are," John Kerry claims. Well, here's a U.S. history lesson

By Charles DavisIt’s comforting for those whose actions are not aligned with their stated values to believe that what one does in real life is not what ultimately defines who one really is. It’s nice to think who we are is determined not by the things we did the day before, but by the stated ideals we hope to aspire to fulfill, starting tomorrow. In a nation-state founded by settler-colonial Protestants, the argument is familiar—it’s what’s deep down inside that gets one up into heaven, not the good or genocidal nature of what one does down here on Earth—and as with any half-decent lie, it’s relatable: as fallible human beings, we’d all rather like to believe that we’re not as bad as we are but as good as we say we would like to be.

While founded on the ethnic cleansing of the continent’s original inhabitants and the enslavement of its African workforce, the news—or rather, confirmation—that the CIA employed a revolting range of “enhanced” torture techniques in the wake of 9/11 is being portrayed by some as a vile exception to the United States’ otherwise exceptional history; a “stain on our values and history,” in the words of Senator Dianne Feinstein, whose committee released the report detailing the agency’s use of near-drownings and mock executions and sexual abuse to humiliate and demoralize a foreign “other” under the guise of gathering intelligence. These practices, the terrible things this country has again and again been shown to do, “are not who we are,” added Secretary of State John Kerry. Indeed, “the awful facts of this report” do not even “represent who they are,” he said of those awful people described in that report (“its important that this period not define the intelligence community in anyone’s mind,” he continued).

“Some of the actions that were taken were contrary to our values,” President Barack Obama chimed in, crediting his government with, as always, correcting its own mistakes (“They aren’t picking up prisoners anymore,” Senator James Risch explained to CNN. “What they do is when they identify a high-value target, the target is droned.”).

As a rhetorical ploy, it’s understandable: Saying the United States has always been garbage is not going to be terribly popular in a nation that still fondly refers to a group of sadistic slave-owners as its “founding fathers”—so politicians savvy enough to know that openly embracing torture is not a good look for the world’s leading state-sponsor of holier-than-thou rhetoric, appeal to a history and set of values that never was and never were in practice, as a way to give political cover to their middling, public relations-minded critiques of the national-security state’s least defensible excesses. It’s entirely false, this narrative of extreme goodness marked by occasional self-correcting imperfection, but it satisfies our national ego to think the American phoenix rises from a store of ethically traded gold, not a pile of rotting trash.Comment:  For more on genocide, see Colonists Wanted Indians Dead and Lord Amherst's Genocidal Intent.

"Hands up, don't shoot!"

Some tweets on the connections between the different forms of violence perpetuated in America:

"Hands Up, Don't Shoot" chant of Ferguson protesters was the same message conveyed by "peace chiefs" at Sand Creek. http://www.denverpost.com/opinion/ci_27069460/link-between-sand-creek-ferguson

Blacks say, "Hands up, don't shoot!" Muslims say, "Hands up, don't torture!" Natives say, "Hands up, don't massacre!" #TortureReport #USA

Women to angry spouses, frat boys, athletes, cops, soldiers, etc.: "Hands up, don't rape!" #HandsUpDontRape #rapeculture #waronwomen

The Geneva Conventions on torture are like Indian treaties--i.e., guidelines to be followed except when they're inconvenient. #TortureReport

Comment:  For more on Ferguson, see Our Broken Justice System and Grand Juries Won't Indict Killer Cops.

Lone Ranger ignores Comanche atrocities

The truth Johnny Depp wants to hide about the real-life Tontos: How Comanche Indians butchered babies, roasted enemies alive and would ride 1,000 miles to wipe out one family

Comanche Indians were responsible for one of the most brutal slaughters in the history of the Wild West

However, Johnny Depp wants to play Tonto in a more sympathetic light

By Jonathan ForemanS C Gwynne, author of Empire Of The Summer Moon about the rise and fall of the Comanche, says simply: ‘No tribe in the history of the Spanish, French, Mexican, Texan, and American occupations of this land had ever caused so much havoc and death. None was even a close second.’

He refers to the ‘demonic immorality’ of Comanche attacks on white settlers, the way in which torture, killings and gang-rapes were routine. ‘The logic of Comanche raids was straightforward,’ he explains.

‘All the men were killed, and any men who were captured alive were tortured; the captive women were gang raped. Babies were invariably killed.’

Not that you would know this from the new Lone Ranger movie, starring Johnny Depp as the Indian Tonto.

For reasons best know to themselves, the film-makers have changed Tonto’s tribe to Comanche—in the original TV version, he was a member of the comparatively peace-loving Potawatomi tribe.

And yet he and his fellow native Americans are presented in the film as saintly victims of a Old West where it is the white settlers—the men who built America—who represent nothing but exploitation, brutality, environmental destruction and genocide.

Depp has said he wanted to play Tonto in order to portray Native Americans in a more sympathetic light. But the Comanche never showed sympathy themselves.Foreman's conclusion:By casting the cruelest, most aggressive tribe of Indians as mere saps and victims of oppression, Johnny Depp’s Lone Ranger perpetuates the patronising and ignorant cartoon of the ‘noble savage’.

Not only is it a travesty of the truth, it does no favours to the Indians Depp is so keen to support.From what I've read, The Lone Ranger does indeed sanitize its Comanches to the point of blandness.

The movie probably is doing Indians a favor by not portraying the Comanches as "the cruelest, most aggressive tribe." We don't need the umpteenth flick featuring Indians as merciless savages.

But Depp and company had a range of options between portraying Indians as saintly victims and merciless savages. The best choice might've been to make Tonto something other than a Comanche.

"Fierce" tribes get attention

This article raises a valid point that I hadn't thought about enough. The Comanches weren't just your average tribe. They had one of the "worst" reputations for ferocity.

It's one reason I've said storytellers should stop relying on the same old tribes: the Sioux, Cheyenne, and Apache. Start showing the range of tribal cultures, not just the most warlike cases. Focusing on these tribes makes all Indians look bad, since everyone thinks all Indians were and are the same.

If you're going to pick the Comanches, make them historically accurate--atrocities and all. If you don't want a tribe guilty of atrocities, don't pick the Comanches. Whatever you do, don't portray the tribe as The Lone Ranger did: as a generic set of Plains Indians.

For more on the savage Indian stereotype, see Aide Calls Indians "Arrow Throwers" and Indians in The Lost Colony.

Below:  "Real-life: White Wolf, a Comanche Chief, pictured in the late 19th century."

Barton lies about King Philip's War

David Barton, a right-wing Christian "historian," said Indians got what they deserved in Barton: Indians Fought to Keep Torturing. Here's a rebuttal:

David Barton's Lies About King Philip's WarVirtually everything written about Natives in colonial New England is viewed through an ethnocentric lens of the master narrative. Further it is structured by a religious zeal which proclaims their god given right of manifest destiny to “rid the world of heathens” and “proselytize the gospel.” In order to maintain this propaganda and justify the theft and slaughter of millions; a controlled and consistent "record" reflecting the dehumanization of Indians was required.

We don’t have to delve into a rustic dusty library to research an old text to note the malefic and racist attitudes towards Natives of long ago.

David Barton recently provided a stellar example of this myopic behavior on the appropriately named Wall Builder Show.

He views the attack and destruction of Native peoples as the linear and spiritual progression of god’s chosen people. He claims to speak from a “historical and biblical point of view” and that it’s “not about fairness but of justice…god’s justice,” he said.

When Barton referred to the cause of King Philip's War of 1675 he claims, “The Moravian missionaries went to the Indians and told them to stop torturing each other to death, so the Indians said the white guys are trying to change our culture. So they declared war on all the white guys, it was torture on one side and trying to be civilized on the other and that was King Philips War.”

This is brazenly false. The Moravian missionaries don’t arrive in America until 1735. And let’s use logic here-if the Indians were all torturing each other to death, I’m quite sure the English would be inclined to just stay out of the way. And we can’t discuss torture unless we mention one of the favorite punishments by the English, which was decapitation and displaying the head on pole. Then there was nailing you down by your ears to a frame, in a device called a pillory. We even see our first form of water boarding with the ducking stool. Whether it was piling stones on top of person, riding the timber mare, flogging or just burning you at the stake; it’s safe to say the first settlers were no strangers to divers’ methods of torture.

Barton’s mendacity is evocative of a time when race and religion supersede any human rights. And that’s what King Phllip's War was really about, human rights. After years of pent up anger, insults, murder and theft, war was inevitable.One commenter added:This type of thinking about American Indians by David Barton, a highly regarded "authority" in many Christian circles, is an excellent example of how American Christians rationalized the ungodliness of their ancestors actions starting with the Pilgrims. Barton is not stating anything new, he's just articulating it in a more blunt fashion. It is unfortunate that American Christians starting with the Pilgrims failed to rely upon the Bible, their supposed basis for all their actions. The Bible tells Christians to "missionize" and "preach" NOT move in and take over. The Bible provides no justification for conquest, in fact it specifically prohibits these types of actions. But unfortunately no American Christian authorities publicly acknowledge this, so people like Barton continue to spread and re-enforce the lies. Adolf Hitler said it best: "Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”Comment:  For more on King Philip's War, see Roger Williams, Slave Trader and Radio Show on King Philip's War Game.

Barton: Indians fought to keep torturing

Christian Historian David Barton Defends The U.S. Genocide Of American Indians (Audio)

By Michael AllenThis week on his 'WallBuilders Live' radio show, debunked Christian historian David Barton compared Native Americans of the 1700s to modern day terrorists and explained why the U.S. had to commit genocide of Native Americans (audio below).

Barton said that Native Americans declared war on "all the white guys" because missionaries had tried to convince Indians to stop torturing their enemies.

Barton claimed the Indians refused to stop torturing, so "we had to go in and we had to destroy Indian tribes all over until they" signed a treaty, reports RightWingWatch.org.

Barton also claimed that the U.S. government had to kill buffalo in the west in order to destroy the Native Americans' supply line and bring the "Indians to their knees."

"It's got to be based on what the enemy responds [to,] you cannot reason with certain types of terrorists; and see that's why we could not get the Indians to the table to negotiate with us on treaties until after we had thoroughly whipped so many tribes," said Barton.

"What happened was the Indian leaders said 'they're trying to change our culture' and so they declared war on all the white guys and went after the white guys and that was King Philip's War. It was really trying to be civilized on one side and end torture and the Indians were threatened by the ending of torture and so we had to go in and we had to destroy Indian tribes all over until they said "oh, got the point, you're doing to us what we're doing to them, okay, we'll sign a treaty."

Viewers respond

People who watched Barton on YouTube responded with acerbic comments:I JUST LUV GUYS LIKE THIS IDIOT! It tells us heathen savages what CHRISTIAGONY is really all about...bigotry, racism and just downright ignorance!

Once upon a time I may have bought into this, but these facts can be disputed simply by recognizing the the TRUST of the AMERICAN INDIAN was always BROKEN by WHILE SETTLERS, and what they agreed with was taken for GRANTED ...and GREED, and IGNORANCE was the COMMON RULE OF THE DAY, and it seems this type of PROPAGATION still PERPETUATES IGNORANCE.

I am a Native American. Rather than using profanity to make an argument, I am going to make a logical rebuttal here. 1- The Native peoples of these lands had no interest in torturing anyone, certainly not like many Euro cultures have been so fond of historically doing. [Spanish Inquisition, Roman Empire crucifixions, drawing and quartering.] 2- Mr. Barton conveniently neglects to acknowledge that the Native peoples of this land were open to peaceable coexistence until greed ruined that idea.

What do you expect from a right wing Christian? First the president's the anti Christ, now the indigenous Americans are terrorists, what's next? I can't wait to hear what these bigots have to say next it's entertaining haha.

Christian Nazis.Comment:  The main and perhaps only reason Indians ever "declared war" on white men was because white men broke their promises and treaties.

It's true white men wanted to destroy change every aspect of thousands of Native cultures, including some that occasionally practiced torture like Euro-Christians. But the idea that the Indians fought back in self-defense solely to protect the practice of torture is an obvious lie.

Also note that many tribes, especially in the East, signed treaties before the white men defeated them. Not after, before. Again, Barton is flat-out lying. Perhaps that's not surprising since most conservative Christians are liars and hypocrites.

For more on Barton, see Rick Perry Promotes Christian Bigotry. For more on Indians as terrorists, see Morris Mirror: Natives = "Terrorists" and Code Name: Geronimo to Be Released.

Subtle racism = psychological torture

I've written about the microaggression effects of the constant barrage of Native stereotypes. Here's an article that lays out the harm by comparing it to the Cold War psychological torture.

Is Racism Worse in the Age of Obama?

There are plenty of downsides to racism, but the biggest is perhaps the fear and paranoia it instills in those who have experienced it or seen it up close and personal.

By Keli GoffYet the further along we go into the Obama era, which many assumed would mark the start of a new chapter in American race relations, a provocative question has emerged: Is subtle racism actually more damaging to black Americans than blatant racism?

I had never really considered this question until a panel discussion for the new book Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness? by cultural critic Toure. Among dozens of questions he asked over 100 influential black Americans one was, "What's the most racist thing that's ever happened to you?" Though some shared incidents of breathtaking, blatant racism and of course the N-word made an appearance or two, the most popular answer was what Toure dubbed "the unknowable"; a moment they cited that may have negatively impacted their lives in an incredibly significant way, such as a lost job opportunity, or home loan, that they suspect was tied to their race yet ultimately they will never know for sure and never be able to prove it, so there's nothing to be done about it. But it haunts them, in a way that being called the N-word by some jerk out in the open, no longer does.

In the age of Obama in which even David Duke has enough sense not to use the N-word in public, "the unknowable" has become the most common form of discrimination, unknowable, and thus un-provable. It's therefore become a bit like a form of slow burning psychological torture for those who believe they've endured it. After all, it's one thing to struggle to find a job in a horrendous economy--something people of all races are grappling with. But it's another to know that studies have confirmed that even today just by virtue of being black you are less likely to get a job opportunity than a white male with a prison record, even when you don't have one.

But part of the torture is knowing that because we finally have a black president, accusations of racism are looked upon with more suspicion, eye rolling and dismissal than ever, which only further perpetuates the fear and paranoia. In other words, unless someone actually calls you the N-word, no one wants to hear you whine about racism. By the same token most people--even racists--are too sensible to use the N-word, which leaves those who face any form of subtle racism caught between a rock and a boulder. So victims of subtle racism may begin to feel a bit like the Ingrid Bergman character in Gaslight. For those who consider that reference too obscure, here's another. According to recent reports spies for the Russian government have begun aggressively targeting U.S. and British diplomats and journalists with small-scale psychological torture in an effort to drive them insane and ultimately, from the country. The torture in question? Breaking into their homes and moving pictures and other small personal items around. Though there is rarely any real threat of physical danger, the threat of the unknown and the impossible to control, combined with the inability to prove they are being targeted has begun to have the intended effect: driving some from their posts. In previous regimes some targets were even driven to suicide.Comment:  Consider how many times I've written about Halloween costumes and parties, Pocahontas and other Indian "princesses," and fashion appropriations in the last month. Not to mention the regular parade of stereotypes portraying Natives as savage, lazy, or drunk.

And this is just the tip of the iceberg. I see only the words and images "big" enough to make it into the mainstream media. I wouldn't be surprised if most Indians are confronted with a negative stereotype every day of their lives.

Just think of this. Suppose Indians have seen or heard that they're "savages" 10,000, 15,000, or 20,000 times in a lifetime. They've received not only the direct message ("You're not a real American") but the unknowable message in the non-Indian's mind. "What does this person think of me?" Indians have to ask. "Does he hate or fear me? What do I have to do to win his approval?"

This certainly does sound like psychological torture. If you've had a parent, teacher, or boss question you every day, you know how stressful it can be. A few years of that can screw up your life permanently.

The constant onslaught of stereotypes is the same thing. You began to wonder and dread what every person is thinking about you. You feel like the masses are judging you and (in your imagination) finding you wanting.

How often do you have to hear you can't do something before you give up on it? Ten times? A hundred? A thousand? Indians have heard a million times that they're nothing but chiefs, warriors, princesses, squaws, and savages--i.e., primitive people of the past.

Even when they don't hear it, they know people are thinking it. I can see how this would lead them to drop out of school, drink, lash out, or become depressed. Psychologically speaking, it must be incredibly debilitating. It's fair to compare it to psychological abuse bad enough to cause post-traumatic stress disorder.

For more on the subject, see Understanding Implicit Bias, Poverty Makes People Sick, and Intergenerational Trauma = PTSD.

Below:  "This is you, Indians. Repeat 10,000 times until you get the message."