Eric Fair was an Arabic linguist in the U.S. Army from 1995 to 2000 and then, in 2004, he worked as a contract interrogator in Iraq. He remains haunted by what he did there.
In April 2004 I was stationed at a detention facility in Fallujah. Inside the detention facility was an office. Inside the office was a small chair made of plywood and two-by-fours. The chair was two feet tall. The rear legs were taller than the front legs. The seat and chair back leaned forward. Plastic zip ties were used to force a detainee into a crouched position from which he could not recover. It caused muscle failure of the quads, hamstrings and calves. It was torture.
The detainees in Fallujah were the hardest set of men I’ve ever come upon. Many killed with a sickening enthusiasm. They often butchered what remained of their victims. It is easy to argue that they deserved far worse than what we delivered.
Still, those tactics stained my soul in an irrevocable way, maybe justifiably so. But as members of our government and its agencies continue to defend our use of torture, and as the American people continue to ignore their obligation to uncover this sordid chapter, the stain isn’t mine alone.
Jose Rodriguez Jr., the former head of the CIA’s National Clandestine Service, insists that those who suggest we question more gently have never felt the burden of protecting innocent lives. I’ve felt that burden. And when the time came, I did not question gently.
I’m dealing with my own burdens now. My marriage is struggling. My effectiveness as a parent is deteriorating. My son is suffering. I am no longer the person I once was. I try to repent. I work to confess. I hope for atonement.
As a country, we need to know what happened. We need to confess. We need to be specific. We need to open the book.
Not much to add, other that I agree with everything that Mr. Fair had to say.
“The detainees in Fallujah were the hardest set of men I’ve ever come upon. Many killed with a sickening enthusiasm. They often butchered what remained of their victims. It is easy to argue that they deserved far worse than what we delivered.”
Really? ALL of them? No false confessions? Where is the proof of this statement, the evidence? Of course there is none. It’s just the word of a criminal, once again being allowed to define his crime.
Torture is NOT used, and never has been used to gather evidence, because it is completely unreliable for that. It is used to gather CONFESSIONS.
This guy is scum. He is the worst of the American personality. This article absolutely shows how insidious torture can be to a society. Not because of what he says, but that criminals and scum like him can get valuable real estate in prominent news papers to cry about how much THEY suffer from what they did.
Forgiveness he wants? A platform for HIS confession, so he can move on? Sorry, the only forgiveness can come when he under goes what he gave innocents (and yes, some were certainly innocent). But that is not possible, so only a trial and prison, where he can pay for his crimes.
But he does not want to ‘pay’. He wants a free ride.
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I get your point, but I don’t dispute his characterization of “many” of the detainees he confronted. That’s really beside the point. He met some very fierce and ruthless individuals, and he still is haunted that he treated them inhumanely. That’s to his credit.
Well. ya. Ones we created when we invaded a country for made up reasons. We unleashed the demons, then complained we had demons, then tortured plenty of innocents to find the demons.
And then brought our own demons home, and let them write editorials.
He’s scum, and if he got the forgiveness commission he wants, he would hire an attorney and plead ‘following orders’.
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I agree with much of what you said, but there is always a nagging part of me that wants to forgive people. This guy was a pawn. Yes, he still had agency; he could have quit, he could have told his higher-ups to get bent. But I question how many of us in that same situation would have reacted differently than he has. I hope to hell I would have protested, and then quit my job if it came to it. Many union men in the late 1800’s and early 1900’s had families, and no safety net, yet they still staged strikes and went without pay. Maybe solidarity in numbers is a morale booster that allows for that to happen. What I do know is that many in his situation, faced with doing what your bosses say at a most likely really good paying job, knowing the powers that be could wreck you and break you…what would many of us have done?
And if he’s asking for forgiveness, I’m willing to grant it. But we must enforce our obligations, and the real criminals like Shrub, Cheney, Rice, Hayden, Brennan, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz are who should be the subjects of our ire.
Well ya, except torturers are picked for certain personality traits.
They do it because they enjoy it. You want to forgive, fine…go ahead.
I forgive criminals once they do time, not before.
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Good point. Someone should call family services: someone like the repentant torturer is probably at risk of PTSD and taking it out on his family.
A pawn… I don’t know about that. I didn’t join the military and go off to Iraq to fight and look for imaginary WMD, but he and others did. Have they no responsibility for that? Not even a little?
I’m not sure many join the military for that reason as you phrased it. Maybe patriotism and adventurism plays a part for some but for a lot of others its a professional job that allows you to provide for yourself and your family.
I don’t feel any guilt for joining the military in a time of war. I didn’t torture anyone and would not have followed an unlawful order. Am I embarrassed that the administration violated norms of war and that some soldiers committed crimes? Yes, absolutely.
You, as a tax-paying citizen, bear some responsibility as well. We certainly seem to have the same amount of influence over the decisions of politicians.
I bear no such responsibility. These events took place far from me… I could not influence the result in any meaningful way. I could, at best, protest or express my opposition in a number of forums and vote against the candidates advocating war. That’s about it.
I should also say that I feel no obligation to the people who did join the military during this period. Their injuries and their struggles are not my concern. They did not defend me; they implemented an aggressive and unnecessary policy that has had no bearing on my life or my security.
But you… if you in fact joined the military during this time… you surely enabled the most despicable actions on the part of those politicians. I do not accept that you did not have influence. On the contrary… those who joined or remained enlisted and went to Iraq have total responsibility… more responsibility for the debacle than the “politicians”.
Neil, I can’t take you seriously. You seem to have a very superficial understanding of how things actually work.
Many of us wouldn’t be close to being in that situation because we learned from the Vietnam disaster that joining the military could easily put a person in any number of unethical situations.
I’m also thinking that if he thinks he needs to be specific about his confession, he needs to go back to Iraq, locate the families of his victims, explain exactly what he did to those families and ask their forgiveness.
A small op ed with a bit of contrite language isn’t even a drop in the bucket. He lost his sense of humanity long ago somewhere.
I agree if he wants forgiveness from them that this is what he should do. And yeah, I would rather be homeless on the street than join the military.
That’s a rather privileged thing to say at the end there. There’s nothing to be ashamed of in wanting to serve in the military. You’re no better or worse than anyone else for joining or not joining.
Priveleged, perhaps. But the last thing I’m going to do is die and kill for my government.
I think I get it and it’s a principled position. I just thought it was interesting considering the intensity of your example and the spectre of homeless veterans.
Obviously people society has left behind and never looked back. Definitely something that should be rectified, and obviously shows that they’re not mutually exclusive options. Of course it extends to how we treat mental illness on general. I wasn’t meaning to be provocative in the sense of citing a known problem of homeless and veterans from our dirty wars.
All I know is that I don’t think I could engage in any military conflict, even if my family’s life depended on it.
It’s the new militarism. People don’t get it quite so readily anymore that killing other people in dubious causes is not a smart or moral thing to do. Even “progressives”.
Obviously you won’t ever have to chose between living on the street or joining the military, so saying that you would chose one over the other is totally meaningless—nearly kind of dishonest.
Dishonest? How so? Name something else. I would do it before engaging in the torture or killing of another human being, including my country’s “sworn enemies”.
And this… Really?
“those who suggest we question more gently have never felt the burden of protecting innocent lives. I’ve felt that burden.”
If I might suggest… that so-called burden was a delusion.
The idea that putting a uniform on a person changes that obligation in such a fundamental way that torture is permissible (and, once permissible, inevitably glides to mandatory) is one of the great sins of our country and its government.
I agree with BooMan that it’s to Eric Fair’s credit that he is haunted by what he’s done. Fair doesn’t get bonus points for that, but at least it proves he has a soul.
Here’s where my problem lies:
I did a double-take when I read that line, and I had to read it again to be sure. How could he possibly write that sentence with the weasel words “maybe justifiably so”?
Because he is a weasel?
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I applaud this, though:
I get upset because America is following a pattern that is as old as history.
WE ARE NOT THE VICTIMS.
THIS GUY IS NOT THE VICTIM.
The victims are the people, most of whom were almost certainly innocent of anything except opposing an invading force, who this guy tortured for false confessions. And more than likely slept like a baby every night.
This guy wants a platform so he can cry about what HE did, and what it cost HIM. But his crime is what happened to others, in a far away land, where we had no business being. He was NOT a pawn, he was a key part of a systematic program to cause pain. What sort of person does such a thing? Not the sort that should ever be accepted in decent society. The reason is simple…you don’t have a decent society where he is accepted.
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Read any of the memoirs and novels from the Stalinist period and the 50s prison camps in Russia and throughout the Eastern bloc countries. Numbing fear, distrust, terror and torture within an entire society or a portion of a society is hell on earth. The United States had a long period of terrors of the same sort against Indigenous Peoples and African Americans. The vestiges remain.
The criminal torture of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld was the inhumanity.
He’s a piece of shit who deserves to receive exactly what he dished out.
I hope his marriage collapses and his son disowns him. At least.
Sorry, but karma’s a bitch.