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The
Moment of Interrogation:
Punishment as Prisoner Emasculation in Iraq
Zachary
B. Hall
Graduate
Program in International Affairs
The
New School
New
York
The
“moment of interrogation” reflects a process rather than a discrete
instance. It often
operationalizes power between interrogator and prisoner along lines of
race, gender, class, culture, especially when the two parties represent,
respectively, the Occupier and the Occupied. When applied to a specific
context, as in Iraq, the moment of interrogation takes on larger, more
profound significance than simply the interrogational torture techniques
used. As individuals reveal first-hand accounts of tortuous, emasculating
interrogation techniques, these invoke within the larger population of the
Occupied a selection of “remembrances” and “forgettings” about the
Occupier. In Iraq, the US deployment of “interrogation as emasculation”
actualizes in Iraqis a particular memory of gendered ethno-cultural
repression and subjugation that furthers violence through retribution,
rather than anything that may begin to approach liberation, emancipation,
or democracy. For a case study, this paper focuses on US interrogation
techniques––including the utilization of torture––applied to Iraqi
detainees in US-run prisons in Iraq, Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan.
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