Abu Ghraib: imprisonment and the war on terror

Abstract

The exposure of torture and sadistic treatment of prisoners in US-run prisons in Iraq and elsewhere in the ‘theatre’ of the war on terror has shed light on the nature of military imprisonment today. However, the actions and policies of military prison guards reflect accepted civilian prison norms. Excessive force, civil disability and the loss of internationally guaranteed rights, and indefinite detention are central means by which the wars on both terror and crime (civilian mass imprisonment) are executed. These practices, amounting to a condition of permanent imprisonment, are being pioneered by the US in its super-maximum civilian prisons. Permanent war and permanent imprisonment are not exceptional but increasingly the routine means by which the racial state organises the abandonment of surplus and potentially rebellious populations and attempts to quarantine the effects of global poverty.