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Strife Series: Legal Violence and Legitimacy Building in the United States – The Torture Memos & the Legacy of U.S. Empire, Part II

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Then-US army Reservist Lynndie England forcing an inmate to crawl and bark like a dog on a leash, from the Abu Ghraib Prison abuse scandal, Iraq. Photo Credit: US Government, Public Domain.

The last instalment in this series laid out the basic facts of the Bush Administration’s plan to justify the use of torture through narrow interpretations of the terminology used to describe the practices labelled as “enhanced interrogation.” This article will be centred on the practices that skirted the legal category of torture under Bybee’s framework.

Torture’s Implementation and Impact

Contrary to Bybee’s claim about the effects of waterboarding, Zubaydah did have immediate and longstanding psychological impacts. New York Times article by Carol Rosenberg discussing some of the negative impacts of the Program, Zubaydah was waterboarded eighty-three times over 4 years. In a declassified Senate Intelligence Committee report from 2014, the CIA’s program was described as “brutal and far worse than the C.I.A. represented.” In Zubaydah’s own words he stated, “They kept pouring water and concentrating on my nose and my mouth until I really felt I was drowning, and my chest was just about to explode from the lack of oxygen.” Zubaydah further describes the immense pain he experienced in other torture methods. During the practice of “walling,” he states how he was blindfolded and had his head forcefully struck into a wall behind him. Rosenberg’s article details how with each strike, he was blinded for a few moments, would collapse, and “be dragged by the plastic-tape-wrapped towel ‘which caused bleeding in my neck.’” Zubaydah also states how he was denied sleep by being bound in uncomfortable positions and doused with water for “maybe two or three weeks or even more,” experienced convulsions and vomiting during waterboarding, and even lost consciousness.[i]

Contrary to the Bush Administration’s official position, prolonged physical and mental suffering were direct impacts of America’s use of torture. As detailed in How America Tortures, Mark P. Denbeaux writes that the CIA “The CIA admitted that sleep deprivation can induce hallucinations; however they falsely claimed, ‘those who experience such psychotic symptoms have almost always had such episodes prior…[ii]’” Denbeaux also references the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence findings that “…five detainees experienced ‘disturbing’ hallucinations during prolonged sleep deprivation (e.g., one detainee was ‘visibly shaken’ by his hallucination of dogs mauling and killing his sons and family). In at least two of those cases, the CIA continued the sleep deprivation.” Denbeaux also cites well-established psychological research that maintains sleep deprivation has negative impacts on mental stability within twenty-four hours. Even in this short time, individuals can develop permanent visual distortions, anxiety, and instability. Within thirty to forty-eight hours, illusions and simple visual hallucinations begin. Complex visual hallucinations occur within fifty-three hours, auditory within sixty, and develop within seventy-two.[iii] Denbeaux also writes how PTSD and other mental disorders are strong possibilities in those subjected to psychological torture. He states “Researchers conducted a survey on the use of physical torture as opposed to psychological torture, and the ‘researchers collected medical assessments of whether the torture survivors showed signs of PTSD…’They found no difference in the prevalence of this disorder between the two groups.[iv]” Following his torture, Zubaydah developed numerous mental and physical ailments as detailed in an LA Times article which states “…he suffers blinding headaches and has permanent brain damage. He has an excruciating sensitivity to sounds, hearing what others do not. The slightest noise drives him nearly insane. In the last two years alone, he has experienced about two hundred seizures… Already, he cannot picture his mother’s face or recall his father’s name. Gradually, his past, like his future, eludes him.[v]”

Sources of Justification for Torture

After the memos were released, they quickly became the subject of public scrutiny and critique. Jack Goldsmith, who took over the OLC in 2003 stated the legal analysis they put forth was “deeply flawed” and “sloppily reasoned.[vi]” Instead of serving any tangible aim, the US use of torture exemplified a blatant disregard for the US Constitution as well as human rights. According to Torture and the Biopolitics of Race by Dorothy E. Roberts, these practices, whether occurring under the Bush administration or elsewhere in US History serve to uphold US hegemony and are an embodiment of white supremacist ideals. According to Roberts, the use of torture can be seen throughout the history of the US, especially in the colonial context. During the US colonial administration in the Philippines, torture was frequently used with overtly racist motivations. During the coverage of an insurrection, American correspondence stated Filipinos were “little better than a dog,” and that US troops were “not dealing with civilized people.” William Howard Taft, who was Governor-General at the time stated that the conflict was a war “between superior and inferior races.[vii]” During the Vietnam war, similar sentiments are echoed, as the US continued previous practices from the French colonial administration.[viii] On the use of torture during the War on Terror, Roberts writes that those attempting to justify the US’ actions “…focused largely on the precise definition of torture, or, more precisely, narrowing the definition enough to exempt U.S. officials from criminal liability under international and domestic laws.[ix]” Referring to the celebratory nature of lynching in the US, Roberts states “Whites purchased photographs of the mutilated bodies as mementos of the event and mailed gruesome picture postcards to their friends and relatives.[x]” She continues “…scholars have noted parallels between the contemporary mass circulation of photographs showing scenes of sexualized torture… Some poses in the Abu Ghraib photographs strikingly (and perhaps deliberately) mirror lynching iconography-the hooded detainee with a noose around his neck; the naked detainees posed in sexually humiliating positions, lacerated, shackled, and held by a dog leash; the U.S. soldiers grinning triumphantly in front of their degraded victims.[xi]” Islamophobia has been a foundational effort of the War on Terror since its earliest stages. According to Khaled A. Beydoun in Exporting Islamophobia in The Global “War on Terror,” this racism is best exemplified by President George W. Bush’s words “This is not . . . just America’s fight. And what is at stake is not just America’s freedom. This is the world’s fight. This is civilization’s fight. This is the fight of all who believe in progress and pluralism, tolerance, and freedom . . .. The civilized world is rallying to America’s side.” Bush’s words are a clear us vs them mentality with the “them” being a faceless and ambiguous yet inherently Muslim enemy.[xii] Since any Muslim has been presumed as a lesser enemy, the inhumane treatment is automatically justified.

Conclusion

Despite having declassified much of the information surrounding the use of torture in the War on Terror during the Obama administration, historical acknowledgement of the practice remains sparse. Additionally, torture has not been completely expunged from the possibility by the United States. In 2016, during his presidential campaign, Donald Trump stated the US should “bring back a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding,” adding “I like it a lot. I don’t think it’s tough enough.” Likewise, racialized comments remain within US political vernacular. As to why the US should continue to practice torture, President Trump stated, “We have to fight so viciously and violently because we’re dealing with violent people, vicious people.[xiii]” With the sentiment of “us vs them” remaining dominant in the US counterterrorist strategy (and to some extent policing domestically), the likelihood that torture will once again be implemented has not completely diminished.

[i] Carol Rosenberg, “What the C.I.A.’S Torture Program Looked like to the Tortured,” The New York Times, December 4, 2019, https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/04/us/politics/cia-torture-drawings.html.

[ii] Mark Denbeaux et al., “How America Tortures,” papers.ssrn.com, December 2, 2019, 26, (Rochester, NY, November 27, 2019), https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3494533.

[iii] Denbeaux, et al., 29

[iv] Denbeaux, et al., 37

[v] Joseph Margulies, “The Suffering of Abu Zubaydah,” Los Angeles Times, April 30, 2009, https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2009-apr-30-oe-margulies30-story.html

[vi] Michael Isikoff, “Torture Report Could Be Trouble for Bush Lawyers,” Newsweek, February 13, 2009, https://www.newsweek.com/torture-report-could-be-trouble-bush-lawyers-82707.

[vii] Dorothy E. Roberts, “Torture and the Biopolitics of Race,” University of Miami Law Review 62, no. 229, (2008): 241, https://scholarship.law.upenn.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1574&context=faculty_scholarship.

[viii] Roberts, 241-242

[ix] Roberts, 237

[x] Roberts 234

[xi] Roberts, 234

[xii] Khaled A. Beydoun, “Exporting Islamophobia in the Global ‘War on Terror,’” New York University Law Review Online 95, no. 81 (2020): 82, https://www.nyulawreview.org/online-features/exporting-islamophobia-in-the-global-war-on-terror/.

[xiii] Rory Cox, “Historicizing Waterboarding as a Severe Torture Norm,” International Relations 32, no. 4 (September 20, 2018): 488–512, https://doi.org/10.1177/0047117818774396.

Strife Series: Legal Violence and Legitimacy Building in the United States – The Torture Memos & the Legacy of U.S. Empire, Part I

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Photo from Abu Ghraib prison, Iraq, detailing detainee abuse. Photo Credit: US Government, Public Domain.

The Torture Memos are a collection of documents from the US Justice Department Office of Legal Counsel regarding the use of torture against alleged members of al-Qaeda. The basic motivation of these documents was to determine whether the United States’ practice of “enhanced interrogation techniques” constituted torture under US and international law. They unilaterally justified the US’ practices. After the memos were leaked in 2004, they were lambasted as a clear disconnect from the War on Terror’s emphasis on protecting human rights. The memos are an extension of the legal strategies used to legitimize violations of liberal principles in order to maintain U.S. hegemony and empire. In this article, I will discuss the basic provisions of the torture memos. The next installment in this series will focus on the implementation and impacts that the Bush Administration’s controversial legal strategies caused.

Narrow Interpretations, Broad Implications

The first memo, titled Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2340-2340A, was authored by Jay Bybee, then-Assistant Attorney General, on 1 August 2002. Addressed to Counsel to the President, Alberto R. Gonzales, this document breaks down Section 2340 and requests the Office of Legal Council’s opinion on what constitutes torture under this statute. Bybee’s arguments are vague, and many were later determined to be untrue. From the earliest sections of this memo, Bybee asserts that torture is a very narrow practice according to Section 2340. He states the statute “makes it a criminal offense for any person ‘outside of the United States to commit or attempt to commit torture,’” adding that the statute defines torture as an “act committed by a person acting under the color of law specifically intended to inflict severe physical or mental pain or suffering… upon another person within his custody or physical control.”[i] Bybee hones in on the language of the statute, stating it “requires that severe pain and suffering must be inflicted with specific intent…” adding “the defendant had to act with the express ‘purpose to disobey the law’ in order for the mens rea element to be satisfied.”[ii] According to Bybee, infliction of pain without “specific intent” does not violate the statute. If a defendant commits an act that does inflict pain with the knowledge that pain is likely, but not certain, “general intent” is satisfied, disqualifying the perpetrator from torture.[iii] Bybee further dissects the language of the statute, arguing that it does not define “severe” in relation to physical pain and “prolonged” in relation to mental harm. Bybee’s interpretation is that torture, as defined by Section 2340, is “not the mere infliction of pain or suffering on another, but is a step well removed. The victim must experience pain…equivalent to the pain that would be associated with serious physical injury so severe that death organ, failure, or permanent damage resulting in loss of significant body function will likely result. If that pain or suffering is psychological, that suffering must result from one of these acts outlined in the statute, in addition, these acts must cause long-term mental harm.”

In section II, Bybee argues that international law reinforces his interpretation of 2340. He references the UN Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment (CAT), which states that torture is

 “any act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person, or for any reason based on discrimination of any kind, when such pain or suffering is inflicted by or at the instigation of or with the consent or acquiescence of a public official or other person acting in an official capacity.”

In response, Bybee states, Accordingly, severe pain or suffering need not be inflicted for those specific purposes to constitute torture; instead, the perpetrator must simply have a purpose of the same kind… the pain and suffering must be severe to reach the threshold of torture.[iv]”

Bybee authored another memo titled Interrogation of al Qaeda Operative in which he addressed John A. Rizzo, General Counsel of the CIA, following a similar request to that of the Gonzales. This document covers the torture of Abu Zubaydah and goes into detail about the interrogation practices in question. At the time, Zubaydah was incarcerated in the US under the presumption that he had information on terror cells and plots in the US and Saudi Arabia. According to Rizzo and the CIA, the level of “chatter” surrounding the supposed cells warranted an “increased pressure phase” which was ultimately the interrogations involving torture. He states that the “interrogations” will last “no more than several days but could last up to thirty days” and will employ 10 techniques to “dislocate expectations regarding the treatment he believes he will receive and encourage him to disclose the crucial information” and employ ten different methods.[v] In describing these methods, all of which involve a degree of physical pain, discomfort, and/or mental strife, the illusion to specific intent is seen. In describing one of these methods, called “facial/insult slap” where an interrogator slaps a prisoner in the face in such a way to increase pain, he writes the intent is to “not inflict physical pain that is severe or lasting. Instead… to induce shock, surprise, and/or humiliation.”

Waterboarding is one of the more infamous methods that the US employed during its duration of the use of torture. Bybee’s memo discusses the practice in detail, and establishes the Bush administration’s legal strategy around this unsavoury tactic as follows:

“…the individual is bound securely to an inclined bench… The individual’s feet are generally elevated. A cloth is placed over the forehead and eyes. Water is then applied to the cloth in a controlled manner. Once the cloth is completely saturated and covers the mouth and nose, air flow is slightly restricted for 20 to 40 seconds… this causes an increase in carbon dioxide in the individual’s blood. This increase in the carbon dioxide level stimulates increased effort to breathe. This effort plus the cloth produces the perception of ‘suffocation and incipient panic’ i.e., the perception of drowning.” He continues by stating “You have orally informed us this procedure triggers an automatic physiological sensation of drowning that the individual cannot control even though he may be aware that he is in fact not drowning.” Bybee also acknowledges technique will be used on Zubaydah stating a medical professional would be in attendance to “prevent severe mental or physical harm to Zubaydah.[vi]”

Bybee goes on to claim that these methods, waterboarding included, did not result in “prolonged mental harm.” Because the tortured subject “may” be aware that they are not drowning despite the fact they feel like they are, the act cannot be considered torture because of the purported sanitizing quality of this possibility. Additionally, he focuses on the lack of physical pain involved in simulated drowning. He references his memo to Gonzales stating “’ pain and suffering’ as used I section 2340A is best understood as a single concept, not distinct concepts…the waterboard, which inflicts no pain or actual harm whatsoever, does not in our view inflict ‘severe pain or suffering…[vii]’”

[i] Jay Bybee, “Memorandum for Alberto R. Gonzales, Counsel to the President Re: Standards of Conduct for Interrogation under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2340-2340A,” August 1, 2002, 2–3, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB127/02.08.01.pdf.

[ii] Bybee, 3

[iii] Bybee, 3

[iv] Bybee, 14-15

[v] Jay Bybee, “Memorandum for John Rizzo, Acting General Counsel of the Central Intelligence Agency Re: Interrogation of al Qaeda Operative,” Justice.gov, August 1, 2001, 1 , https://www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/olc/legacy/2010/08/05/memo-bybee2002.pdf.

[vi] Bybee, 3-4

[vii] Bybee 11

The role of women in ISIS: From Wives and Mothers to Soldiers

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by Christina Chatzitheodorou

Photo by Levi Meir Clancy on Unsplash

In much of the academic discourse on terrorism, the role of women tends to be overlooked. However, women have held a variety of roles in terrorist organisations. Such roles vary from logistics support to espionage, giving birth to a new generation of fighters, and sometimes operational and leadership positions. Ideology tends to have an effect on the roles women can hold in each organisation. For instance, in leftist organisations, women tend to hold more operational positions than in Islamist organisations, where their participation tends to be more about being a wife, a mother, a proselytiser, and a teacher. In the case of Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), the role of women changed from being wives and mothers of the fighters to more combatting roles out of operational necessity due to its territorial losses, or as Rita Katz mentions, “How Do We Know ISIS is Losing? Now it’s asking women to fight”. 

More precisely, up until 2019, when ISIS lost its last piece of territory, many women travelled to join ISIS despite its exceptional violence against women. Since its zenith in 2014, women have joined ISIS for the same reason that men decide to get involved: attraction of a new, noble cause to fight for and sentiment of inequality and marginalisation in their current societies. For the above reasons, some women travelled to Iraq and Syria to get involved romantically with ISIS members. Despite the reasons behind women’s decisions to join the terrorist organisation, their roles have been underexamined in the literature, especially the ones concerning the combat operations.

 Therefore, despite ISIS’ treatment of women, which has placed the organisation among the world’s worst perpetrators of gender-based violence, women support the organisation through various roles, from simply being wives and mothers of ISIS fighters or even by recruiting new members to participate in the jihad, in a struggle against non-believers and a moral betterment against one’s sinful proclivities. Consequently, even though the mistreatment of women in ISIS does not need further analysis, women were recruited both willingly and unwillingly, which shows women’s agency and the lack of it respectively and depending the case. Since 2015, 15 per cent of voluntary migrants to the Caliphate have been women, which makes it difficult to support a manichaeistic division, where women in ISIS are seen either as complete victims of sexual violence or women as independent agents that willingly travelled from the West to fight for the organisation. 

The most popular role of women in ISIS that was presented in the Western media revolves around the notion of the jihadist bride. Both women who travelled to Iraq and Syria and locals were expected to marry an ISIS fighter and give birth. The issue was first mentioned when the religious police female al-Khansa Brigade published a manifesto setting out the ideal role of women in the caliphate. As such, in 2014, their role could be summarised in giving birth to as many children as possible, as the concept of family in building the caliphate was essential. Women were to stay hidden, and only remain in the background, as keepers of the Islamist family values and morals. ISIS opposes the notion of gender equality and female education, which leads to abandonment of family values. Contrary to the expendability of men, women need to stay alive and give birth to the next generation of jihadists. Accordingly, it was common for jihadist brides to celebrate their husbands’ martyrdom and, at the same time, re-marry as soon as possible. However, it must be mentioned that even though women in ISIS had to build and maintain the Ummah and theoretically were prohibited from combat roles, it was an oxymora that the al-Khansa Brigade, acting as a hisba, a morality police force, were patrolling the streets with rifles in their shoulders. 

Moreover, women also helped recruit new members. Especially if a woman was a widow or remained unmarried, it was more possible to assign her such roles. Additionally, ISIS’s strategy relied on Western female recruits in order to motivate more women from abroad to join the organisation. Those women were also responsible for helping newly possible female members with technical issues on what to bring with them and what not to, any vaccinations that may be needed, and navigating them through the whole process.

Even though ISIS at its zenith repeatedly refused engaging women in qital, which means fighting in the way of Allah and it is not such a broad term as jihad, it reconsidered its firm position as soon when it started losing most of its territory. Such shift became apparent in 2017, when women’s involvement in combat operations from tenuous became permissible under circumstances. The abandonment of that ideological approach towards the role of women came as a result of ISIS territorial and military losses, which made the use of women in combat roles necessary. For instance, the Zura Foundation, a female-focused media platform aligned with ISIS, influenced women’s opinion in a variety of issues from carrying guns to cooking for ISIS fighters. The platform pointed out that it is permissible for women to fight due to operational necessity, at least in a defensive context and if they were instructed to by their emir, in case there are not enough men to defend their land. Moreover, in October 2017, ISIS openly called on women to fight against unbelievers and engage themselves in qital.  ISIS did not frame the participation of women in such extended roles as a result of losses, but as a natural extension of woman’s duty to defend the caliphate by using examples of women that fought for the Prophet. Their participation in the fight was seen as necessary in order to fight against evil, and hence, it was legitimised through the defence of their collective honour.

Some women also became suicide bombers in the name of faith and religion. Such a development came as a result of the sustained attack against the organisation. Therefore, in comparison with Boko Haram in Nigeria, where female suicide bombers became a famous tactic already since 2014, the first incident of female suicide terrorism in the caliphate only took place in 2017. It was in Mosul, in the last ISIS-held territory, that the Iraqi television crews filmed a woman being exploded with her baby. Since then, dozens of female suicide bombers have tried to approach the Iraqi troops with explosives, which points out the change of attitude concerning women’s participation in combat. 

Hence, as Charlie Winter argues, despite the established convention that derives from a doctrine dating back to the early years of Islam, where women stayed in the private sphere and were not supposed to fight, there are specific circumstances in which this becomes permissible. Accordingly, ISIS tried to reconcile its radical Islamist ideology, where women are not supposed to bear guns, and the practical need of recruiting women for combat roles due to its territorial losses to the Iraqi and Syrian government. These losses shifted IS strategy from the offensive to defensive and as a response to this new reality its rhetoric on women bearing arms also changed. 

In sum, women’s participation in combat has been justified based on operational needs, where the need for survival led to an ideological rationalisation that justifies the participation of women in combat roles due to the existential threat against the caliphate. The bifurcation of gender roles where women are seen as wives and mothers and men as the provider and the protector, or what Guidere calls the “theology of sexuality,” remained as long as it was beneficial to the organisation. However, the ideological change that appeared may end up more decisive for losing the support of its population base than the military and territorial losses in the area since 2017, as the gender division based on traditional roles was one of the elements that united the caliphate. Subsequently, other terrorist organisations may gain the support of a radicalised population by presenting themselves as the true believers in comparison with ISIS. 

Born and raised in Greece, Christina Chatzitheodorou studied International, European and Area Studies at Panteion University of Social and Political Sciences in Athens. She has a keen interest in strategic studies, irregular warfare and conflicts in the Middle East and North Africa.

She currently studies War Studies at King’s College London and she volunteers in the Churchill War Rooms. She speaks English, Italian, French, Spanish, Turkish and she is currently learning German and Arabic.

On the Ceasefire Babies, the Inheritance of Trauma, and the Legacy of Lyra McKee

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by Natasia Kalajdziovski

Photo is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0

‘Derry tonight. Absolute madness’. These were the last words tweeted out by Northern Irish journalist Lyra McKee on the evening of 18 April 2019, before she was shot in the head by the dissident republican group The New Irish Republican Army (New IRA). A promising young voice for her generation – one which has been dubbed the ‘Ceasefire Babies’ – McKee was murdered just a week after the twenty-first anniversary of the signing of The Good Friday Agreement (GFA)[1] which brought an end to the conflict in Northern Ireland.  Although the Troubles, as it is colloquially called, formally ended over two decades ago, its legacy continues to claim the lives of people in Northern Ireland.

The context which led to McKee’s death is not unfamiliar to those with knowledge of the Troubles. McKee had recently moved to Londonderry, or Derry,[2] from her hometown of Belfast to be with her partner, Sarah Canning. A night of rioting had engulfed the Creggan Estate and McKee – in her role as a journalist and extensive writer on life in Northern Ireland – went to observe. This was a kind of rioting that was far from unknown to Derry and its people. The city housed some of the first civil rights events during the Troubles, including the march on 5 October 1968 – frequently cited as the true starting point of the conflict – in which the province’s police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), baton-charged protesters in full view of television cameras broadcasting the event. It was also the site of the infamous Battle of the Bogside, a three-day riot in August 1969 between the RUC, the B-Specials, and civilians which led to the establishment of ‘Free Derry’, a self-declared Irish republican ‘no-go’ enclave of the city. Rioting spread to other parts of Northern Ireland and the fallout of the event, most notably, firmly entrenched Westminster into Northern Irish affairs through its deployment of the British Army on its own soil – one which would come to be the Army’s longest continuous deployment in its history.

The potential for violence in spring 2019 was not unexpected: it was April, a time in which the Easter Rising of 1916 was always marked, and the New IRA – alongside their political wing, Saoradh – had been more vocal on their social media channels leading up to the GFA’s anniversary on the 10th. In the week between the latter’s anniversary and McKee’s murder eight days later, local social media posts showed a convoy of police crossing the River Foyle in preparation for any potential clashes. The intervening days witnessed boys in hoodies, tracksuits, and scarves come together to hurl petrol bombs and other ‘missiles’ at the police, resulting in a van being set alight, followed by a car.

By this juncture, a riot such as this – of the police coming in; of local youth responding in kind – had become a kind of orchestrated dance, a playing of parts, so well-versed after more than fifty years of repetition on the same stage. For McKee, her experiences of the riot would have been similar to so many others who had come before her in Derry: the civil rights marchers; the Bogsiders; the civilians who were met with bullets on Bloody Sunday in 1972. McKee would meet the same fate as those who were killed on Bloody Sunday, this time silenced by the guns of dissident republicans intent upon continuing the armed struggle despite the protestations of an exhausted society who overwhelmingly want nothing to do with it.

For McKee and the Ceasefire Babies, it was not supposed to be like this – it was not supposed to be more repetitions of the past on a well-worn stage. McKee wrote extensively on the Ceasefire Babies, a generation to whom, being born in 1990, she belonged. They are, in her words, ‘those too young to remember the worst of the terror because we were either in nappies or just out of them when the [1994 ceasefire] was called’, although it is a name she has ‘always hated’, for it suggested that ‘growing up in the 90s in Belfast was a stroll’.

In a ground-breaking 2016 article entitled ‘Suicide of the Ceasefire Babies’, McKee found that in the 16 years which proceeded the end of the Troubles, more people had taken their own lives than died during them at the hands of paramilitary or state violence – a staggering reality. While suicide had most strikingly affected those who had lived through the worst period of Troubles-related violence, from 1970-1977, it had disproportionately affected the Ceasefire Babies, too. They were the ones who were supposed to reap the greatest benefits from a newly peaceful Northern Ireland – and yet, nearly one-fifth of suicides recorded since 1998 come from this generation who had no direct experience of the violence. In just over a six-week period in 2004, the Ardoyne area of Belfast alone saw 13 Ceasefire Babies, all young men, kill themselves – an incomprehensible level of loss for one community at an unfathomable generational cost.

Further, according to findings presented in McKee’s investigation, 39% of the Northern Irish population suffers from post-traumatic stress related to events experienced during the conflict. But it seems, too, that the inter-generational trauma of violence has seeped its way into the lives of McKee’s generation – either from a mental health perspective or, in McKee’s case, in the physical manifestation of that lingering connection to the past. Perhaps most unjustly, however, the Ceasefire Babies have little interest in the baggage of the past which they are invariably forced to carry. Writing in 2014 about the irrelevance to her generation about the old constitutional debate, McKee put plainly: ‘I don’t want a united Ireland or a stronger Union. I just want a better life’.

It is perhaps McKee’s general observations of the conflict and its ongoing memory that bear most repeating:

Many people have grown to dislike the use of the word ‘war’ to describe what happened here. The term ‘the conflict’ became a more acceptable alternative, even if it made a 30-year battle sound like a lover’s tiff. It’s got the ring of a euphemism, the kind one might use to refer to a shameful family secret […] I witnessed its last years, as armed campaigns died and gave way to an uneasy tension we natives of Northern Ireland have named ‘peace’, and I lived with its legacy, watching friends and family members cope with the trauma of what they could not forget.

Living with – and dying as a result of – the legacy of the Troubles has unfortunately come to define Lyra McKee’s life. And yet, its legacy is not just the burden to bear of the people of Northern Ireland; rather, it is arguably that of the British state, too.

At McKee’s funeral, British Prime Minister Theresa May and Northern Irish Secretary Karen Bradley – alongside Irish Taoiseach Leo Varadkar and Irish President Michael D. Higgins – were all in attendance as both a sign of solidarity and as a collective condemnation of the violence which had led to McKee’s death. After the funeral, Canning – McKee’s partner – revealed in an interview that when they had come to shake her hand during the service, she ‘took each of them to task for failing to take responsibility for Northern Ireland, thus creating a vacuum that Lyra’s killers had occupied’. Although in mourning, Canning was not acting in grief. Rather, she took her chance to speak a kind of truth to powers which had, alongside the actions of violent paramilitary groups operating during the conflict, left a legacy for which not all lingering questions felt addressed. The lack of answers, the lack of closure, the lack of truth and reconciliation, can only work to impede the civilian population’s ability to cope with, in McKee’s words, ‘the trauma of what they could not forget’.

The legacy of the Troubles, however, need not be one that is solely defined by its trauma, injustice, and violence. It is one defined by hope, too, and the potential for change – and the responses to McKee’s death are a testament to that hope. A few days after her death, on the famous ‘Free Derry’ corner that defines the Bogside area of the city, someone had spray-painted ‘Not in Our Name. RIP Lyra’, to reflect the revulsion felt about her murder. Further, dissident slogans spray-painted around the city were graffitied over, including one which removed the ‘un’ from the infamous republican phrase ‘unfinished revolution’. One Sinn Féin councillor in the city, Kevin Campbell, noted the kind of sea change that such action had marked by unknown activists, in which dissident republican messaging had been previously untouchable. In Campbell’s words, such action ‘shows they’re not afraid of them’.

Murals related to the conflict, of which Belfast and Derry are famous, are part of that collective memory of the conflict, used most frequently to honour and exonerate paramilitary men killed during the Troubles, and many remain untouched today. And yet, slowly things change, and new heroes are defined. Around the corner from where McKee grew up on the ‘Murder Mile’ in Belfast – a Catholic area once known as the stalking ground for the murderous loyalist paramilitary group, the Shankill Butchers – another mural has emerged in the time since her death. It is one of McKee laughing, posed beside the words she had written to her 14-year-old self, about what it was like to come out in a largely religious society. These words are not those of gun- and bomb-toting men intent on violent political change; rather, they are the words of a young and promising journalist who just wanted more for her generation, and for Northern Ireland:

‘It won’t always be like this. It’s going to get better’.

If you have been affected by any of the themes in this article and need to talk, you can reach Samaritans in the UK and the Republic of Ireland at 116 123, CALM in the UK at 0800 58 58 58, and Lifeline in Northern Ireland at 0808 808 8000.

[1] Formally, The Belfast Agreement (1998).

[2] For those familiar with the politics of Northern Ireland, the name of Londonderry/Derry remains contentious. To avoid delving deeply into this debate, and to avoid any potential accusations that the author has taken a political position on the city’s name, this article will ascribe to the BBC’s news style guide, which states that: ‘The city should be given the full name at first reference, but Derry can be used later’. As such, hereafter throughout the remainder of the article, the city shall be called ‘Derry’. For more, see: BBC. “BBC News Style Guide”. 14 August 2020. Accessed 27/10/2020. https://www.bbc.co.uk/newsstyleguide/d

Natasia Kalajdziovski is a senior editor at Strife.

She is a PhD candidate at Middlesex University, where she was awarded a fully funded research studentship to complete her studies. She holds a first-class MA from the Department of War Studies, King’s College London, and an Honours BA from the Department of History at the University of Toronto. Broadly speaking, her research examines the role and conduct of intelligence practice in counterterrorism in the national security context, using historical case studies as the foundation of her research. Outside of academia, Natasia frequently contributes to publications in the counterterrorism field, and she consults with various organisations as a subject-matter expert in her areas of research expertise. She is also a junior research affiliate with the Canadian Network for Research on Terrorism, Security and Society (TSAS) and an elected postgraduate member of the Royal Historical Society.

Female Suicide Bombers: An Uncomfortable Truth

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By Anne Preesman

Black Widow ready for action (Daily Star, 2010)

In the early 2000s, Russia engaged in a violent war with its southern republic of Chechnya. During the conflict, the Chechen insurgents increasingly resorted to terrorist attacks, the hostage crisis in a Moscow theatre in 2002 being one of them. The attacks were characterised by female suicide bombers who the press named ‘Black Widows’ because many had lost their husbands during the conflict. These women are not unique; other terrorist groups, such as Al Qaeda, also employ female jihadis as suicide bombers.

There is a broad literature on how conflict is related to gender roles; Enloe, for instance, argues in her work ‘Bananas, Beaches, and Bases’ that militarisation enforces the masculine social order. At the same time, we observe that women take over traditionally ‘male’ roles during war, such as working in military factories. However, society tends to be more uncomfortable with the idea of women being active combatants. Elshtain argues that this is caused by the fact that society tends to view women as ‘life-givers’ instead of ‘life-takers’. According to Cook, this leads to women’s roles in war and terrorist organisations not being accurately recognised.
Although women historically played a more passive role during times of conflict because they were often not conscripted, we should not neglect those who were active in combat. For example, the British Special Operations Executive (SOE) sent women to occupied France to sabotage German operations during the Second World War. Female suicide bombers are, thus, not the first women to act as active combatants during times of conflict. Still, female suicide bombers are unique because of their high commitment; they are willing to sacrifice themselves for the cause. The common view of female suicide bombers is that they are from highly traditional Islamic societies where they have an inferior position. Although this piece will focus on Islamic female suicide bombers, it is essential to note that not all female suicide bombers are connected to Islam. Furthermore, the idea that women in Islamic societies have an inferior position is a Western perspective; instead, the Quran argues against female oppression in various verses. 

However, it remains interesting to study if women’s social status pushes them to suicide attacks; therefore, I ask: Does a woman’s place in society push her towards suicide bombing roles?

Although women have been active in combat for centuries, men have actively resisted the idea of using women as a weapon, let alone employing their weaponised bodies as a tactical ‘tool’. It namely conflicts with the idea of women as ‘life-givers’. Using women, however, offers a tactical advantage. Women can pass security checks with greater ease, allowing them to have better access to potential targets. This makes female suicide attacks often more lethal than male attacks. Female attacks also receive more media attention, giving the terrorist group a broader reach. The Chechens were not the only ones trying to benefit from these tactical advantages. One of the first known attacks dates back to 1985 when a teenage girl drove a bomb-laden car into an Israeli defence force in Lebanon. In the modern day, other acts of terrorism committed by women can be found in Sri Lanka, Israel and Palestine, Turkey, Nigeria, and Russia.

In the literature, views on female suicide bombers and their motivations differ enormously. There is the idea that female suicide bombers are ‘failed women’; they are divorcees, infertile, victims of rape, or they lost their husbands, meaning they cannot fulfil their designated societal roles as wives or mothers. This can have two reinforcing consequences. First, these grievances can cause women to commit to the cause and make them willing to participate in suicide attacks. Interestingly, research finds that female empowerment is only a minor motivating factor for women joining a terrorist group, let alone perpetrating a suicide bombing. Second, being more controversial, one could also argue that such ‘failed women’ feel useless in society, making them useful to terrorist groups. These women may feel that the only way to become worthy to society again is by sacrificing themselves. Additionally, because women are hardly ever found in leadership positions, they are ‘replaceable’ to the group and thus suitable suicide bombers. Of course, there are exceptions, such as Samantha Lewthwaite, the White Widow who likely orchestrated the terrorist attack on a university in Kenya. Still, terrorist organisations remain very much a man’s world. 

However, it should also be pointed out that not all female suicide terrorists are necessarily ‘failed women’. We also see highly educated, politically engaged, and/or married women committing suicide terrorism acts. Furthermore, female suicide bombers are not only from non-Western states; Western women have committed suicide bombings too, Muriel Degauque being a notorious example.

In short, it would be incorrect to argue that there is one specific ‘type’ of female suicide bomber. At the same time, however, the attacks also affect women’s roles after they have occurred. Female participation does not necessarily lead to emancipation; instead, suicide attacks can reinforce women’s inferior positions. Although some female suicide bombers have been romanticised, like Palestinian Wafa Idris, most of them are perceived as ‘failed women’ after being involved in terrorism. Palestinian terrorism especially, elevates men but shames women. Thus, women who were unsuccessful in perpetrating their suicide attacks are not only forced back into their traditional roles; their positions are even worse than before they joined the fighting. Finally, it should also be noted that not all female suicide bombers are voluntary perpetrators. Boko Haram, for example, is known to coerce women into committing suicide attacks, although it denies these allegations. For these women, suicide bombings are not a process of female liberation but a method of female oppression and a sign of male domination.

The presence of female suicide bombers shows that women are not only passive actors in times of conflict. However, there is no exact ‘type’ of woman that commits such attacks; different female suicide bombers can come from different societal positions. These women do have in common that their attacks do not elevate the positions of women in their societies. Although some women become martyrs, most societies look down on their terrorist acts. If women were to survive their time in a terrorist group, their positions are more likely to deteriorate instead of improve.

 

Anne Preesman is an MA student taking Intelligence and International Security. She is interested in the role of women in terrorist groups and conflict in the Post-Soviet space.