[Vision2020] Ex-Soldier Playwright Spotlights Abu Ghraib

[Tony]

Tom, why did Casteel not fit in at west point?

And why did he not tell his raghead prisoner that we were NOT there to kill, 
but to pursue those who murdered 3 thousand of our fellow citizens on 911?

Sounds like that raghead found himself an easy mark in Casteel, whose faith 
in his cause and country was never there to begin with.

Later pal,   -Tony
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Hansen" <thansen at moscow.com>
To: "Vision 2020" <vision2020 at moscow.com>
Sent: Friday, February 16, 2007 1:42 PM
Subject: [Vision2020] Ex-Soldier Playwright Spotlights Abu Ghraib


> >From the Army Times at www.ArmyTimes.com -
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
> Ex-soldier playwright spotlights Abu Ghraib
>
> By Todd Dvorak - The Associated Press
> Posted : Friday Feb 16, 2007 8:45:27 EST
>
> IOWA CITY, Iowa - Joshua Casteel spent eight months at Iraq's infamous Abu
> Ghraib prison, interrogating teenage boys, grandfathers, taxi drivers,
> religious leaders and an occasional self-professed jihadist.
>
> Since leaving Iraq, then later the Army in May 2005, Casteel has struggled
> to make sense of his experience, coming to terms with what he considers
> questionable techniques used by fellow interrogators. From his effort to
> deal with post-traumatic stress and ensuing spasms of guilt has come a 
> play
> that opens this weekend at the University of Iowa.
>
> "Returns" is Casteel's first play, an autobiographical journey with a
> smattering of anti-war sentiment.
>
> "It's more personal than political," said Casteel, a 27-year-old student 
> in
> the playwright division of the Writers' Workshop at the University of 
> Iowa.
> "I wanted to tell the stories of the people I interrogated - the story of
> ... those who committed torture and what happened to them and their search
> for forgiveness."
>
> The play begins when Casteel arrives in Iraq, eight months after 
> photographs
> surfaced showing the mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. The scandal
> has led to the convictions of 11 enlisted soldiers for cruelty and
> mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners.
>
>>From there, the play unfolds in vignettes that skip across time and
> continents. Some are set in the prison with Casteel, playing the lead role
> of James, questioning Ahmed, a prisoner dressed in an orange jumpsuit who 
> is
> accused of attending terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.
>
> Others are set after James and his small circle of military friends have
> returned home. At times, the cast fondly recalls the laughs and light
> moments shared in war. Other scenes are more troubling, such as the
> recurring theme of Mark, a fictional interrogator who engaged in torture 
> and
> seeks forgiveness from James, who is reluctant to give it.
>
> Casteel said his own battles with post-traumatic stress and his struggles 
> to
> savor the quiet moments in his postwar life account for the play's form.
>
> "The hardest thing for me when I got back was just being still," Casteel
> said. "It was hard for me to write for long periods of time and focus, 
> which
> is why I wrote this in vignettes and short periods of action."
>
> A native of Cedar Rapids, Casteel grew up an evangelical Christian, spent
> summers at Christian Bible camps and was president of his high school's
> Young Republicans club. As a junior in high school, he enlisted in the 
> Army
> Reserve and after graduation enrolled in the U.S. Military Academy, 
> quitting
> after five months at West Point.
>
> "I felt too claustrophobic and stifled there, too different," he said.
>
> But after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, Casteel re-enlisted, 
> opting
> for the Army's intensive Arabic language and interrogation training. He
> deployed to Baghdad in 2004, postponing an invitation to enroll in the
> seminary.
>
> At the time of his arrival, the prison was already operating under reforms
> prompted by the scandal. Yet Casteel said friends assigned to special 
> forces
> and mobile interrogation units, operating outside the prison, used tools
> that conflicted with international law. In the play, Casteel incorporates
> techniques to induce hypothermia as well as loud music, bright lights,
> kicking and punching.
>
> After eight months in Abu Ghraib and a series of interrogations with a
> 22-year-old jihadist prisoner, Casteel had had enough.
>
> "We began to discuss war and violence," Casteel said. "I asked him why he
> came to kill, and he asked me why I did? At that point, I knew I could go 
> no
> further, unless I wanted to get into a debate about which one of us had 
> the
> more just cause."
>
> Casteel filed for conscientious objector status in February 2005 and
> received an honorable discharge three months later.
>
> Since then, he has given talks about the war. Last year, he performed part
> of "Returns" at a fundraiser for Human Rights Watch in Great Britain at 
> the
> invitation of David Gothard, associated director of the Abbey Theatre,
> Ireland's national theater. Gothard, a guest professor at the University 
> of
> Iowa this semester, is the director of "Returns."
>
> "I think this is going to be a major play," Gothard said. "I think it's a
> brilliant example of someone who realizes halfway through what he's doing 
> in
> war, stops everything and begins writing on the raw edge of the situation
> we're in."
>
> The play is also scheduled to be performed Monday at Columbia College in
> Chicago.
>
> -------------------------------------------------------
>
> Seeya round town, Moscow.
>
> Tom Hansen
> Moscow, Idaho
>
> "It's hard for me, living in this beautiful White House, to give you a
> firsthand assessment. I haven't been there. You have. I haven't."
>
> -- George W. Bush, when asked by ABC reporter Martha Raddatz if there is a
> civil war in Iraq
>
>
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