Suicide Rather than Executing an Unlawful Order

This is certainly a rare occurrence, but in the context of the current debate on torture prosecutions and all the finessing in the American media about whether this was "really torture", the little known story of those who refused to implement orders is one well worth recalling.


Alyssa Peterson was, as Greg Mitchell recounts in the Huffington Post, an Arabic-speaking interrogator from 311th Military Intelligence BN, 101st Airborne. She died of "non-hostile weapons discharge after being assigned to an air based in Northwestern Iraq.

A newspaper reporter, Kevin Elston, was suspicious of the official story and filed a Freedom of Information Act request which allowed him to access Peterson's army file. According to the army report, Peterson had been "reprimanded" for showing "empathy" for the prisoners. More specifically:

Peterson objected to the interrogation techniques used on prisoners. She refused to participate after only two nights working in the unit known as the cage. Army spokespersons for her unit have refused to describe the interrogation techniques Alyssa objected to. They say all records of those techniques have now been destroyed.

Testimonies from former colleagues indicate that "she was having a difficult time separating her personal feelings from her professional duties."

The link between Peterson's suicide and what we can surmise can only have been "harsh interrogation techniques" seems strong. Was Peterson's act one of protest or one of despair? We will probably never know exactly (the army has never disclosed an apparent suicide note), although it is worth pointing out that Peterson was a devout Mormon and that in either case the pressure of what she was being asked to do proved to be too much.

There is of course a small but real history of suicides in the face of being ordered to commit atrocities. For example, it is known that during the Second World War among "Participants of firing squads/execution squads (on the Eastern front) Many had nervous breakdowns and some resorted to suicide". There is at least one other case in the Iraq context, when Colonel Ted Westhusing, a West Point scholar and ethicist, shot himself after reporting both mass corrupion and human rights abuses in Iraq by a private security company he oversaw (USIS). His suicide note was addressed to General Petraeus, among others. Ironically, there is also a history of committing suicide for failure to obey or fulfill orders, most notably in Japan during the war. And of course, a history of suicides rather than be made to suffer certain acts.

The story of Peterson is tragic because it shows that she probably felt like she could not find a sympathetic ear within the base. The tension created between obeying orders and allegiance to her faith and worldview was thus irreconciliable. One can only wonder whether the US army will one day come to see this as a form of honorable disobedience that testifies to the deep moral fibre of some of its members.