I spent the weekend watching all sort of documentaries, starting with a Saturday morning running of HBO’s “The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib.” When pictures of the events at Abu Ghraib first surfaced a few years ago, I had the reaction that most all Americans had, horror. This was not our America, this was not representative of the ideals we hold dear.
Unfortunately, given the climate at the time (and still pervades today), the dialog about these completely unacceptable events quickly devolved into a blame game. Instead of rooting out causes, punishing wrong doers, and putting measures in place to prevent this in the future, the discussion immediately went to cries of “Bush lied!” or “America, love it or leave it.” In retrospect, I think responsibility for the poor handling after the fact lies with the Bush administration, and more specifically Donald Rumsfeld.
More on that in a second, but first a few words on torture. If any good has come from the whole ordeal it is that the events have forced the discussion of torture into the national debate. As a civilized society, we pride ourselves on being “above” the coarser elements of humanity. For example, rather than follow a path of vengeance toward serial killers and mass murderers, we dole out life imprisonment or even quiet euthanasia by lethal injection to people who clearly earned far worse. We like to think that we have taken the high road versus evil.
Torture, in the context it’s entered into our national discussion on the other hand is a different animal all together. Torture as we are discussion it has a goal or end of its own, to extract information. In traditional confrontations where one nation is heads up fighting another, it is easy for both sides to agree not to torture captured combatants under the Geneva Conventions. However, the world is different now. We, that is, “civilized” people, are scared. Faced with faceless, unknown enemies that don’t “fight fair,” we’re as a society thrashing on what is a “right” or “moral” path. How do we fight evil without it pulling us down with it?
Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz has written extensively about torture and posed difficult questions that we need to confront as a nation. The American people are somewhat bi-polar on the issue of torture. On the one hand, we despise torture and anything remotely resembling it. As practiced by unlawful tyrants, say Saddam Hussein, we’re outraged and disgusted. On the other hand, we cheer many of our idyllic heroes, the “Dirty Harry’s,” and the “Jack Bauer’s,” when they take the pragmatic-but-brute-force measures necessary against evil doers to save the innocent.
Dershowitz cuts to the quick of the matter with his hypothetical scenario –(paraphrasing) Imagine a known killer has been captured. Prior to capture he has kidnapped your child (not “a” child, your child). The child is in a box, buried in the ground with only an hour of oxygen left. The killer isn’t saying where to find the box. In this instance, Mr. Civilized, would torture be an acceptable tool to save the life of your child? Is there a parent out there, confronted with this reality that would say “no?”
Intellectual discussions and new world reality aside, what happened at Abu Ghraib was nothing remotely like the seemingly black and white scenario above. It’s clear, from the documentary’s point of view at least, that what happened at Abu Ghraib was grossly out of line with anything Americans would ever accept as their standards. What happened at Abu Grahib appears to be a case of the lack of enough resources (or the right resources), lack of proper communication, and lack of leadership around what is acceptable. Military Police, who were trained for battle operations around collecting POWs, not being prison guards, were in effect co-opted by Military Intelligence. The practice of “softening up” prisoners prior to interrogations was left in the hands of non-trained, non-accountable, non-lead individuals. The best description was one witnesses mention in the movie of how it reminded him of the behavior of the school boys in the Lord of the Files.
The real loss here is America’s claim to the high ground. It is a basic American value that when they can the strong should protect the weak. The individual gets the benefit of the doubt (which does not mean that enemy combatants get the rights that an citizen accused of a crime does). This is not what happened here. The images at Abu Ghraib have fanned the flames of anti-American sentiment. This was a big loss that unfortunately, no one really paid for. Several soldiers were convicted of various infractions, and one Brigadier General was dropped in rank. I really like Donald Rumsfeld. I think he’s smart, and tells it like it is, and was honestly working to protect the United States. The documentary showed proof that Rumsfeld approved some techniques for extracting information from enemy combatants. I’m not sure you can place actual blame for Abu Ghraib on the approvals Rumsfeld made, but it’s clear to me now that we should have placed responsibility. Unfortunately, it’s lonely at the top. If someone working for you steps out of line that bad on your watch, you have to go. Rumsfeld probably should have been taken out of office, if only to send a high-level message to the world that Abu Ghraib is not what we stand for. (To his credit, Rumsfeld offered to resign three times while in office)
Unfortunately, given the climate at the time (and still pervades today), the dialog about these completely unacceptable events quickly devolved into a blame game. Instead of rooting out causes, punishing wrong doers, and putting measures in place to prevent this in the future, the discussion immediately went to cries of “Bush lied!” or “America, love it or leave it.” In retrospect, I think responsibility for the poor handling after the fact lies with the Bush administration, and more specifically Donald Rumsfeld.
More on that in a second, but first a few words on torture. If any good has come from the whole ordeal it is that the events have forced the discussion of torture into the national debate. As a civilized society, we pride ourselves on being “above” the coarser elements of humanity. For example, rather than follow a path of vengeance toward serial killers and mass murderers, we dole out life imprisonment or even quiet euthanasia by lethal injection to people who clearly earned far worse. We like to think that we have taken the high road versus evil.
Torture, in the context it’s entered into our national discussion on the other hand is a different animal all together. Torture as we are discussion it has a goal or end of its own, to extract information. In traditional confrontations where one nation is heads up fighting another, it is easy for both sides to agree not to torture captured combatants under the Geneva Conventions. However, the world is different now. We, that is, “civilized” people, are scared. Faced with faceless, unknown enemies that don’t “fight fair,” we’re as a society thrashing on what is a “right” or “moral” path. How do we fight evil without it pulling us down with it?
Harvard professor Alan Dershowitz has written extensively about torture and posed difficult questions that we need to confront as a nation. The American people are somewhat bi-polar on the issue of torture. On the one hand, we despise torture and anything remotely resembling it. As practiced by unlawful tyrants, say Saddam Hussein, we’re outraged and disgusted. On the other hand, we cheer many of our idyllic heroes, the “Dirty Harry’s,” and the “Jack Bauer’s,” when they take the pragmatic-but-brute-force measures necessary against evil doers to save the innocent.
Dershowitz cuts to the quick of the matter with his hypothetical scenario –(paraphrasing) Imagine a known killer has been captured. Prior to capture he has kidnapped your child (not “a” child, your child). The child is in a box, buried in the ground with only an hour of oxygen left. The killer isn’t saying where to find the box. In this instance, Mr. Civilized, would torture be an acceptable tool to save the life of your child? Is there a parent out there, confronted with this reality that would say “no?”
Intellectual discussions and new world reality aside, what happened at Abu Ghraib was nothing remotely like the seemingly black and white scenario above. It’s clear, from the documentary’s point of view at least, that what happened at Abu Ghraib was grossly out of line with anything Americans would ever accept as their standards. What happened at Abu Grahib appears to be a case of the lack of enough resources (or the right resources), lack of proper communication, and lack of leadership around what is acceptable. Military Police, who were trained for battle operations around collecting POWs, not being prison guards, were in effect co-opted by Military Intelligence. The practice of “softening up” prisoners prior to interrogations was left in the hands of non-trained, non-accountable, non-lead individuals. The best description was one witnesses mention in the movie of how it reminded him of the behavior of the school boys in the Lord of the Files.
The real loss here is America’s claim to the high ground. It is a basic American value that when they can the strong should protect the weak. The individual gets the benefit of the doubt (which does not mean that enemy combatants get the rights that an citizen accused of a crime does). This is not what happened here. The images at Abu Ghraib have fanned the flames of anti-American sentiment. This was a big loss that unfortunately, no one really paid for. Several soldiers were convicted of various infractions, and one Brigadier General was dropped in rank. I really like Donald Rumsfeld. I think he’s smart, and tells it like it is, and was honestly working to protect the United States. The documentary showed proof that Rumsfeld approved some techniques for extracting information from enemy combatants. I’m not sure you can place actual blame for Abu Ghraib on the approvals Rumsfeld made, but it’s clear to me now that we should have placed responsibility. Unfortunately, it’s lonely at the top. If someone working for you steps out of line that bad on your watch, you have to go. Rumsfeld probably should have been taken out of office, if only to send a high-level message to the world that Abu Ghraib is not what we stand for. (To his credit, Rumsfeld offered to resign three times while in office)
On America’s positive side, we really wash our dirty laundry in public. Few countries around the world practice the self-flagellation that we do. We’re big, and we’re powerful, and we mean well, but sometimes we screw up (big). When we do, we beat it to death, and we do so in public. I found the participants and witnesses in the movie to be quite credible and forthcoming about the situation and the things they did wrong. Unfortunately, the self-examination will be lost on America’s enemies. Our best hope is that we learn from our mistakes going forward.
