(to paraphrase Fox News…read on.)
Part of me wishes that the Abu Ghraib story had never come out, or at least not the pictures that accompanied it. “Hearts and minds” arguments are usually full of conjecture and self serving assumptions, but this one is easy. These pictures are going to make more people hate us. They’re going to drive recruiting for Al Qaeda, and certainly the Iraqi militias. Americans will almost certainly get killed because of these photographs—maybe only in Iraq; maybe also here.
But I also know that’s not a brave or responsible reaction on my part. The problem is what happened, not that we found about it, or that the Arab world found about it or that CBS released pictures of it. The pictures might well be necessary to prevent it from happening it again. And journalists’ responsibility is to the truth, not to the U.S.’s image. If only censorship and self-censorship stand between us and what Islamic extremists say about us—well, God help us.
John Podhoretz and Glenn Reynolds seem to disagree with me. Podhoretz:
For others, however, thoughts of the Vietnam War conjure up a sense of moral triumph. They opposed the war, and their opposition was a key element in this nation’s withdrawal from the battlefield over the course of the Nixon presidency.
Those were glory days for the anti-war movement and the American counterculture, both of which reveled in their hostility to and rejection of authority… Keep this fact in mind when considering the actions of CBS News and The New Yorker’s Seymour Hersh.
Hersh and CBS are leading the media pack with graphic and lurid coverage of the disgusting atrocities committed at the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad. The tone they are adopting is a tone of moral outrage. But beneath it you can feel the thrill, the excitement of being back on the old familiar turf of standing in opposition to the foreign-policy aims of the United States – using the most despicable actions of a few criminals as a stand-in for the overall effort in Iraq.
For Hersh, this is quite literally an effort to return to old glory: He made his career almost 35 years ago by uncovering the Vietnam-era massacre at My Lai.
To take this story, and make it about American-hating hippies and journalists, is so misguided I don’t know where to start.
I once planned to grow up and be an investigative journalist, so I know about Seymour Hersh and My Lai. It is striking that the same person broke the story that shook our faith in our own rectitude in Vietnam, and the story that is doing the same in Iraq. Either a strange coincidence, or a sign of Hersh’s tenacity and the rest of the press’ lack thereof.
But. Is Hersh gleeful? He sure as hell doesn’t sound gleeful when he’s interviewed. Maybe he’s not above the odd surge of triumph, but if there is any element of vindication involved—Hersh is an investigative journalist. Finding out this stuff is his job, and he’s done it very well, and we all like to be best at our jobs. There is no indication whatsoever that Seymour Hersh is cackling with glee to be able to subvert American hegemony once again.
And even if there were….who the hell cares about the tricksy anti-Americanism that motivates Seymour Hersh, if his story is accurate? What, precisely, does Podhoretz think Hersh should have done? Not published the story of Abu Ghraib or My Lai, because it made us look bad? Say that these were six bad apples and did not detract from our noble liberation of Iraq? Hersh could say that, but it wouldn’t make it true and it certainly wouldn’t make anyone in the Muslim world believe it–for the most part they’re not learning about this from the New Yorker.
When U.S. soldiers abuse prisoners, the problem is that U.S. soldiers abuse prisoners, not that reporters write about it. When things go badly in Iraq, the problem is that things are going badly in Iraq, not that some antiwar people might be having impure thoughts about it, or think they were right to oppose this war before it started.*
* I do think I was right, but believe me, I’m not having much fun with it. I don’t actually want soldiers to die, or us to leave Iraq in shambles, or them to reinstate the draft next year, or terrorism on U.S. soil to increase. I have no bloody clue of what we should do about Iraq now–other than not re-elect Bush, and I figured that one out a REALLY long time ago. I’ve been of the “you broke it, you bought it” school since the day the war started, but I was pessimistic about our chances of success to begin with and these days I’m approaching hopelessness.
Awesome assessment and response Katherine.
Having read a bit about the “Jacksonian” Americans (thanks to Moe’s piece about it a while back), I’m convinced that some Americans truly believe there is misplaced glee and irresponible harm done by broadcasting these images, but you nailed it on the head: If only censorship and self-censorship stand between us and what Islamic extremists say about us—well, God help us.
What’s interesting to me about this sort of thing is the way that “American values” can be used to support or criticize the same war.
I think there’s also a disconnect (and I keep finding myself doing it) between an American response to what happened in Abu Ghraib, which strikes many of us as no worse than a frat house hazing gone awry, and a Middle Eastern response, which comes from a cultural point of view that sees forcing men to undress before other men or especially women, not to mention simulate sex between men, as something worse than death. From Sullivan
Whether we understand (or can get past the misogyny in) this response is really beside the point. To Iraqis it’s cruel and inhuman.
The other thing these critics of reporting the story aren’t acknowledging is how not shining light on such an event will let corruption fester and eat us from the inside. The idea that such nonsense left alone does no long-term harm was recently debunked by the Tiger Force story.
Congress isn’t happy.
Even Hitchens is upset.
You know the expression about how “bad writers plagiarize, good writers steal outright?” Well, what about writers who plagiarize completely unconsciously?
I ask because a half hour after I wrote this, I realized that my turn of phrase was indirectly lifted from this Orwell quotation:
“But unfortunately the truth about atrocities is far worse than that they are lied about and made into propaganda. The truth is that they happen….they all happened, and they did not happen any the less because the DAILY TELEGRAPH has suddenly found out about them when it is five years too late.”
(Click my name for the entire article that’s from.)
I couldn’t tell where Hitchens was going with that piece.
Edward, don’t you think these practices are chosen explictly because they are humiliating?
Edward, don’t you think these practices are chosen explictly because they are humiliating?
By the torturers yes, but I think the disconnect happens in the assessment back here at home. I noted in my first post on this topic that these atrocities were not as bad as what Hussein was doing to Iraqis back in his day (and I’ve seen other writers come to that same conclusion). I’ve since changed that opinion somewhat.
Rush L.:
Ditto:
Ditto:
Edward, what I mean is, do you think these MPs thought up, on their own, that stripping these guys naked and degrading them sexually was the best way to soften them up for interrogation?
Edward, what I mean is, do you think these MPs thought up, on their own, that stripping these guys naked and degrading them sexually was the best way to soften them up for interrogation?
Hmmmm. Good question.
No. On reflection, I’d have to say I think they were told what to do by people with a bit more expertise in the Middle Eastern man’s psyche. It looks like a designer torture to me.
By the way, Rilkefan, the only defense for that vile b.s. from Limbaugh would be that he’s overmedicated. You think about evil when you see the pictures from Abu Ghraib, but you really re-evaluate what evil is when you think about Rush’ motivation for spouting that shit.
Bill O’Reilly, who I try in vain to like, writes (re BD’s loss of a leg in combat):
Of course, the blog world, amd some of the press, are trying to find the extent of Israeli involvement in these techniques, either in training or advisory roles. Billmon and Neiwert.
…
I guess this goes all the way back to Guantanamo and cases like Maher Ahar(Sorry if misspelled.) I said “Cut them some slack” when Katherine told me it was important. I was wrong. That slippery slope is some slope, and it appears habits and attitudes grew stronger for lack of criticism.
Oh, and in some fashion, I suspect this leads back to Washington, and probably the White House.
…..
Too bad Katherine is not going to become an investigative reporter. Sy Hersh is a national treasure, and has few replacements vying to take his place.
First of all, great post, Katherine, extremely well put.
Interesting story over at the Whiskey Bar sheds further light on the designer torture point. The story recounts some portions of Joe Ryan’s diary from Iraq.
Ryan, who served (and is serving?) as a military interrogator in Iraq mentioned going through an Israeli Interrogation Course. The Mossad, and the Israeli military, have probably done quite a bit of homework on how to humiliate Arab and Muslim prisoners. Stands to reason anyone going through that course will come away with some knowledge in that regard.
Also stands to reason that if the Army is putting its interregators through this course, that the problem of this sort of treatment is indeed systematic, and not ‘a few bad seeds’, as has been suggested by (I believe) Rumsfeld.
On the Rush thing, I read that this morning somewhere, and it really got to me. The bald-faced immaturity evident in that sort of commentary is so far out of line, I barely know where to begin with it.
Torture, in any form, is not okay, ever. I think that point needs to be made loudly and clearly in the media, out there where the public can read it and see it. This sort of reaction, that it isn’t that big of a deal, that it probably doesn’t matter? That needs to be stopped. That needs to be addressed as being a real problem.
“…what happened in Abu Ghraib, which strikes many of us as no worse than a frat house hazing gone awry….”
That’s an awful, and disproportional, thing to say. We can all find such quotes. We can also find a lot of Bush=Hitler quotes. Neither is the reaction of “many” in proportion to the US population.
Katherine notes: “But I also know that’s not a brave or responsible reaction on my part.”
No one gets to have a “brave” reaction about this. Not your first one, nor your second, nor any of mine, nor any of anyone else. The only folks who could be “brave” would be those who dropped dime in Abu Ghraib, as one outstanding soldier did.
I’m glad for the tip on Limbaugh. I intend to address it (a restating of “go nuclear on his ass”).
Katherine is on it! When the complaints that the “press lost the war” reach fever pitch, as they are now, you know the war has just about had it. The press, of course, cannot win or lose a war. They can spin, one way or another, but Iraqis are not responding to Dan Rather, or Rush Linbaugh or any of us. Neither are they mindlessly taking their cues from Arab satellite stations. No, they are experiencing daily humiliation and degradation, and that is what motivates them. War dehumanizes. It dehumanizes us all, so that our soldiers can do such things and that so many Americans can seize the thinnest rationalizations. None of this is surprising, really, just depressingly repititous.
Of course, the White House responds to the abuse by putting the one person most responsible for it in charge of Abu Ghraib Prison!
Miller also addressed his own indirect role in helping to set policies at Abu Ghraib last year, while he was still the commander at Guantanamo Bay. In August and September, he and about 30 aides paid a two-week visit to Iraq to make suggestions on how to make interrogations more efficient and effective.
A key outcome of that visit was a recommendation to consolidate the supervision of military intelligence operatives, who supervise interrogations, and military police guards, who oversee the detainees. In November, a military intelligence brigade was put in overall control of Abu Ghraib, while a separate military brigade continued to run the detention operations.
In a March report, the leader of the administrative review, Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba concluded that the November decision led to a lack of communication and fragmentation of authority and created the conditions for the abuses to occur
Edward, to follow up on this point about the MPs … they’re from Cumberland, MD, which is basically in Appalachia. Culturally conservative place.
So I find it strains all kinds of credulity that these people would not have received instructions on how to proceed. They may indeed have taken it it too far. An unanswered question in my mind is just why these pictures were taken. Were they part of the process? Were they taken for sport? Were they taken by an MP with a guilty conscience who thought that the only way to get these practices addressed was to have shocking, visual proof?
“An unanswered question in my mind is just why these pictures were taken.”
The Nazis took plenty of pictures too. I dunno really, but it doesn’t appear to have been a hidden camera. They posed for them. However, I’m sure Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, chief thug, has gotten rid of any remaining evidence. He’s had a month to work unmolested –
Miller, 54, was transferred to Iraq last month to take over the 14 military-run prisons here, weeks before images of detainees being physically and sexually degraded at Abu Ghraib were leaked and broadcast around the world.
crutan, I was with you up until “Torture, in any form, is not okay, ever.”
There is a tiny, tiny fraction of cases, where this would be incorrect. This would involve cases where the subject was known/admitted (pre-torture) to having set up a situation where innocent people will die if he doesn’t reveal the information necessary to defuse (perhaps literally) the situation. Hopefully someone in that situation is willing to take responsibility and do what is necessary. Enjoying it = seek help; forcing the interrogator to repeat it = bad idea. But nonetheless a necessary exception to your otherwise-correct rule.
I am NOT implying that this was even remotely the situation at Abu-Ghraib. The running of that prison seems completely, inexcusably improper. I also share your concern that if it was Army policy to send MPs through an Israeli interrogation class, especially without specific instruction afterwards about the only time those techniques would ever be used, then this type of inexcusable behavior could be more widespread than is currently known.
No equivocation about the enjoyment of torture being a glaring moral failing however. Every one of the people smiling and posing for pictures with men being tortured deserve head trauma administered via clue-bat.
“However, I’m sure Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, chief thug, has gotten rid of any remaining evidence.”
Fascinating. Tell me, what evidence would you accept as disproving this theory of yours?
The problem with the ticking time bomb scenario is that it assumes ex ante that you know the bomb is there. It also assumes that the torture will work, which is actually fairly unlikely–the guy knows he only has to hold out for a little more time, and the threat of pain might be more useful than actually applying the pain, and he can give inaccurate information as easily as accurate information, knowing that the situation is too desperate for you to verify it. It also assumes that nothing short of torture would have worked.
All in all, while I recognize the emotional tug and you could probably construct a hypothetical to get every single one of us to break down–it’s too shaky a scenario to justify breaking one of the only taboos in the world. Especially when you consider the odds that if there’s a nuke in NY harbor and torture is the only feasible means of stopping it we’d use it anyway, and not prosecute the perpetrator or allow him a necessity defense (pretty good); and the odds that the power to torture, if granted, will be used in scenarios very very far from the hypothetical that led us to grant it (also pretty good.)
I don’t know why I can’t seem to make these points in short sentences just now, but hopefully this post is comprehensible if on the clumsy side.
Moe Lane
Why I apologize for daring to question the honesty and character of such an outstanding torturer for the Fuhrer. I sure he would never to anything to destroy evidence that might futher implicate him and his superiors in the murder of prisoners. Gen. Miller has reformed his harsher ways it seems though he says –
practices like hooding, depriving prisoners of sleep and forcing them into “stressful positions” were legitimate means of interrogation, the general said, and among the 50-odd coercive techniques sometimes used by American soldiers against enemy detainees.”There are interrogation techniques that increase anxiety,” General Miller said. “For example sleep deprivation, and stress positions and all that, could be used but they must be authorized.”
I’ll take that as a ‘no’, then, Mario. Feel free to rejoin the conversation when you can figure out how to distinguish your opinion from conspiracy theory.
But there is a conspiracy. A criminal conspiracy, and Gen. Miller is part of it. You might call him a supervisor.
General Miller, who took over in Iraq about one month ago, said he first came to Iraq last August with a team of about 30 experts to recommend ways of making the detentions and interrogations “more effective and more efficient.” One of those recommendations, he said, was to give the military police assigned to guard the Iraqi detainees a more active role in gathering intelligence.
I’m sorry, but apotropaic links don’t work on me no matter how often you brandish them. Kindly demonstrate that you understand what the word ‘falsifiable’ means, and that it can be honestly used as a descriptor of your theory, or else kindly stop wasting all of our valuable time. Whaddya think this is, Usenet?
Wow. “Apotropaic” I am going to look that one up.
“Descriptor” is neat too. Usenet we are not.
Karl Popper. I don’t what know what falsifiable means, but I know somebody who does.
“However, I’m sure Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, chief thug, has gotten rid of any remaining evidence.”
Fascinating. Tell me, what evidence would you accept as disproving this theory of yours?”
Wouldn’t finding “any remaining evidence”, meaning some evidence not destroyed, refute the proposition?
I don’t understand your use of that word above, Moe. “Warding-off-evil links”?
I happen to like “apoptosis”, related to programmed cell death (in itself a cool phrase).
“Wow. “Apotropaic” I am going to look that one up.”
It’s a good word, and more obscure than it deserves to be. 🙂
Nah, if finding some evidence falsified the theory, then finding no evidence proves the theory? That can’t be right. Logic not my strong point.
….
I believe Miller going to Iraq for the most obvious reasons.
a) To keep the detention centers off the TV talk shows
b) To improve intelligence-gathering, the torture and humiliation of random Iraqi citizens probably not having been very productive.
“I don’t understand your use of that word above, Moe. “Warding-off-evil links”?”
Sardonic commentary in response to the fact that Mario felt the need to reference the same WaPo link three times in one thread; the assumption that he was using it in much the same way that Van Helsing* would use a crucifix was me being nice. 🙂
Moe
*Well, I’m tempted to see it, but I’m worried that it might not be bad enough… um, never mind.
bob, theories aren’t proved, they are tested until they are disproved or superceded.
I saw the Van H. poster with Kate Beckinsale in PVC and thought, When’s that coming out? Then I saw the trailer. Oh well.
“Two Iraqi prisoners were murdered by Americans and 23 other deaths are being investigated in Iraq (news – web sites) and Afghanistan (news – web sites), the United States revealed on Tuesday as the Bush administration tried to contain growing outrage over the abuse of Iraqi detainees….
An official said a soldier was convicted in the U.S. military justice system of killing a prisoner by hitting him with a rock, and was reduced in rank to private and thrown out of the service but did not serve any jail time.
The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said a private contractor who worked for the CIA was found to have committed the other homicide against a prisoner.”
(Link here. Via Tacitus.)
1. Arghh!!!!!
2. Needless to say, this makes me more certain that it took these photos becoming public for this to end.
3. The CIA also hires private contractors these days?
4. Argh!!!!
The CIA has always hired contractors; have we forgotten the origin of “Air America”? (Disclosure: I did trivial editorial maintenance work on this book in the mid-Eighties.)
The reason the pictures were taken, incidentally, was to show them to new incoming prisoners to Abu Ghraith to frighten them and help “soften them up,” it’s been reported in many of the news stories.