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Sun. Jul 27, 2003

Trading in the Marketplace of Credibility

Trading in the Marketplace of Credibility – In “Harsh Photographic Reality,” I wrote about my concerns over the release of the photos (and later video) of Uday and Qusay’s corpses. My personal qualms may not have been relevant, but they certainly aren’t lonely: “Televised images of the bodies of Saddam Hussein’s sons shocked many Arabs on Friday, who said it was un-Islamic to exhibit corpses, however much the brothers were loathed [...] ‘Although Uday and Qusay are criminals, displaying their corpses like this is disgusting and repulsive. America claims it is civilized but is behaving like a thug,’ Saudi civil servant Saad Brikan, 42, told Reuters in Riyadh.”

Beyond the reaction from the Arab world, my concerns are rooted in how we’ve set ourselves up for charges of hypocrisy, in a mere four month span. And I’m not too pleased by the method and logic used to get there: “U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said yesterday that the decision to release the photographs was difficult, but that he believes it was the right one. ‘These two individuals [Uday and Qusay] are particularly vicious individuals. They are now dead. We know that. They have been carefully identified. The Iraqi people have been waiting for confirmation of that and they, in my view, deserve having confirmation of that,‘ he said.”

Furthermore, the Secretary claims (or talks as if) he made the final call on this one himself. However well informed, in the end, it was One Man’s Opinion. And within our power structure, not The Man. So I’m curious how he will react in a year or four when the Minister of Defence and brother-in-law of the President-for-Life of Lower Tyrannistan announces, “These two individuals [Sgt. Bubba Lifer and Lt. John Doe, US Army] are particularly vicious individuals. They are now dead. We know that. They have been carefully identified. The Tyranni people have been waiting for confirmation of that and they, in my view, deserve having confirmation of that. So that is why we placed their death distorted and bloody faces on International TV. Our people have also asked that tomorrow we drag them through the streets”

Is that a call any ol’ Minister of Defence gets to make? One guy gets to decide about tossing away decades of tradition codified in the form of the 60 year old Geneva Convention?

“Responding to a reporter who had noted the U.S. military’s strong objections when photos of dead U.S. solders were shown in Iraq early in the war, Rumsfeld said: ‘The more I thought about the importance of having the Iraqi people gain conviction that that crowd [the Hussein regime] is through, and the fact that it could reduce the number of Americans and coalition people who might be killed, and it could increase the number of people who will come forward with information and give us intelligence as to where the remainder of these people are, and where conceivably it’ll reduce the number of recruits and jihadists coming into the country because they’ll find it’s a less hospitable environment than they might have thought, that seems to me to outweigh the sensitivities.’ ”

All reasonably valid points. But it isn’t about “sensitivities.” It’s about basic human respect and international law, in the form of the Geneva Convention.

At least it was last March, when Mr. Rumsfeld’s opinion on a remarkably similar issue was vociferously stated as 180 degrees the opposite: “Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said today it would be ‘unfortunate’ if television networks carried pictures provided by the Arab satellite channel Al-Jazeera apparently showing American dead and prisoners of war in Baghdad.”

“Rumsfeld said it was a breach of the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners of war to show ‘humiliating’ footage of the American military captives [...] ‘The Geneva Convention indicates that it’s not permitted to photograph and embarrass or humiliate prisoners of war,’ Rumsfeld said. ‘And if they do happen to be American or coalition ground forces that have been captured, the Geneva Convention indicates how they should be treated.’ ”

“Interviewed later on CNN, Rumsfeld said, ‘and needless to say, television networks that carry such pictures are, I would say, doing something that’s unfortunate.’ The International Committee of the Red Cross agreed the footage violated the convention.”

It looks to me like something must have changed in the past four months.

Back in March, “Lt. Gen. John Abizaid, briefing reporters at coalition headquarters in Doha, Qatar, angrily blasted Al Jazeera for airing the video. ‘Those pictures were disgusting,’ Abizaid said. ‘I regard the showing of those pictures as absolutely unacceptable.’ ” This time, it was CENTCOM Commander Abizaid’s office that was issuing the photo’s and video of the dead.

Given the reaction so far, one has to wonder how much consideration and consultation went into the decision to release such images, as well as the method of release. Did we talk to anyone outside the inner circle who might have some good advice? “...often the Afghans offer surprisingly astute observations and advice to the Americans on its handling of the war on terror. ‘The naked bodies of Uday and Qusay should never have been shown by the U.S. It gives them a bad reputation in the Islamic world,’ says one as we scrutinize the mortician’s indecorously draped version of the corpses. His friends concur. Indeed, the televising of the Husseins remains is not only widely unpopular here; it’s considered a terrible tactical blunder, even among the most pro-American Afghans [...] As far as these young Afghans in the television room are concerned, this public relations blunder could have easily been avoided. ‘The Americans were very foolish. They should have given the film to Al Jazeera. They would have broadcast it for certain and the Americans would have been completely without blame in the Islamic world.’ ”

And if Al Jazeera had been the source, it might have been believed by more. From us, it’s viewed by many as hocus pocus: “Their release was a move by the military to convince sceptical Iraqis that the two were dead. But many Iraqis, especially Saddam supporters, believe the American military concocted the story of the brothers’ killing to demoralise opponents of the US occupation.”

“Inside a cramped studio, plastics artist Fuad Haman, 41, guesses the two-day delay in showing pictures of Uday and Qusay comes from the elaborate preparations to fake their corpses. ‘In a photo, you would never notice the difference,’ said Mr Haman, an expert at making near-life plaster replicas of people.”

You might think we can never win in a land so fertile in conspiracy theories. But you have to try to understand the “Roots of Distrust”: “It was, they said, staged by the Americans so that Uday and Qusay could be covertly smuggled out of Iraq. ‘In reality, it’s like a passport for Uday and Qusay to leave the country,’ said Mr. Hazim, 37. ‘There is a general understanding that there is a secret agreement between the U.S. and Saddam’s family.’ ”

“Given the depth of the United States’ military commitment to Iraq, and its obvious importance to President Bush, Americans may be tempted to dismiss such sentiments as improbable paranoia. But consider the experience of a population that has had very little reliable information during the past 35 years, and has had far too much of rumor, conspiracy theories and propaganda. And, more to the point, terror.”

“In such an environment, even good information becomes difficult to believe. Who can say for sure that it, too, isn’t some form of calculated lie?”

So I’m not sure how much we really gained on this one. We made what I see as a major compromise in the standards we have long upheld. Standards we have also long demanded others meet in their treatment of Americans. Standards that have been loudly proclaimed by people like, oh, our Secretary of Defense and CENTCOM Commander. And with that capital, we didn’t exactly purchase an overwhelming success.

And we have doomed ourselves to repeat this spectacle (times ten) when Saddam is found. No matter what condition he is in.

Finally, in a case of tooting my own horn because no one else will, on Thursday I wrote that the Only Goal was: “Prove to the Iraqi people that Uday and Qusay are, in the words of the Coroner of Munchkin City, ‘not only merely dead, [they’re] really, most sincerely dead.’ ”

Then on Friday, Tom Shales wrote in the Washington Post: “As grim as the photos were, all the debate about the status of the brothers brought to mind a line sung by the Munchkin coroner in ‘The Wizard of Oz’ regarding a wicked witch who had been crushed by a house: ‘She’s not only merely dead, she’s really most sincerely dead.’ ”

The differences? [1] I was a day earlier, [2] I provided a link to the original lyrics, and, [3] Tom got paid for it.