PhotoDude.com

Thu. May 06, 2004

Words, Actions, and Abu Ghraib

I haven’t written about the scandalous behavior and horrific abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, because the story keeps building. And others far more qualified have put a much finer point on it than I ever will, like Sgt. Stryker: “That uniform is stained with the noble blood of those who’ve fallen in battle for their country, but you have smeared that uniform – my uniform! – with the excrement of malevolent barbarism. You have failed in every possible way a soldier can fail.”

Now, the Complete text of Article 15-6 Investigation of the 800th
Military Police Brigade by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba is online. It’s shocking reading, and proves that the disgusting pictures we’ve seen are, frankly, tame compared to actual events.

Nonetheless, the excuses and rationalizations I’ve heard so far are stunning. Initially, there was even talk that the photographs weren’t real, just Photoshop creations. But, to my knowledge, Photoshop has never caused a three month long Pentagon investigation, and the six soldiers charged would be screaming bloody murder if those photos were fakes.

Others have said things along the lines of “yeah, but they didn’t murder them and hang their flayed bodies on a bridge.” No, they didn’t. Because that was evil, and we’re supposed to be the good guys. We’re supposed to be setting examples, and demonstrating how a democratic society functions. Think back to kindergarten, when they taught you “two wrongs don’t make a right.” It’s still true today. Falling back on the excuse, “Ahmed did it first, he started it” is beyond childish. It’s cowardly, and completely ignorant of the mission that remains.

And speaking of cowardly, we have the excuse being given by some of the soldiers charged: we weren’t properly trained to run a jail, or given instruction in the Geneva Convention.

Ok, I’ll buy a tiny slice of that. It is indeed a failure of command that these people didn’t get proper training, and that’s why I endorse punishment of that entire chain of command … up to at least brigade level, if not higher.

But this civvy is fully capable of finding a copy of the Geneva Convention, reading it, and understanding at least 95% of it. Were these six soldiers somehow less capable than me? Or simply less motivated? As Phil Carter points out, these issues could have been largely resolved with about five minutes of something called “initiative”: “Anyone in this unit could’ve gone online to get FM 3-19.40, Military Police Internment/Resettlement Operations; anyone could’ve also gone online to get FM 27-10, The Law of Land Warfare. These soldiers, sergeants and officers were derelict in not taking the initiative to learn how to do their jobs once they were on the ground.”

Phil’s right, but I have to ask, just what is in those manuals? Is that where it tells you, “it’s not acceptable to insert a flashlight in a detainee’s rectum, and creating naked prisoner pyramids is frowned upon,” or is that maybe something you should know before you leave the Good Ol’ US of A? More properly, isn’t that the type of thing that ought to create innate disgust in a functional well adjusted human being?

There’s no manual for that, and no training. It’s supposed to be innate, and the fact these soldiers lacked that is no one’s fault but their own. If you’ve read this site for very long, you know I believe we’ve become a Planet of Victims, in which no one has to take responsibility for their own actions as long as they retain enough strength to lift a finger and point it at someone else. This is perhaps the ultimate example of that cowardly incompetence as a human being.

I can’t express the level of disgust I feel, and I hope these soldiers get what they’ve got coming.

But they won’t.

In 1971, Lt. William Calley was convicted of killing 22 Vietnamese villagers, but in the end, he spent minimal time at Fort Leavenworth (Real Prison), before being transferred to “house arrest” at Fort Benning. He served a whopping three and a half years under those “harsh” conditions before being paroled in 1974. So let’s face it: the history of “military justice” would indicate these soldiers will get off lightly, relative to the gravity of these crimes.

However, these are clearly exceptional circumstances that require an exceptional response. Whether it’s General Kimmit, Condolezza Rice, or President Bush himself, words simply don’t cut it. Oh, yes, they are required, and they do make a difference. But this is about actions. And ugly actions can only be overturned by positive actions in response.

So what do we do? There’s a host of suggestions floating around out there, many of them good, but I think we’ve got to focus on one question first: who is the target audience? Who are we trying to speak to with this action? There is only one correct answer: the Iraqi people.

Some have suggested disbanding the offending unit, the 372nd Military Police Company. It might be an effective message to send within the armed forces; “if your actions disgrace the US Army, your unit may be dissolved.” But I don’t think it would really say much to the Iraqi people.

The hot buzz in today’s new cycle is the calls for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld to resign (in effect, to be fired). Please, you’re hurting my rib cage trying to suppress the guffaws. No one gets fired in the Bush administration (as long as you’re “loyal,” i.e., not Paul O’Neill). This country suffered the worst surprise attack in 60 years, and not only wasn’t there even one symbolic firing, there was no real reshuffling of the cabinet to face new challenges.

Don’t get me wrong, I’ve used the phrase “unconscionable malpractice” in reference to Rumsfeld, more than once: ”...Bush gave Rumsfeld nearly full discretionary power to plan and run the invasion and the occupation. But Rumsfeld took the reins hard, and bulled through a lot of good advice that has since proven quite prophetic.”

For me, he reached the “firing” threshold over six months ago, based on the after action reports that laid naked the fact there was no Phase IV plan at all, to his stubborn refusal to acknowledge that even one sliver of his “Iraq Philosophy” was wrong. As George Will recently said, “Being steadfast in defense of carefully considered convictions is a virtue. Being blankly incapable of distinguishing cherished hopes from disappointing facts, or of reassessing comforting doctrines in face of contrary evidence, is a crippling political vice.” It’s most definitely a military vice, as well. And Rumsfeld is guilty as hell of it.

But it hasn’t gotten him in any real hot water before. He’s won almost all of the administration’s internal battles, and the President is the one who handed him the reins in pre- and post-war Iraq. He’s chosen to leave them there.

You might think it’s different this time, as Rumsfeld faces a rightfully angry Congress, who will spend hours lashing him publicly tomorrow. Many of them are already calling for his resignation. And you may have heard that Bush “is ‘not satisfied’ and ‘not happy’ with the way Rumsfeld informed him about the investigation into abuses by U.S. soldiers” and “particularly disturbed at having had to learn from news reports this week about the scope of misconduct documented in an Army investigative report completed in March.”

But note the phrases the Washington Post uses for the source, i.e., the reason you heard it; “a senior White House official,” and an “official, who refused to be named so he could speak more candidly.” This was a deliberate official leak that the President was mad at Rummy. But today, White House spokesman Scott McClellan is doing the “Bush Confidence in Rummy” dance, or in Scott’s case, a very slow shuffle. It’s clear the leak was a public spanking of Rummy. And it’s the only punishment he is likely to get from the White House. He’ll go before Congress tomorrow, be contrite, and take his public lumps. And then he’ll soldier on.

But even if this controversy grew to the point Bush had no choice but to dump Rummy (which, I might add, would be an opportune time to let some other folks go, too), what impact might this have on your average Iraqi? My guess is none, as Rumsfeld wouldn’t go to jail, he’d retire to a seven figure job somewhere.

Many are now calling for a more symbolic act; the leveling of Abu Ghraib prison itself. It’s a long feared symbol of Saddam’s regime, and its sinister reputation has only been “enhanced” by the actions of these US soldiers. So leveling it would be a fine symbolic act; a way of saying “these days are over.”

But on the other hand, it’s just a collection of buildings. Despite whatever symbolic meaning they have, there will be many who will say that you haven’t destroyed what happened there, or created any justice, or ensured it isn’t happening elsewhere … you’ve just torn down some buildings.

I think it will work only if it goes hand in hand with a bit of the ol’ “Of The People, For The People, By The People.” We are supposed to be handing Iraq back to its people. This seems a perfect place to start. Obviously, US forces are needed to maintain control over the prisons, but I think it’s time for some new Iraqi wardens. It’s probably not yet possible to give them the control a warden normally has, nor do I think this should be “One Prison – One Warden” (too open to manipulation). But we could certainly create “warden teams,” maybe three Iraqis, who would have permission to access any area of the prison at any time, and power to report abuses they find to authorities outside the prison system.

Combined with leveling the prison, this would say “What happened was evil, and we have flattened it. To prove it was a sick aberration, and not the norm, we want Iraqis to watch over Iraqis in the prison system, now, as we begin to turn them back over to the state.”

And if we’re not willing to open the Iraqi prisons to such accountability, that says to me there are still problems.

This is just like the UN Oil-for-Food scandal. The only way for any institution to come through this kind of ugliness with its principles intact is to become transparent, and let your actions speak even louder than your words.

We’re not there yet.