Letters to the Editor
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Who actually 'owns' Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo, extreme rendition, waterboarding, torture...amd other crimes.
NOT Lynndie England, Sabrina Harmon, and others of that level. Not that they are 'blameless', but they certainly do not 'own' these monstrous crimes.
GW Bush and his criminal Gang, that's who owns them!
And, till US citizens get their act together and put these criminals in jail for their crimes, well, the whole US nation must 'own these crimes'!
--- GSC
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Very good!
Wow! Another serious writer at the Salon website. Glenn Greenwald is not alone.
Nice job!
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Dear Andrew,
That was a beautiful interview. That was art. The topic is so... "delicate," is not the right word, but it will have to do. Much more like capturing butterflies, alive, than shooting buffalo. It sounds very much like this is Morris's sensibility, and the way in which you conveyed how that sensibility worked on you, over the interview, was generous. I don't know that I will have an opportunity to see Morris's film, but if I can see it I will. Thanks for your delicate, humorous, and respectful treatment of this film and this topic. I've been getting a lot from your work generally, but this piece made it necessary to write you a fan-letter. You write a nuanced and precise prose, with an excellent sense for what is interesting, and, even more rare, for what is interesting about what is interesting. I am sooo jealous. Thanks.
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Thank you for this well-written piece
Sometimes I'm simply grateful that there are a few people, like Mr. Morris, who have a wider lens than I have when we're looking at the same picture. I owe them.
The way you wrote up this interview and the things Morris said made me remember this crucial question: "How would I act?" It's fine and justified to blame the administration, but each one of us also has to seek an honest answer to that question. If all we do is blame somebody else without introspection, that's a good indicator as to the answer.
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the blood was telling you something
Really. You go into a shower cubicle where a man is being beaten to death. You're told to hold him up so he can be murdered more effectively. You do as you're told and while you're assisting in a murder and doing absolutely nothing to stop it his blood drips on you. How nasty that it makes this man feel guilty. He should feel guilty. These things only happen because people like this man do nothing and 'follow orders'. Abu Ghraib happened not only because people gave orders but because people followed them. Yes the 'rotten apples' are in the Pentagon and the White House and the CIA but without obedience, cowardice and mindless conformity from those they command they can't carry out their crimes. If one soldier hadn't put these photos on the internet would anyone ever have found out? Reading this made me curious about another matter: if Syria is a threat to the United States why are prisoners being taken there on CIA planes to be tortured? It seems that all that's happened is that Abu Ghraib has become a show that's been taken on the road.
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Fine piece
It's good to see Andrew O'Hehir treating Abu Ghraib as he does - with horror, disgust and bewilderment - when elsewhere in America it has pretty much dropped out of the national conversation. The seven bad apples have been identified and punished, so end of story, move on.
Well that should NOT be the end of the story. There is a systemic malaise at work here that needs to be exposed; from the soldiers themselves who seem to take no personal responsibility for what they did, to the shadowy CIA operatives and others who abused, tortured and murdered their captives in the name of America, and those at the top like Bush and Cheney who willed it all to happen.
Those who think America is better than this, like Errol Morris and Andrew O'Hehir, do us all a service by trying to stop this outrage dropping out of sight in the face of public discomfort and boredom.
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It's a good story
And one that needs to be told. But these people weren't the problem.
The original crime at Abu Graib, the one that led to all the rest, was in fact commited by the DOD and received tacit approval from Bush after the fact.
Put a small group of people in an untenable situation, far from home, and they are going to exhibit herd behavior. So here's what the government (I use that term loosely) did:
- Staffed the prison with roughly 10% of the guards needed for a normal population
- Jammed nearly twice as many prisoners in there as the prison could reasonably hold
- Sent about half as much food as needed to feed those prisoners, much of that rotten
- Allowed local workers, none of whom were subjected to security vetting and most of whom got the jobs because they were related to Iraqi politicians, to come and go as they pleased. This led to
- Allowed a situation where it was not uncommon for prisoners to have weapons, including guns. But keeping the Iraqi politicians happy was more important than the safety of the soldiers.
Clusterfuck doesn't begin to describe the situation at Abu Graib. And it all started with Rumsfeld's epiphany, that he could buy a successful war at Wal-Mart.
It's true that the people in question here were not morally strong enough to do the right thing (or at least refuse to do the wrong thing). It's just as true that they were denied the support structure that they needed to make those kinds of moral decisions in a rational manner. Rumsfeld created, and Bush later condoned, a Lord of the Flies type environment. This was the result.
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Disconnect between Personal Conscience and Obeying Authority
Andrew O'Hehir has provided powerful commentary concerning the film
"Standard Operating Procedure." Just how did the United States become involved in this torture? Our citizens want a pass, and to accept the earlier governmental claim it was just a few bad apples.
Well the truth has been revealed the top echelons of this administration including the Vice President Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfield,Colon Powell, Condi Rice and others gave specific orders to those below on just how to conduct this torture. Our citizens collective view of our actions
in Iraq is out of synchronization with our national behavior. "The greatest nation in the world just couldn't allow torture." Well put on your thinking cap what would you call the public lynching of AfrIcan Americans which included torture, accompanied by both pre and post mortem mutilation and carried out by crowds of U.S. citizens. The lynch law in the South lasted from the mid-19th to the mid-20th centuries. Don't we ever look at that, and say what kind of people are we to allow that to happen? Have we lost our capacity to feel, think, and do ? In 1963 Yale University psychologist Stanley Milgram conducted a series of experiments which measured the willingness of those who took part in his study to obey an authority figure even though those acts conflicted with their personal conscience. These experiments are described in depth in his 1974 book Obedience to Authority: An Experimental View.
I intend on seeing Errol Morris's film "Standard Operating Procedure," We need to focus on what is wrong with this country, and do something about it. It is my view that we are on a slippery slop to fascism. That destination is not going to be easily reversed. In advance of seeing the film I thank Errol Morris for the film, and thanks to Salon for the outstanding commentary. Perhaps our nation stands a chance if it will wake up!