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May 11, 2004

Less Than Lynching

If I were GWBush I would send a fat-headed general to give a "you can't handle the truth" press conference. The Red Cross report, as adequately and appropriately interpreted by Josh Mitchell, is hardly as damning as many would like it to be.

What that man, way below Rumsfeld, would impatiently explain is some subset of the types of interrogations that go on, as part of the operating standards of our military. Furthermore he would explain the extent to which our military intelligence group authorized the use of certain techniques in the context of what excesses we know about. The point is to make explicit something of the nature of war interrogation and the fuzzy line between that and torture.

For example, what is the significance of using plastic handcuffs (like riot police do) and traditional handcuffs? When is it appropriate to blindfold or hood a prisoner and when is it not? What kinds of threats can an interrogator make?

Only by putting people in the uncomfortable light of options, tactics and uncertainty will some of the weight of responsibility be properly contextualized. It is somebody's job to do this. Were they doing it properly? It is not a question that is answered by a snapshot which is propaganda.

What the Red Cross report makes clear is that the excesses were systematic, that what was going on at Abu Ghraib was roughly what was supposed to be going on, and therefore not particularly aberrant. It is also made clear that whatever abuses occured were directed at a particular subset of the detainees and was not generally applied to any or every POW.

Quite frankly, I was prepared to hear that people's fingers were being chopped off or that their eyes or teeth were being poked out - the stuff of American gangster movies. But what we have, as Kevin Drum excerpts, is not quite up to par with American lynching. Emmitt Till got a much worse deal than any Iraqi detainee.

It is unclear whether or not any of these high-value detainees were hospitalized or required hospitalization, or that those needing it were denied. The priorities on hooding and permanent nerve damage seem appropriately high on the list of abuses.

I am pleased that we've been able to get this information quickly, and this seems to derail the impact of any extensive Congressional inquiry although we're likely to get one anyway. I cannot estimate what impact such news is likely to have on anyone although I am hesitant to publish some of the cartoons I've written in light of this revelation.

However one may feel about the purposes of this conflict, the ways and means of its accomplishment are very serious, and while it always makes sense to compare and contrast what Americans have done with what Saddam has done, it is most important to determine whether or not we Americans are breaking our own standards. That is job one. I find it difficult to believe that any information gained by breaking these prisoners is a net positive given how its news has been recieved in the West, but I am equally sure that it is not fundamentally changing Iraqi opinion in the street, given what they know of the Baathists.

It is inconceivable to me that the Iraqi on the street, given his dire conditions, is not at all looking forward to the establishment of self-rule. So the kind of rebellion established by militia groups and evidently supported by a sizeable plurality of Iraqis suggests to me that no absolute standards of law and order are attainable. If the CPA cannot arrest, and having arrested cannot deliver to justice then all expectations of the occupation should be as cynical as possible. But it is the highlighting of this aspect which erodes support for what peacable transistion the CPA expects to carry out. To the extent that propaganda of this sort is used to characterize the aims of occupation and the ways and means by which it is being accomplished, the CPA is undermined. Let us remember that the purpose of the American forces of occupation is primarily to secure the operations of the CPA as it works to make that transition real.

UPDATE: There is more grisly stuff than I expected, given that I expected Drum and Marshall to show the worst. Cryptome, a very trusted source, has this copy online: Note in particular paragraphs 15-18 as the gravest of the alleged war crimes.

Posted by mbowen at May 11, 2004 10:35 AM

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Posted by: Mitch H. at May 12, 2004 05:34 AM