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« Why Congress oughtn't legislate the Net || Back to Blog | Aw, shoot, now torture may not be worth the paperwork » May 04, 2004
Does President Bush understand the magnitude of the disaster at Abu Ghraib? We've lost whatever ability we had to maintain that we were occupying the high ground. We have given our enemies a powerful recruitment poster. We have handed them the rejoinder to those who want to argue on our behalf. Our country is at substantially greater long-term risk today. And our president treats it as something that is personally troubling, a matter of conscience rather than an issue of policy. He continues to talk about how we ended the "torture rooms" in Iraq, as if unaware of how hollow his words sound to the world. All that is PR and perception, and it counts for an awful lot. But we also have to ask whether we as a nation are responsible for the torture of the prisoners. Of course every American is outraged - aren't we? - but was it anything more than an isolated incident? And I'm afraid that the answer is yes. Even if it is the only time we've beaten prisoners, we are responsible for hiring mercenaries to mask the true cost of the war. Mercenaries are the second-largest force in the Coalition of the Willing and the Paid. Some of them have high security clearances from our government. We are outsourcing our dirty work. In the 21st century, the secret police work have corporate IDs. This is scary as shit. What can we do about it? I'm not an expert in foreign relations, war, security or diplomacy, so I don't know. But here are some things that make sense to me as a citizen:
The use of mercenaries to do our dirty work is a turning point. We should treat it as such and go back...conspicuously and quickly. MoveOn.org has a petition you can sign calling on our government to support a full investigation of the events. And here's a great op-ed by Bruce Schneier, and the usual brilliance from Krugman. Posted
by D. Weinberger at May 4, 2004 04:45 PM
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Comments
Brilliant analysis, I absolutely agree.
Posted by: Can Sar | May 4, 2004 05:21 PM
Well-put. I'm going to link to this in my blog -- you've just articulated everything I'd been thinking.
Posted by: Rachel | May 5, 2004 09:51 AM
I think we could also take a leaf out of Satre and Russell's book - when they set up the International War Crimes Tribunal to investigate and judge the US after Vietnam in 1967.
From Russell's closing statement:
"It is not enough, however, to identify the criminal. The United States must be isolated and rendered incapable of further crimes. I hope that America's remaining allies will be forced to desert the alliances which bind them together. I hope that the American people will repudiate resolutely the abject course on which their rulers have embarked. Finally, I hope that the peoples of the Third World will take heart from the example of the Vietnamese and join further in dismantling the American empire. It is the attempt to create empires that produces war crimes because, as the Nazis also reminded us, empires are founded on a self-righteous and deep-rooted belief in racial superiority and God-given mission. Once one believes colonial peoples to be untermenschen - 'gooks' is the American term - one has destroyed the basis of all civilized codes of conduct."
If my simplistic interpretation of the Geneva Convention and supporting international law is correct, the Commander in Chief of the U.S. forces should be put on trial for war crimes. That's the only kind of investigation I want to see - screw the usual congress whitewash.
BTW - it sucks that the moveon.org petition is for U.S. residents only.
Posted by: Michael O'Connor Clarke | May 5, 2004 11:45 AM
I don't think the U.S. is a bully, rather a teacher in the traditional sense of the word, where he or she ruled the classroom and playground. In this scenario children are taught what to learn and how to learn it. When they misbehave, they are punished. They are not allowed to ruin education time for others in the classroom, nor are they allowed to rule the playground so no one else can play safely. Freedom must be taught to those who have never experienced it, and bullies and gangs must be restrained and punished when they impose their unruly will on the innocent. For if they are not restrained, the safety of the classroom, where everyone else is hiding for safety, is surely in jeopardy.
Posted by: Todd | May 14, 2004 01:24 PM
Wish he could understand this while suffers from Hallucination.
Posted by: paul | July 22, 2006 03:55 AM