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Mon 10 May, 2004 03:21 pm
Leader
Monday May 10, 2004
The Guardian
Outlaw behaviour, or at least some types of it, pains Donald Rumsfeld. The US defence secretary is particularly anguished by newspaper leaks of torture in Iraqi prisons. That amounts to a violation of national security, he told senators on Friday in Washington. The torture sickened him too, he said, but he saved his famous arched eyebrow for the villain who put this "radioactive" material into the public domain rather than let the system of military justice run its course.
Mr Rumsfeld, like his president, does not much care for truth. Truth undermines his own portrayal of himself, his administration and his nation as victims. He apologised last week for the scenes reproduced alongside his own image on split television screens: the prisoner on a leash, the piles of naked bodies, the nude, hooded figure with wires dangling from his finger tips. He even offered to pay for the damage. He also warned that there were more, and more horrific, photos and videos still to come.
Something of what he feared appears on our front page this morning. Mr Rumsfeld regretted that images like this have offended the world. Yet he knows from the same Red Cross sources that first warned of the abuses more than a year ago that torture continues under coalition direction, and he left too much unacknowledged. These images are more than merely unfortunate and embarrassing now. They are shaping the way the world sees the Iraq occupation.
Mr Rumsfeld did not apologise for the Red Cross reports of unarmed Iraqi prisoners being shot to death by military personnel in watchtowers. He said nothing of the "interrogation techniques" developed by US intelligence agencies and taught to security services the world over, including here. He expressed no regret for employing private contractors to question people who were accused of no crime, then hiding their sadistic behaviour from public scrutiny. He never mentioned how sorry he might be for turning over captives to other governments using even cruder torture methods. He showed no contrition for continuing to hide hundreds of people in Guantánamo Bay away from the law. Such leaders have placed themselves outside the bounds of international law, their own code of justice and their much-admired constitution. In doing so, they have also removed the protection of law from those who follow their orders.
George Bush started to withdraw the US from the international community at the beginning of his presidency. Earlier this year he dismissed foreign objections to his policies by insisting that the US needed no permission slip from the rest of the world to defend itself. At home, he has evaded oversight by Congress on matters of finance, intelligence operations and foreign relations. He sidestepped questioning by the press by holding fewer news conferences than any other modern president.
The Iraq revelations have given much of the world its voice back. The Washington Post reported yesterday that "profound anger" is building within the US Army against Mr Rumsfeld's rule. Now some soldiers have gone on the record calling for him to go. All this marks a quantum shift in the politics of the Iraq occupation.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/leaders/story/0,3604,1213015,00.html
He's upset, because his job is now on the line. This is one of the worst ways for a public servant to end their long career in public service - a black mark that will follow him in the history books, and he knows it will not be kindly worded.
Am I the only one who believes that every culture that has ever existed, including the US, utilizes torture during wartime?
This isn't a statement of my opinion of the practice.
I think everyone in our government knows this, and the entire dance we are witnessing from Rummy to the 'shocked' critics, know this as a fact.
Sofia, Two universities have done interesting experiments on 1) guards vs prisoners, and 2) smart vs average students. In the first case, it has been proven that intelligent, law-abiding students will do inhumane things if put into the position of guard over prisoners. In the second case, it was shown that smart students can be put into a situation which puts them into a slow-learning class, and the slow students put into a smart class will actually result in the smart students doing poorly, and the average students showing better improvement. Their was a similar experiment done at Yale on the first case where people/students in control positions increased their inhumane behavior towards students they "controlled." What these experiments proves is that "average, law-abiding citizens" will resort to sadistic actions when instructed to do so. It is my belief that those of college age can be influenced to do dastardly things towards other humans under the right circumstances, and it has nothing to do with national origin or culture.
I don't doubt that, ci.
My contention is that torture is applied by all cultures during wartime. Certainly, it must be one of those hideous truths that no one talks about, or admits.
Most of us live with blinders on. We all know that our prisons are filled, and our government continues to build more. Most laws that put people in prisons are stupid; they are counter-productive to society. I see our generation as the best of times and the worst of times. If we worry to much about all the problems that surround us, our sanity will be at risk. I'm going to wear my blinders for a few more years, and try to enjoy life to the max.
"Am I the only one who believes that every culture that has ever existed, including the US, utilizes torture during wartime?" sofia
No, you're not the only one. I think there's one other on able2know who buys into this way of thinking.
Historically, the USA could say with all honesty that we didn't stoop to the level of Pol Pot, Hitler, the Shah of Iran, Mao, Stalin or Saddam Hussein. Now that we have, I'm fascinated to see a few on the very far right, effort to explain it all away with a statement like the one made by sofia.
Amazing.
Doesn't the administration have to make an example of somebody here? They have to make sure Bush's reputation as the take charge guy is still intact, don't they?
I predict Rummy's gone within the month.
Quote:Am I the only one who believes that every culture that has ever existed, including the US, utilizes torture during wartime?
I must the only who thought that the US never used torture during wartime or any other time. This came as a shock to me, I am not just saying that to demonize the administration. If I found out that Clinton or any other democratic President used torture as a tool during wartime, I would denounce them too.
Quote:I think everyone in our government knows this, and the entire dance we are witnessing from Rummy to the 'shocked' critics, know this as a fact.
But didnt the Americans and the Brits go into Iraq to liberate the Iraqi people from the horrors of Saddam's torture chambers...or have I just made that up?
There have always been sadistic abusers in time of war. The difference is in the response of those in positions of authority. It appears here that warnings from the ICRC were ignored and that many practices were encouraged. Atrocity in Viet Nam may have been more common than has been acknowledged (although i doubt it), but Lt. Calley was court-martialled. Here, they're going to throw a handful of enlisted personnel to the dogs, and everyone else walks away scot-free.
The relevant question is not whether or not such things happen--it is what is going to be done about it. Apparently, all that concerns the current administration is damage control in terms of public relations--there seems to be no comprehension of the need to investigate this to the highest level and make people pay. That likely could be because the highest level implicitly guilty is too high for the administration to acknowledge.
Quote:the highest level implicitly guilty is too high for the administration to acknowledge.
Exactly set. It was policy. And I'm sorry to say it reflects on the whole of America, and to a lesser extent Britain.
remember whre you heard it...the USA, and perhaps Britain as well, will eventually stand aginst the EU as they will become the enemy of the US and I predict they may well be the enemy that topples us.
"I predict Rummy's gone within the month." kickycan
I hope you're correct.
After all, when a large organization is underperforming, you don't fire the file clerks -- you replace the top guy (or top gal) and they take the heat.
However, Bush's bizarre support of Rumsfeld suggests he hasn't goteen the greenlight from Poppy Bush and of course, Dick Cheney, to kick him to the curb.
Personally, I hope Bush keeps Rumsfeld around at least through the summer. He's becoming a huge liability for Bush who's approval ratings are at their lowest level yet: 46%.
Had the photos not gone public, I imagine a good effort to cover-up the entire matter would've been successful. Photos carry a unique power to make the abstract real and the unimaginable comprehensible.
I heard last night that we should brace for video tapes of what went on in the torture facility in Iraq.
I can only speak for myself, but I know I can't bring myself to watch. The pictures have been more than sufficiently disturbing to deecups.
greenumbrella wrote:Had the photos not gone public, I imagine a good effort to cover-up the entire matter would've been successful. Photos carry a unique power to make the abstract real and the unimaginable comprehensible.
Coverup? The military has been doing investigations into this for months.
infowarrior wrote:"Am I the only one who believes that every culture that has ever existed, including the US, utilizes torture during wartime?" sofia
No, you're not the only one. I think there's one other on able2know who buys into this way of thinking.
Historically, the USA could say with all honesty that we didn't stoop to the level of Pol Pot, Hitler, the Shah of Iran, Mao, Stalin or Saddam Hussein. Now that we have, I'm fascinated to see a few on the very far right, effort to explain it all away with a statement like the one made by sofia.
Amazing.
You are mistaken in your assumption that I was trying to 'explain it away'. To acknowledge a fact is not the same as approving it, or using it to explain something away.
I simply believe it is employed to get information vital to preventing more deaths. Make your own judgement. I haven't given an opinion about the practice--just stated that I believe it is used by all governments at war.
It is demoralizing to come face to face with it.
Haven't you heard yet? The Qaida (corrected 5/12) troops cut off the head of a American civilian's head today and displayed on tv.
"I simply believe it is employed to get information vital to preventing more deaths." sofia
What vital information are we efforting to obtain from a rag-tag bunch of Iraqis, 70% to 90% were arrested under false pretenses, and are civilians with no ties to Saddam, Sadr, or any insurgency movement?
This is ridiculous.
I read in the NYT's that one of the prisoners had been a fare-paying passenger in a taxicab that turned out to be stolen. So, the US military swoops in, arrests the driver AND the passenger and send them both off to Abu Ghraib for torture.
Please explain how 70% to 90% of prisoners wrongly arrested by American forces helps the war on terrorism, or ends the insurgency, or helps locate WMDs?
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