[antiwar-van] Abu Ghraib prompts denial, spin, evasion

[hanna kawas]

     http://www.registerguard.com/news/2004/05/30/ed.col.epps.0530.html



      May 30, 2004

      Guest Viewpoint: Abu Ghraib prompts denial, spin, evasion

      By Garrett Epps


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      Psychologists have a term for it: "cognitive dissonance" - the
tendency of human beings to reinterpret reality so it remains consistent
with their beliefs. Leon Festinger, who coined the term a half-century ago,
studied a religious group that believed the world would end on a set date.
When nothing happened, the most committed members of the group didn't lose
their faith; they simply "discovered" that their prayers had convinced God
to spare mankind.

      The revelations of torture and abuse by U.S. military personnel at Abu
Ghraib are not the end of the world, of course; but they do challenge some
of our deepest beliefs. So the national denial mechanism has begun to kick
in. In the letters to the editor columns, on Fox News and on talk radio, the
minimizations, evasions and denials are growing stronger every day. If we
are to learn the lesson of Abu Ghraib, it's important not to fall into these
fallacies. Below is a partial list, in roughly ascending order of
perniciousness:

      1) It was a few bad apples.

      The evidence so far is overwhelming that abuse of prisoners was a
policy deliberately adopted because of a belief that it would produce
intelligence results. When New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh printed
evidence that the abuse began with a "special access program" sanctioned by
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Department of Defense issued a coy
nondenial: "No responsible official of the Department of Defense approved
any program that could conceivably have been intended to result in such
abuses as witnessed in the recent photos and videos."

      The issue is not what officials intended, but what they did. And the
evidence suggests that the decision to go for harsh interrogation methods
was made at a very high level.

      2) The abuse wasn't so bad - just "hazing."

      Fraternity hazing rarely results in physical injury or death, and when
it does, it is treated as the serious crime it is. Sodomizing prisoners with
light sticks or attacking them with vicious dogs is not a prank.

      The international Convention Against Torture defines torture as "any
act by which severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental, is
intentionally inflicted on a person for such purposes as obtaining from him
or a third person information or a confession, punishing him for an act he
or a third person has committed or is suspected of having committed, or
intimidating or coercing him."

      What happened to the Iraqi prisoners fits that definition. Let's call
it by its proper name.

      3) We're better than Saddam Hussein was.

      Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., reacted this way: "I would guess that
these prisoners wake up every morning thanking Allah that Saddam Hussein is
not in charge of these prisoners."

      I do not recall hearing any American official justify our invasion of
Iraq on the grounds that we would be somewhat less brutal than Saddam. Our
leaders proclaimed that we were the forces of good. Even if we are the "good
guys" in Iraq - and that idea is always open to debate - being a "good guy"
does not give us license to perform bad acts and claim that they somehow
don't count.

      4) They had it coming.

      Here's Inhofe's explanation of why he was "more outraged by the
outrage" than by the torture itself: "If they're in cell block 1-A or 1-B,
these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents.
Many of them probably have American blood on their hands."

      There are two problems with this argument. First, it is by no means
clear that the abused detainees were all guilty of terrorism - or, indeed,
of any offense at all. It's quite likely that many were there because of
mistaken identity or just blind chance.

      But beyond that, no system of law - not American military law, not
American civilian law and not the international law of war - excuses any
form of abuse or punishment against an unarmed prisoner who has not been
proven guilty of an offense.

      Oddly enough, President Bush gets this principle - when it applies to
Americans, at least. "We have a presumption of innocent until you're guilty
in our system," he told an Arab news network that asked about punishment for
the guards at Abu Ghraib. Perhaps President Bush - speaking very slowly -
can explain it to Sen. Inhofe.

      5) The murder of Nick Berg puts our actions in perspective.

      A recent editorial cartoon showed the Abu Ghraib guards over the
caption, "Stupid, stupid, stupid." In the next panel, a grinning terrorist
held up a human head, over the caption "Evil." In what way does the
brutality of al-Qaeda relate to our own? I am certainly glad that no U.S.
personnel chopped off anyone's head. But the question is what they actually
did, not what someone else did. We as a people bear no legal or moral
responsibility for the actions of the Berg kidnappers. But the guards at Abu
Ghraib wore our flag and acted in our name.

      6) Remember 9/11!

      A letter writer to The Register-Guard put this fallacy very well when
he attacked a columnist for criticizing the Abu Ghraib torture: "How about
our victims of Sept. 11, 2001, and the sorrow it caused our nation and how
it impacted our economy?"

      There is absolutely no connection between the Sept. 11 attacks and the
helpless prisoners terrorized in Iraq. No sane person - not even President
Bush, for that matter - contends that the Iraqi government or people were
involved in Sept. 11. The detainees at Abu Ghraib were mostly there because
someone thought they had been involved in resisting the American occupation.
Torturing them because of our suffering in 2001 makes as much sense as
blowing up innocent Spaniards in 2004 because of the expulsion of the Moors
from Spain in 1492. In other words, it puts us on the precise moral level of
Osama bin Laden.

      7) "This isn't America."

      President Bush told the Iraqi people they "must understand" that "what
took place in that prison does not represent America that I know. The
America I know is a compassionate country that believes in freedom."

      This statement does nothing to reassure the people of the world that
America understands - or even cares - what went wrong in Iraq. At best, it's
an evasion; at worst, it's what psychologists call "dissociation" -
splitting off part of ourselves and pretending it doesn't exist. It's not a
healthy thing for a person or a country. And it fools nobody.

      By their fruits you shall know them, teaches the Christian Bible.
Other peoples and cultures understand the principle as well. What was done
in Abu Ghraib was done by Americans and done in our country's name, and, no,
noble words cannot change that fact. We cannot deny, spin or evade it
without diminishing ourselves still further in the eyes of the world.

      What can we do about the horrible images of the tortures inflicted in
our name? We can as a nation apologize and compensate the victims. Further,
we can face the fact that American history and American character include
ignoble motives and episodes as well as moments of heroism. Americans are no
better or worse than people anywhere else: Given the opportunity to behave
badly without consequences, some of us will do it.

      What makes our government different from Saddam's is one thing only -
the rule of law. When we cast it off, we put ourselves and the world at
risk - and atrocities follow. It would be comforting to think that law could
be part of the America that even President Bush knows about.

      Garrett Epps teaches at the University of Oregon School of Law.


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