I read Eric Fair’s “
An Iraq Interrogator’s Nightmare” (from the DU home page, posted by kpete) with great interest. Of all the horrendous crimes of the Bush administration, its torture and other abuse of the human rights of its prisoners are the ones that horrify me the most. By comparison, the attack on Valorie Plame and leaking of her CIA status, or the electronic warrantless spying on untold thousands or millions of American citizens, grave acts of treason though they may be, are of much less concern to me. To me, it is the torture of our prisoners that more than anything else shows the true character of George W. Bush and his administration – and therefore portends what could happen to our country and the world if he is not stopped. And by the same token (it should go without saying), I find the absence of widespread outrage over this, in Congress and among the American people, to be terribly disturbing. All of this demands explanation.
My reaction to Eric Fair as a person, upon reading his confession, was similar to that of most DUers who responded to kpete’s post. In my heart, I believe in forgiveness whenever a person shows sincere remorse for what they’ve done – not remorse for being caught, but for what they’ve done. It seems obvious to me that Eric Fair feels a great deal of remorse for whatever role he played in the torture of our Iraqi prisoners. There is no point in our criticizing his actions because he has said everything that needs to be said about them:
I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself.
Why did he do it? Though he doesn’t discuss this in his article, my guess is that he knew it was wrong at the time (at some level in his soul), but at that time he didn’t have the courage either to openly admit it to himself or to disobey his orders. Make no mistake about it – that would have taken courage. He has now shown a good deal of courage in writing his article, and even more courage in having it published in a major newspaper. How many others who have played similar roles – and it seems highly likely that there are hundreds of them working for the U.S. military at this moment – have done the same? If anything will stop our “leaders” from continuing their barbaric practices it will be public exposure – of the type that Eric Fair’s article accomplished. He should be proud of that accomplishment.
At least one poster to the thread expressed the wish that Fair should spend a long time in prison for what he did. I understand that sentiment, but I don’t feel that way. I’m sure that Fair’s own self incrimination has been terribly painful to him. And beyond that, as he notes in his article, “I rarely sleep through the night without a visit from this man”. I think he’s been punished enough. I very much hope that he can forgive himself.
Why is this happening?I have asked myself over and over again why this is happening, and in my efforts to figure it out, I have written and posted many threads on DU about it. Our country was founded upon our Declaration of Independence, which says that everyone has the unalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Our Constitution provides the legal foundation for protection of those rights, and as such it constitutes a great step forward for humankind and has served as a model for numerous other nations of the world. How can this be happening here?
It has been noted over and over again that our abuse of prisoners does us no good whatsoever.
Little or no intelligence of any use is acquired by those means. It exposes our own soldiers to the
grave risk of similar abuse. Our barbaric behavior serves only to destroy our reputation among the nations of the world and to help greatly in the
recruitment of anti-American terrorists. And there is a wealth of evidence that most of our prisoners
are innocent of any significant wrong doing. Thus I have so often wondered why this continues to go on and on.
The way I now see it, there are three levels of responsibility: At the lowest level of responsibility are men like Eric Fair, who did what they did simply because they lacked the courage to challenge their military superiors.
A higher level of complicity has been described by former U.S. Army Specialist Tony Lagouranis in an
interview with Amy Goodman. This type of complicity involves ambitious people who recognize that one good way to “get ahead” in today’s military is to satisfy one’s military superiors, no matter how repugnant. Lagouranis explains:
They wanted numbers. They wanted numbers of terrorists apprehended… so they could brief that to the general…. They were trying to prove that there were a lot of foreign fighters in Fallujah… Very few of them had foreign I.Ds. There were people working with me who would, in an effort to sort of cook the books, you know…
And at the highest level of complicity we have the hardened criminals, including unfortunately – and this has to be said – the leaders of our country under whom all this takes place.
What motivates the torturers?Like I said, I’ve asked myself this question over and over again. But today I read an article in
The Nation that lit a light bulb in my head. The article is called “
Bloggers Against Torture”, by Negar Azimi. It isn’t specifically about our country – it is about the barbaric and routine torture that takes place in Egypt today, at the hands of the Egyptian government. Nobody wants to think of their own government in that kind of light. And out of denial, to maintain a sort of comfort zone, most Americans don’t even think about it. After all, it can’t happen to them, right? As our fearless leaders tell us, our government must do what it does because we are facing a fearsome enemy, and they have to do whatever they need to do to protect us.
But Azimi’s article hit me right between the eyes, and with his words he made me recognize the motivations of my own government. The article begins by describing the torture of a young Egyptian bus driver, Emad al-Kabir, who had been jailed for trying to “break up a scuffle between police officers and his cousin”. Describing the culture of torture in Egypt today, Azimi explains:
Not only are torture and abuse tolerated; in the security services violence is broadly valued as a sign of authority, strength, bravado. It is not uncommon for lower level officers to get promotions for such theatrics. In fact, the original video of al-kabir appears to have circulated for months … among police officers and taxi drivers, Abu Ghraib style, before it was leaked to the public. The images were likely shared for bragging purposes – and to serve as a sort of warning to those who would dare to tread on police turf, as al-Kabir had.
Seymour Hersh, in his investigation of U.S. prisoner abuse and torture, had something similar to say about the Bush administration, but using fewer and less offensive words, as
related to him by a senior U.S. Army officer:
“No one in the Bush Administration would get far if he was viewed as soft, in any way, on suspected Al Qaeda terrorism.” Yet despite all this, “One consistent theme has been a lack of timely and reliable intelligence about the other side.”
Both Azimi’s and Hersh’s descriptions say the same thing in different ways. What they describe can be summed up in one word – EVIL.
It hasn’t yet gone far enough here to be considered the equivalent (in terms of frequency) of the torture that routinely goes on in Egypt and some other countries. But you can be sure that that isn’t because of any moral restraints on the part of the Bush/Cheney regime. It’s because Americans have a fairly long history of living under democracy and the rule of law, and therefore there are some limits as to what they will tolerate.
Yet … I have to say that I find the lack of outrage over this matter in our country to be extremely disappointing – and scary. Are we as a nation so comfortable with our lives that comfort has come to mean so much that we have become apathetic about crimes against humanity? Is
racism the explanation?
Some thoughts on torture videosI have always avoided like the plague any motion picture that depicts torture. I just can’t stomach such things. I believe that I am a very normal person in that respect. Most if not all normal human beings are revolted by the sight of the torture of any living being, especially another human. It is built into our genetics, and it is also a prominent part of our moral code.
Then why are Americans so apathetic about this? In part, at least, it is explained by denial. Americans don’t want to believe that their government does this kind of stuff, our corporate news media doesn’t talk about it much, and we just don’t want to think about it. Senator Richard Durbin first heard the details of the Bush/Cheney torture practices from an FBI agent. He was shocked, and he thought that this would be of interest to the United States Senate, so he
discussed it on the floor of the United States Senate. Silly him. Not only was it of small interest to most of our Senators, but Durbin himself was considered the guilty one, not the perpetrators of torture, because he was the one who chose to offend everyone by talking about it.
One thing however that cuts through the denial is graphic descriptions of torture. That, in fact, is what Azimi’s article is mostly about. Bloggers in Egypt have been creating quite a stir by circulating videos of government sponsored torture on the internet. They have created outrage that has actually resulted in some holding of the torturers accountable for their acts. Not much, but it’s a start.
Americans need to actually see this stuff. That would shake most of them out of their apathy. In the absence of actual visual evidence, discussion of such things is mostly dismissed as the paranoia of “
conspiracy theorists”. Torture videos are extremely offensive. But Americans need to be offended about what is going on in their country – and in their name. The pictures of torture at Abu Ghraib shook things up a bit and garnered some attention to this issue. But they were soon mostly forgotten, as our “leaders” explained them away as being the result of “a few bad apples.” Americans need to see much more of this kind of thing. That is the job of our news media. Since our corporate news media has mostly abrogated its responsibility in this regard, the task falls to alternative news media sources.
We cannot afford to be silent or mince words on this issue. We need people to tell it like it is. Americans need to put aside perceptions of their government as they
wish to see it, and instead see their government
as it really is. People like Richard Durbin and Seymour Hersh and Eric Fair are needed in our country more than ever, to facilitate that process.
Most of all, Americans need to consider what is the difference between George W. Bush and his partners in crime, compared to sadistic and abusive prison officials or compared to ordinary violent criminals? The only difference that I can think of is that Bush and his gang are far more dangerous than the others because they have the power to hurt far more people.
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