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| May 10, 2004 | ||||
Live by the Spin, Die by the Spin |
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| by Christopher Deliso | ||||
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What a difference a year makes! The same government that was cashing in from the constant screening of "Saving Private Jessica" last April is one year later reeling from one of the latest release – the equally riveting "Secrets of Abu Ghraib," which is already becoming one of the ugliest photo-documented scandals in American military history. Last year's PR coup was anchored on the harrowing (and bogus) tales of abuses carried out on the attractive girl-next-door, Private Jessica Lynch. What made the story of abuse and valiant rescue all the more appealing was the barrage of photos that came out soon thereafter: a photogenic, sprightly 19 year-old who somehow defied the odds and survived the assault of those evil Ay-rabs of Iraq. Of course, that there was something fishy about the whole tale was unimportant; what was to be treasured was the feel-good sentiment that, like good old apple pie, Americans could indulge in patriotically. Yet there is nothing photogenic about the leering faces of Americans indulging in abuse of Iraqis at the prison of Abu Ghraib. There are no feel-good moments, either (unless you're an ignorant hillbilly or depraved apologist for American empire, that is). Defense Secretary Rumsfeld's admission that still more shocking photos and even worse, video are yet to come in the days and weeks ahead means that those who live by the spin may die by it, too. Rummy Turns "Responsible" – Whatever That Means Once Donald Rumsfeld took "full responsibility" for the misdeeds of his troops in the field, one could sense the end approaching. In his perhaps fatal hubris, however, the defense security refuses to countenance the idea of stepping down. Said a top Bush official, decrying Rumsfeld's "destructive arrogance" to Time: "…you have no idea what it's like to deal with the United States of Rumsfeld." Yet with increasing cries for Rummy's head, a dejected Colin Powell possibly planning to retire come November 2, and devious Dick Cheney remaining as unpopular as ever, one can expect that Karl Rove is now scratching off names on his checklist of potential new fall guys for Bush Regime 2. Dubya's ratings are in the toilet bowl, and if the Iraqi torture scandal worsens – as looks very likely – this willfully stupid little dictator may have to remove even himself from the ticket. The utter disarray of it all was recently depicted by Britain's Independent: "…first, Colin Powell sent forth his closest aides – his deputy Richard Armitage and his chief of staff Larry Wilkerson – to inform GQ magazine of the Secretary of State's frustration with administration policies, and his exhaustion at the endless battles with the Pentagon and his friend turned foe, Vice-President Dick Cheney. Within hours of this latest mini-rebellion by the reluctant warrior Powell, there were orchestrated leaks of Mr. Bush's dressing-down of Mr. Rumsfeld, held guilty of omitting to keep a famously uncurious President abreast of the unfolding scandal at Abu Ghraib. The vaunted unity of the Bush team is in tatters." Which Mission Was Accomplished? "Mission Accomplished!" sang the banner hoisted behind "aviator" George W. Bush, just over a year ago today. The Iraqi war was finished, American bravery, tenacity, and technology had prevailed, and the liberation was set to begin. The Iraqis would welcome America with open arms. Yet not only has this marvelous bit of stagecraft blown up in the government's face one year later, the Iraqi torture photos are blowing the lid off of its claims to the moral high ground. Far from an aberration involving a few "bad apples," the tactics used in Iraq – and in Afghanistan and Guantanamo before it – are turning out to be a vital part of the military's strategy for dealing with prisoners of war. What's become known as the "S&M War" represents a real, coordinated strategy of military intelligence leaders – who themselves are now being protected from investigation. Remarkably, such prison abuse stories have been documented consistently for over a year, but received little media or governmental attention until those precious things worth a thousand words – pictures – started to come out in late April. Yet last March, even a month before Bush's mission had been officially "accomplished," humanitarian organizations were already on the ground in Iraq and ringing alarm bells. States the San Francisco Chronicle: "…The most comprehensive evaluation of Iraqi jails was conducted by the Red Cross, which began dispatching staff members by March 31, less than two weeks after the war started. In the next six months, the Geneva-based organization paid 29 visits to 14 detention centers, delivering oral and written reports to U.S. authorities in Iraq after each visit. "Red Cross officials made 'repeated requests' to the U.S.-led occupation authority to correct abuses, the organization's president, Jakob Kellenberger, said Friday. He said officials had presented 'serious concerns' to occupation authorities, reminding them of obligations under the Geneva Conventions and international treaties. "'There was a pattern and a system,' said Pierre Kraehenbuehl, the Red Cross's director of operations. Some of the actions were 'tantamount to torture,' he said." According to the soldiers involved and media sources such as the Toronto Globe and Mail, this policy was not the isolated misdeed of a few miscreants. It was the result of a specific policy of abuse: "…it was last September that a group of U.S. counterterrorism experts concluded that the less-important inmates of Abu Ghraib should be exploited for their intelligence value – a decision that led to the abuses. They wrote, in a report to the U.S. Army, that although the prison should provide 'a safe, secure and humane environment that supports the expeditious collection of intelligence ..... it is essential that the guard force be actively engaged in setting the conditions for successful exploitation of the internees.'" To cut out the military euphemisms, what the guards were told was to "make it hell" for prisoners. The question, of course, is who told the guards to act thus and how high up in the chain of command the derangement persists. Rumsfeld Stumbles In his own defense, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has claimed shock and horror at the abuse – though he read the full report documenting it only recently. While he refuses to step down and is supported by Bush, Cheney, and Condi, Rummy is indeed complicit, if not in the specific cases at Abu Ghraib, at least in cultivating an environment where such abusive tactics could be tolerated. States Seymour Hersh, one of the key reporters in breaking the story: "…no amount of apologetic testimony or political spin last week could mask the fact that, since the attacks of September 11th, President Bush and his top aides have seen themselves as engaged in a war against terrorism in which the old rules did not apply. In the privacy of his office, Rumsfeld chafed over what he saw as the reluctance of senior Pentagon generals and admirals to act aggressively. By mid-2002, he and his senior aides were exchanging secret memorandums on modifying the culture of the military leaders and finding ways to encourage them 'to take greater risks.' One memo spoke derisively of the generals in the Pentagon, and said, 'Our prerequisite of perfection for 'actionable intelligence' has paralyzed us. We must accept that we may have to take action before every question can be answered.' The Defense Secretary was told that he should 'break the 'belt-and-suspenders' mindset within today's military . . . we 'over-plan' for every contingency. . . . We must be willing to accept the risks.' "…Soon after 9/11, as the war on terror got under way, Donald Rumsfeld repeatedly made public his disdain for the Geneva conventions. Complaints about America's treatment of prisoners, Rumsfeld said in early 2002, amounted to 'isolated pockets of international hyperventilation.'" Indeed, indeed. Only a couple years after taking off the belt, Rummy is wheezing away, choking on the stiflingly hot air of international outrage. Now, the very least that he can do is to step down – and hope that he won't be prosecuted himself. For even if he did not order such policies, per se, Rumsfeld failed to act responsibly when he was told about the true situation in Abu Ghraib in January: "…the US authorities simply did not want to know. Complaints from dozens, even hundreds of Iraqi detainees about their treatment were brushed aside. Detailed reports submitted to the American and British governments by human rights organisations, including the Red Cross and Amnesty, some dating back as much as a year, were ignored. Even previous investigations by the military were not followed up, or simply swept under the carpet. "… last week it emerged that neither Mr. Rumsfeld nor the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, General Richard Myers, had read all of the devastating Taguba report until they found out that it had been leaked to Seymour Hersh, the legendary investigative journalist who now writes for The New Yorker. Even then the first response of General Myers was to seek to persuade the CBS network not to show the photographs which they had obtained, on the grounds that they would inflame the situation in Iraq further." Thank God for Globalization! The fact that this war was not fought on the battlefield but in the media, something that usually favors the state, is being admitted indirectly now, though apparently with scornful disdain: "…as the Abu Ghraib scandal engulfed Washington last week, with the media full of pictures of grinning US military police next to naked Iraqi detainees, Jim Miklaszewski of NBC News called a contact in the Pentagon with a query about the six soldiers facing charges for the abuse. 'You mean the six morons who lost the war?' the official said." Morons indeed – for recording their own complicity on camera. It's a sure sign that America is indeed an empire when common soldiers can do so with no qualms, exhibiting the arrogance and certainty of being above reproach. Yet the very same technological tools used by the Iraqis' happy captors have now come back to haunt the US government. So adept at using mass communications, media and image-management to their own benefit, the Bushies are now confronted with the worst kind of all-pervasive PR imaginable. In a way, it's a form of virtual blowback from 9/11, the photographs of which have been flashed remorselessly whenever the administration has wished to perform mass manipulation and foster obedience of thought, and which have been used to justify two wars and endless death and destruction. Just as the current furor would never have reached fever pitch without the existence of photographs, 9/11 could not have reached its mythic, war-engendering status were it not recorded on film. In this light, the sudden arrival of the Iraqi torture photos is a form of poetic justice, ironic and unflattering evidence that the Bush Administration cannot suppress. One only hopes that the next few weeks will see the final meltdown of Team Bush's carefully cultivated image of sanctity, under the hot glare of a truth now known globally. |
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Christopher Deliso is an American journalist, travel writer and author concentrating on the Balkans and Southeast Europe, where he has lived and traveled for almost a decade. His criticisms of interventionist foreign policy can be found in his writings for Antiwar.com, and in his recent work on the West's failures to eradicate foreign-funded Muslim extremists in the Balkans, The Coming Balkan Caliphate: The Threat of Radical Islam to Europe and the West (Praeger Security International, 2007). Mr Deliso directs the Balkan-interest news and analysis website, Balkanalysis.com and is also the author of a travelogue, Hidden Macedonia (Haus Publishing, London). He holds an MPhil with distinction in Byzantine Studies from Oxford University.
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