Trickle-Down Morality
By William Rivers Pitt
From: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/050504A.shtml
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 4 May 2004
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I dreamed kind Jesus fouled the big-gun gears;
And caused a permanent stoppage in all bolts;
And buckled with a smile Mausers and Colts;
And rusted every bayonet with His tears.
And there were no more bombs, of ours or theirs,
Not even an old flint-lock, not even a pikel.
But God was vexed, and gave all power to Michael;
And when I woke he'd seen to our repairs.
- Wilfred Owen, "Soldier's Dream
Back in November of 2003, retired Special Forces master sergeant Stan
Goff played the role of prophet in an open letter he wrote to American
soldiers engaged in the occupation of Iraq. In his letter, Goff wrote:
"Bushfeld and their cronies are parasites, and they are the sole
beneficiaries of the chaos you are learning to live in. They get the
money. You get the prosthetic devices, the nightmares, and the
mysterious illnesses. So if your rage needs a target, there they are,
responsible for your being there, and responsible for keeping you
there. I can't tell you to disobey...But it is perfectly legal for you
to refuse illegal orders, and orders to abuse or attack civilians are
illegal. Ordering you to keep silent about these crimes is also
illegal."
Orders to abuse or attack civilians are illegal. Orders to keep
soldiers silent about these crimes are also illegal. Six months after
Goff wrote those words, we find ourselves drowning in the exact
catastrophe he warned of. Seven U.S. service people are accused of
visiting torture and abominations upon the bodies and souls of Iraqi
prisoners in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. Prisoners were beaten,
sodomized with chemical lights and bananas, raped, molested, attacked
by dogs, and their dead bodies were mocked and defiled.
For the most part, these were captured civilians and not 'terrorists'
or 'insurgents.' Photographs of this torture have reached all around
the globe. One of the seven perpetrators has already been convicted.
The Bush administration would have us believe this was a random
aberration, the crazed behavior of seven sadists, and not a systematic
process that came about because of direct orders from superiors.
This is, simply, not true.
Sgt. Samuel Provance of the 302nd Military Intelligence Battalion
knows for a fact it is not true. Provance's battalion was stationed at
Abu Ghraib last September, while the abuses at that prison were going
on. He gave an exclusive interview to ABC news, despite the fact that
his superiors ordered him not to.
According to Provance, dozens of U.S. soldiers were involved in the
torture and abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, not just the seven
who have been scapegoated. "There's definitely a cover-up," he said to
ABC. "People are either telling themselves or being told to be quiet.
What I was surprised at was the silence. The collective silence by so
many people that had to be involved, that had to have seen something
or heard something. I would say many people are probably hiding and
wishing to God that this storm passes without them having to be
investigated (or) personally looked at."
As Provance is a member of Military Intelligence, and as it was
Military Intelligence that was put in charge of Abu Ghraib, his
perspective is noteworthy. The fact is that the horrors displayed in
the photographs from Abu Ghraib are perfect depictions of
interrogation tactics used to shake information loose from prisoners.
The photo of dogs attacking a naked prisoner is a textbook example of
'stress and duress' interrogation. The photo of the hooded man
standing with his fingers, toes and penis wired to electrodes is a
tactic called 'The Vietnam.' Seven sick bastards did not invent this
stuff. They were ordered to do it.
The road to Abu Ghraib was opened with deliberation and intent.
According to a report by John Barry, Michael Hirsh and Michael Isikoff
in Newsweek, "Bush, along with Defense Secretary Rumsfeld and Attorney
General John Ashcroft, signed off on a secret system of detention and
interrogation that opened the door to such methods. It was an approach
that they adopted to sidestep the historical safeguards of the Geneva
Conventions, which protect the rights of detainees and prisoners of
war. In doing so, they overrode the objections of Secretary of State
Colin Powell and America's top military lawyers - and they left
underlings to sweat the details of what actually happened to prisoners
in these lawless places."
This Newsweek article goes on to suggest that, "No one deliberately
authorized outright torture," but a memo from White House lawyer
Alberto Gonzales clearly shows that, even two years ago, Bush
administration officials were worried about going to jail. Gonzales
was particularly concerned about the War Crimes Act of 1996, which
described war crimes as "grave breaches" of the Geneva Conventions,
and which applied to "U.S. officials." Violators of the War Crimes Act
faced either prison or the death penalty. Therefore, advised Gonzales,
declaring that Taliban and al Qaeda fighters did not have Geneva
Convention protections would, "substantially reduce the threat of
domestic criminal prosecution under the War Crimes Act."
It is safe to say that a majority of Americans would weep no bitter
tears for any hard-core al Qaeda fighters left alone with several
angry MI officers and a snarling dog, if such tactics would keep
further 9/11 attacks from taking place. Such is the state of our
morality in the 21st century, but for the moment, that is beside the
point.
The point is four-fold:
a) The seven soldiers at the center of the Abu Ghraib scandal did not
perpetrate these horrors on their own, but were ordered to do so.
According to Sgt. Provance, those orders are now being covered up.
b) The torture took place because George W. Bush, Don Rumsfeld and
John Ashcroft decided that Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners were not
subject to the protections of the Geneva Conventions. The orders that
created a torture-friendly environment came from the very, very top.
c) The strictures of the Geneva Conventions were deliberately removed
because Bush administration officials feared war crimes prosecutions,
as is clearly stated in the Gonzales memo.
d) The vast majority of Iraqis tortured in Abu Ghraib were not
Taliban, were not al Qaeda, were not even 'insurgents.' They were
civilians, among thousands swept up and jailed by American forces.
However one may feel about terrorists being provided Geneva Convention
protections, only a soulless fiend can devise a defense for the
torture, rape, molestation and abuse absorbed by innocent people in
Abu Ghraib.
A Marine named Staff Sgt. Jimmy Massey served in this invasion and
occupation of Iraq. In a recent interview with the Sacramento Bee,
Massey described the indiscriminate slaughter of innocent Iraqi
civilians at the hands of U.S. soldiers, who were also following
orders. Seeing this carnage repeated over and over turned him against
the war. At the end of the interview, Massey said:
"I was like every other troop. My president told me they got weapons
of mass destruction, that Saddam threatened the free world, that he
had all this might and could reach us anywhere. I just bought into the
whole thing. I killed innocent people for our government. For what?
What did I do? Where is the good coming out of it? I feel like I've
had a hand in some sort of evil lie at the hands of our government. I
just feel embarrassed, ashamed about it. I've had an impeccable
career. I chose to get out. And you know who I blame? I blame the
president of the United States. It's not the grunt. I blame the
president because he said they had weapons of mass destruction. It was
a lie."
Massey is one of thousands of American soldiers victimized by what has
taken place in Iraq. Beyond the 792 soldiers who have died there,
beyond the thousands who have been wounded, there are whole divisions
of soldiers whose humanity has been gutted and left hollow because
they believed their leaders, because they did a soldier's duty and
followed orders. They are not the only ones. We have all been made
victims, moral casualties in this abominable catastrophe.
The Nuremberg defense has been disavowed for sixty years. Soldiers are
responsible for their own behavior. Citizens, as well, are responsible
for their own behavior. When leaders decree torture, revenge and
bloodlust to be in the national interest, however, do not be surprised
when morality ceases to exist among those tasked to defend and protect
it.
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William Rivers Pitt is the senior editor and lead writer for truthout.
He is a New York Times and international bestselling author of two
books - 'War on Iraq: What Team Bush Doesn't Want You to Know' and
'The Greatest Sedition is Silence.'
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