Tortured Explanations

America’s top general, Richard Myers put in a dismal, embarrassing performance on Sunday’s talk shows, offering grossly insufficient explanations for the now richly documented cases of torture of Iraqi detainees at the Abu Ghraib prison. Maybe the Bushies put Myers forward just to make Condi and Company look good. The ineptitude is nothing short of breathtaking. Referring to the barbaric torture sessions that Americans dished out at Saddam’s notorious prison, Myers told ABC’s This Week:

"It is not systematic…And it's really a shame that just a handful can besmirch, maybe, the reputations of hundreds of thousands of our soldiers and sailors, airmen and Marines."

The greater shame, as revealed by Sy Hersh in the May 10 edition of The New Yorker is that way back in February the Army brass had a 53 page report in its possession detailing the torture – a report that Myers says he has not yet read.

Suggestion: Resign, General Myers. Then you can read the report at your leisure. Prepared by Major General Antonio Taguba, the internal Pentagon report found numerous instances of “sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” taking place in the U.S-run prison in late 2003. A harrowing excerpt of the indignities:

Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.

Most chilling, we learn that some of this torture was outsourced to private Pentagon contractors i.e. mercenaries. Until now we have been told that the privateers’ duties included only support, logistics and security – not interrogation. And certainly not torture.

This weekend’s reports have unleashed a political storm of yet to be determined scope and impact. The domestic political damage promises to be great. The injury wrought to America’s image is nothing short of devastating. The administration cannot cop a plea of a “few bad apples” or “we had no idea.” The Iraqi adventure – even as conceived by its most ardent defenders—was aimed at changing the balance of forces in the Middle East, at galvanizing hearts and minds toward a new more pro-American consensus.

The Bushies, therefore, had the responsibility of taking proactive measures to avoid the sort of abuses now being catalogued. You needn’t have been a rocket scientist to have anticipated the potential for this kind of torture happening. Apparently, no one cared enough to avoid it. The American project in Iraq is collapsing quickly-- its moral basis evaporating. First we cede Fallujah to Saddam’s officers. Then we cede to his methods.

Comments

[steve]

Fine, Steve. You call for their resignations -- but, let me know what they say, will ya?

--i'm not calling for anything outside of leaving Iraq--though I would hardly make the call as an individual of course... but if people wanna call for their resignations, that's fine with me...

i do think their resignations would be more intelligent than just punishing a few very low level soldiers, which is probably about all we will see in the end, plus a lot of rhetoric expressing 'shock' 'disgust' etc...

[Rus Steel]

Forget it. I'll call for their resignations. You hear that Marc? Resignations! And while we're at it, let's get some cheeseburgers!

[Marc Cooper]

Cheeseburgers? I love cheeseburgers!

[steve]

I call for a Lakers victory tomorrow night...much better chance of that than any substantive change in military policy coming from this scandal...

i'll have my cheeseburger if the cow is graised naturally on the range...i get that from Ronald Reagan btw...and he was as PC as they get.

[William Meisheid]

Calling Americans working as contractors for America in Iraq "mercenaries" goes against the fundamental meaning of the word - "A professional soldier hired for service in a foreign army." I know using mercenary hits with strong subliminal baggage but hey, its a bald-face lie. Why don't you do the ethical thing and post a retraction and campaign against its use? Or is that too much to ask?

[John Delay]

Marc,
You lament the fact the Americans are finally handing over control of Falhujah to ex-Iraqi soldiers from the old regime. However, this is precisely the problem; it took years for Saddam and his military, and secret police to tame to impulsive and terroristic nature of the cauldron that is Iraq. Therefore, maybe Americans ought to learn a few techniques from their predecessors.

[Heiko Gerhauser]

As one of the most adamant supporters of the coalition action in Iraq, I must say that the aim is to advance democracy and good governance in the Middle East, and that that is rather different from making Iraq pro American.

France is a democracy. We aren't worried about them having WMD's, or that anti Americanism there could lead to war.

Iraq can be virulently anti American, indeed, it may even restock itself with WMD's, without having to fear an American invasion, as long as, like France, it's a stable democracy.

Calling Americans working as contractors for America in Iraq "mercenaries" goes against the fundamental meaning of the word - "A professional soldier hired for service in a foreign army."

mercenary sounds like the right word to me

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0401-14.htm

[steve]

As one of the most adamant supporters of the coalition action in Iraq, I must say that the aim is to advance democracy and good governance in the Middle East, and that that is rather different from making Iraq pro American

---democracy isn't about pressuring foreign governments that you control to privatize everything under the sun:

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20030428&s=klein

[Heiko Gerhauser]

Iraq's oil industry is going to stay nationalised, as it did in Kuwait.

Right now, Iraq is generating lots of costs for the US.

Any net economic benefit is confined to the long term and rests on the presumption that a more peaceful and democratic world, will also be a wealthier world.

Iraq won't accept a puppet regime, and the US doesn't want to impose one.

[William Meisheid]

"mercenary sounds like the right word to me"

It would to someone thinking ideologically and in the service of propaganda and not rationally or honestly. Americans working for America are not mercenaries by definition. But lets not let the truth or facts get in the way of good propaganda. I dispair of the future when dishonesty is becoming normative for discourse and argument.

[steve]

It would to someone thinking ideologically and in the service of propaganda and not rationally or honestly. Americans working for America are not mercenaries by definition.

--from dictionary.com

mercenary: One who serves or works merely for monetary gain; a hireling.

[William Meisheid]

"mercenary: One who serves or works merely for monetary gain; a hireling."

True, but that usage is general, as doing anything for money alone and can be applied to any and all endeavors. This can be applied even to soldiers in your own army as well as teachers, doctors, or anyone. It is however applied individually as I note below.

But the second definition is specific to foreigners hired to serve in military capacities. That does not apply in this case and this is the general meaning applied to mercenaries in conflicts during the last 40-50 years everywhere around the globe and is the common meaning that carries such negative connotations and propaganda value, whether in the Congo or other parts of Africa by way of example. In this context, the Cuban troops used in numerous African locations as Soviet surrogates to aid various communist efforts were true mercenaries as were other foreigners brought in to fight them.

However, by definition that does not apply to American contractors working for American interests in Iraq. Now as to whether the first definition might apply (it cannot be applied as a sweeping generalization for obvious reasons) you cannot honestly do so since each individual's motives will be different and the mere fact they are paid does not ipso facto make them a mercenary--except to the purveyors of propaganda and dishonest use of language.

Enough said.

[steve]

Iraq won't accept a puppet regime, and the US doesn't want to impose one.

--wow...so all that stuff about getting chalabi in as the next president...just a lot of hot air, eh? and all the privatization taking place without any consultation with the Iraqi people...just stuff of our imaginations, eh? the 14 military bases planned to be kept there permanently...just a fantasy...right.