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American Soldiers Play
64,000 Iraqi Pyramid
Rumsfeld Gets the Whammy
NEWS ANALYSIS by Nachama Soloveichik
If you haven’t heard about the latest Washington scandal then you must be a)
comatose b) living in a cave, or c) completely and utterly obsessed with the
“Friends” finale frenzy. Even then, you might have caught a glimpse here or
there. It would be hard not to, with pictures and glaring headlines on the
cover of every newspaper in the country. The story first broke at the tail end
of April when CBS’s “60 Minutes II” aired photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing
Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison, formerly infamous for serving an
important role in Saddam Hussein’s death regime. The pictures are truly
horrifying: naked Iraqi prisoners, led on a leash, forced into humiliating
positions, taunted and mocked, while U.S. soldiers grin broadly and flash the
thumbs-up sign. That the incidents at Abu Ghraib are morally repugnant is
obvious. That the latest disaster in Iraq is bad news for Bush is equally
obvious. Much of the story though remains disturbingly unclear. This is what
we know:
Back in mid-January, Secretary Rumsfeld was informed of the photographs’
existence after a soldier had given them to Army officials. At the time,
military authorities announced the beginning of an investigation regarding the
maltreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Sometime after that, Rumsfeld
informed President Bush of the general allegations, but the exact date and
extent of the briefing remains a mystery. Last month, the army released a
report—the result of the investigation—stating that 17 of its soldiers were
being removed from duty on account of mistreating Iraqi prisoners. This
announcement received little attention. It was only when the press got a hold
of the photographs that everything began to fall apart.
The International Committee of the Red Cross now claims that it had reported
abuses at Abu Ghraib to top-ranking U.S. officials in Iraq and Washington over
the past months. The Red Cross committee compiled a report on the abuses and
distributed it to prison chiefs in Baghdad, high-ranking officials of the
Coalition Provisional Authority and several senior officials in the Bush
government. Exactly who these officials are is unclear as the Red Cross is
reluctant to name names. Not to be outdone, other human rights groups, such as
Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, reported this week that they had
similarly complained to Paul Bremer, in charge of the occupation in Iraq and
Bush’s national security advisor, Condoleezza Rice, but were received with
little notice.
As the story began to unfold over the past week, the political world
experienced a veritable upheaval. Clamors for Secretary Rumsfeld’s resignation
gathered in strength, while the President revealed that he had privately
chastised the Secretary of Defense, but assured him that his job is safe. The
Arab world, not exactly fans of the United States to begin with, grows hot
with anger. In an attempt to assuage Arab fury, the President appeared on Arab
television on Thursday with words of regret and assurances of justice.
Meanwhile, Washington insiders tied themselves in knots debating whether or
not Bush’s speech constituted an apology, and whether the absence of the
a-word would prove fatal. Fortunately, those with nothing better to do with
their time were relieved when both Bush and the unusually tense Secretary of
Defense apologized for the horrific events. Speculation as to Rumsfeld’s
future in the Bush administration is running rampant, despite Bush’s attempt
to extinguish the rumors. Even those who originally supported the war are
beginning to question the rightness of the decision, while Republican
officials may be secretly wishing they could go back to the days when the
biggest scandal was whether or not Bush served out his term in the National
Guard. To make matters worse, the latest polls demonstrate a new low in Bush’s
approval ratings, and a new high in his disapproval ratings.
Besides for the obvious moral implications, the matter is all the more
significant given the difficult situation in Iraq and the hard-to-ignore fact
that November 4 is nearing closer each day. With U.S. soldiers struggling to
ward off insurgents in Iraq, and U.S. soldiers dying by the truckful, the last
thing the Bush administration needs is a public relations fiasco. The war in
Iraq cannot be won without the cooperation of the Iraqi masses, and widespread
cooperation cannot be won if the Iraqis continue to believe that that United
States is the devil incarnate. Even with Bush’s TV appearance, few Arabs are
willing to accept the U.S. as liberators, preferring the long-held conception
of the U.S. as greedy imperialist power. The tragic events at Abu Ghraib were
not a revelation for many Iraqis, but a confirmation of their original
suspicions and distrust.
Many Arabs refuse to believe that that the prison abuses represent but a small
percentage of U.S. soldiers. They are convinced that these soldiers represent
an American culture that “deliberately insults and humiliates Muslims.” No
doubt, the U.S. will be hard-pressed to convince Iraqis otherwise. Arab
militants relish the opportunity to use the photographs as part of their
larger agenda to discredit the Western World.
Furthermore, Bush will find it harder to rally the national and international
support he sorely needs. The shocking revelations have placed added pressure
on Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush’s only real ally in the Iraqi
venture. Already vulnerable, Blair will surely face revived political
opposition, as a majority of British citizens opposed the war from the very
beginning.
Politically, disaster in Iraq is a boon for the Democrats. You don’t have to
be a genius to see that coming. Democrats would hardly be human if they were
not secretly rejoicing over the opportunity to cast themselves as the good
guys and steal some precious points in the polls. In a world where pointing
fingers is a most basic form of political survival, fingers have been very
busy this week, with a majority of them landing on Secretary Rumsfeld or the
President himself. John Kerry, the Democratic presidential hopeful joined the
fray with his personal condemnation of the Defense Secretary.
Of course, it is not impossible for Bush to maneuver his way out of this one.
There is still much time till November 4, and much can, and probably will
happen between now and then. What does Bush have to do? Obviously, he has to
crack down on prison abuses, put an end to questionable interrogation
techniques, and attempt to convince the Iraqi people that the U.S. is
genuinely interested in their welfare. More generally, Bush has got to win
this thing once and for all. Come November, a quagmire in Iraq will not win
Bush any votes. The American people are patient, and they are willing to see
this thing through so long as Bush gives them a reason to believe that it can
be done. Success in Iraq will translate into success at the polls, while
disaster in Iraq will find Bush back in Crawford, Texas, hunting ducks with
his good pal Dick Cheney. Forget social security and prescription drugs. With
the election only six months away, Bush vs. Kerry may be determined by the
increasingly dangerous situation in Iraq.
Politics aside, there is a crucial lesson to be learned from this tragedy. For
those of us far away from the blood and tears of the battlefield, we forget
just how brutal the war experience can be. Sure, we see the pictures: the
coffins, the devastated relatives, 18-year-olds fighting for their lives in
Fallujah, naked Iraqis being led on leashes like dogs… As we see these
photographs, we are appalled and we wonder how our own soldiers could commit
such horrific crimes. Friends and families struggle to make sense of it. How
could this happen . . .
The truth is: War is Hell. And not just in the way we see it in the movies.
Today’s technology makes it possible to depict the physical trauma of war-torn
countries in all its vividness. Sure, you say, war is hell. Who doesn’t know
that? But the physical dangers of war are only half the story. Soldiers
subject themselves to another kind of trauma—a spiritual one.
We take young men and women and order them to forget the kind of rules with
which they were raised in civilized society. They are told to fight, to kill,
to win. And at the same time, we expect them to preserve their humanity. We
expect their souls to remain pure. We expect them to treat the other with
respect, to show compassion, even if he is the enemy, and only days before he
wanted you dead.
These soldiers risk their physical lives, but they also put their souls on the
line. They know that they might never come home again, but few realize that
they might come home spiritually broken. Soldiers are taught how to defend
themselves, how to fire a gun and throw a bomb, but they are not taught how to
save their souls. There is no excuse for what happened at Abu Ghraib. But as
we read the New York Times and wonder how and why, it is important to remember
that war is hell, and short of spiritual guidance, evil has an uncanny way of
taking hold. |
