Torture Lite replaces Compassionate Conservatism as the Bush junta's newest oxymoron.
Posted by Christopher at March 6, 2007 06:45 PMGlenn Greenwald observes and reflects on the conservative movement's affection for war crimes today,
"It is a cult of contrived masculinity... They and their followers triumph over the weak, effete, humiliated Enemy, and thereby become powerful and exceptional and safe."
"The reason people like Rush Limbaugh not only were unbothered, but actually delighted and even tickled by, Abu Grahib is because that is the full-blooded manifestation of the impulses underlying this movement -- feelings of power and strength from the most depraved spectacles of force."
"Their hunger for those things is literally insatiable because they need fresh pretexts for feeling strong."
The right-wing cult of contrived masculinity
Glenn Greenwald's Unclaimed Territory, Salon.com, Tues., March 6, 2007
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/
It's for these reasons that real soldiers, as opposed to neocons, chickenhawks and armchair maccabees, highly regard international and US humanitarian law and regard The Law of Land Warfare (FM 27-10) as a field manual for success in war. Its contents explain our disastrous failures in SW Asia and elsewhere.
Posted by Pvt. Keepout at March 6, 2007 07:09 PMIt's in the American psyche dating from the extermination of the Native Americans, to the anti-Chinese Acts, the Ku Klux Klan, the Black Codes, the Sunset Laws, the carpet-bombing of foreign villages and cities, the use of nuclear weapons against civilians, the wanton killing of 'dinks' and 'ragheads' and the current homophobia and hispanophobia. To mention just a few. One book can't stand up to all that, unfortunately.
I recently got into a debate on another site about the general in charge of teaching law at West Point (since 1999) going after a TV show for glorifying torture, when in his own words he had watered down the instruction he was giving cadets, future lieutenants, on the Law of Land Warfare. The whole system stinks. But war has always been characterized by kidnapping, torture, killing and rape, hasn't it? People have an unjustified puritanical view of war.
Yes, the US army and marines have treated the Iraqis, people we were supposedly liberating, like enemies. They were trained to do it, and their officers were (obviously) trained to at least permit it, if not order it. Lots of death, and lots of PTSD for the survivors, many of whom are sorry that they survived. We'll see them on freeway off-ramps with cardboard signs. What a shame.
Posted by Don Bacon at March 6, 2007 08:31 PMyou show me an amerikan soldier, i'll show you a gangster.
Posted by albertchampion at March 6, 2007 09:59 PMDon't be so hard on soldiers. They're young, they're brainwashed, they have the whole government over them and they have an over-riding desire to keep themselves and their buddies alive in the hellhole that that the government put them in. It's the boy, or girl, next door turned into a 'warrior', the current term for a scared kid in the wrong place at the wrong time. Yes, they do the wrong thing, but it's not their nature it's the government's, and it's them that lives with the guilt of it forever, if they survive. Get them home, now.
Posted by Don Bacon at March 6, 2007 10:32 PMI think the US approach to torture probably started with a preference for methods that literally leave no marks. Then it was found that it is easy to minimize the severity of the "leaves no marks" methods, which Cheney, Bush, and other administration officials do extensively. Water-boarding becomes "a dunk in the water". Interminable auditory assault with extreme, disorienting noise becomes "playing music that they don't like." Extreme sensory and social deprivation prolonged for years becomes "a period of solitary confinement". A variety of methods are used in combination to break down all sense of self-control and rationality of one's environment; a minimal description of any one of the techniques can be made to sound trivial, like forced standing, which led Rumsfeld to quip that he is an old man and has to stand for hours every day.
Forced standing illustrates that some of the methods actually are physical torture, but of a kind that does not ordinarily come to mind from World War II movies of Nazi torture. Forced stress positions and confinement in extremely small spaces cause severely painful muscle cramps as well as a sense of extreme humiliation and helplessness. Prolonged sleep deprivation causes great physical, as well as psychological, stress; sleep is a primary physical need. This all occurs in a context in which the victim is led to believe that the torture is never-ending and that the world has forgotten about them. They develop extreme dependency on their tormentors. Many would undoubtedly prefer suicide, but they are deprived of even that option. Add to that, the fact that there is no real basis for the punishment in many cases, and it is maddening.
I could go on and on about it, but I have no stomach for it. As a mental health professional, I have no doubt that these methods can cause what most people would call "insanity", and many of the effects will be permanent.
As for fake masculinity, people like Cheney thrive on demonstrating their fake "tough" attitude about pain (other people's pain). Critics become sissies who can't take it the way these armchair heroes can, and of course the shameful cruelty is all done in the name of patriotic manly service to their country.
Dean and Don, very eloquent insightful posts, thanks.
Posted by euzoius at March 7, 2007 05:40 AMalbertchampion, fuck you!
Lower grade soldier's are in it for the job training, monthly paycheck and college money after their career is over. Most naively go in. Only to learn later that they are used and abused by the system.
Sure some are bad, and when they get older and gain rank they can be cutthroat, but your out of line to lump them all in the same group as gangsters.
When your ready...please elaborate on your blanket statement!
Torture is illegal. Many high-up Americans have engaged in torture of condoned it, not limited to our Attorney General, formes SedDef, VP, Commanders at Guantanomo, and others.
When will some US Attorney finally stop forgetting his oath of office that requires him/her to uphold the Laws of the US bring some of these criminals before a grand jury?
I will just have to dream on...no such person exists. Our nation's "belief" in "justice and law" is a mere illusion...
Posted by Nobody at March 7, 2007 08:22 AMInextricably tied up in the notion of "contrived masculinity" and "warrior ideals" is the notion of "honor". Honor like Klingons--the Star Trek parody of warrior spirit and all that goes with it.
I read the remarks of several bloggers who wax eloquent in their lengthy defense of NeoCon positions in the name of "honor". They like to say "What are you willing to die for?" and connect immediately with "Would you follow X-Presidential Candidate into battle?" and end it by saying (approximately) "if you cannot kill for your country, you are lower than the patriot warriors who do, and you deserve no honor (and therefore no respect)."
I know a lot of NeoCons are 'chicken-hawks', but a lot of those who profess warrior-values are legitimately warriors---service personnel, past or present. In their heart of hearts, whether they hate or secretly love the idea of being a Klingon, they really do think they have a superior moral character because death is embraced. The Knights of the Crusade. The echoes of Bull Run.
When the Japanese samurai had outlived their usefulness as warriors, they were put out to pasture. They were skilled in other things besides fighting, though that was always at the core of their character. They became teachers and policemen and took on other authoritative roles which required discipline, determination, but far less combat and (for many) far less honor because death became a detached, inglorious end without a field of righteous battle. The samurai were not merely the warriors themselves--they were the families that supported him--who made the swords, grew the gardens, did the menial work---so a whole class of the economy went down the ladder of social and political importance when warriors were told to adapt to life among merchants and relatively polite diplomacy.
With honor is glory, however faint, in the eyes of these warrior types. Are they borderline depraved ("you can't handle the truth")? The cinematic Patton of George C Scott?
Posted by gtash at March 7, 2007 11:02 PMYes, I guess, these warriros honor the most despicable of all Southern Generals who wasted thousands in Pickett's Stupid Charge at Gettysburg. As a Southerner, I never cease to te amazed at how Lee is glorified for his honor after he used antiquated tactics to guarantee his own defeat and the waste of thousands of men who were mowed down in frontal assaults against repeating rifles and artilery having superior firepower. It is interesting to see how such Klingons rank the Southern Generals in direct proportion to how many lives they needlessly squandered. How can Hood who lost Atlanta and squandered thousands at Franklin, Tennessee have a modern military installation named after him?
The same criteria are applicable by the Klingons today. There is no "honor" in sacrificing oneself or those under one's command to be destroyed for an objective that cannot be held and, like the countryside of Vietnam, no place in Iraq outside of the green zone or a few hundred feet of a FOB can ever be held for any meaningful time. Once the GI's are out of sight, the territory always returns to local control of whomever may be dominant in the particular locale. Yet, the generals of today who send these boys and girls into harm's war are idolized and touted as heroes and military geniuses.
How in the world can we rationally find "honor" or "nobility" in sending teenagers out on useless patrols in Baghdad and the provinces of Iraq to be pulverized by snipers and IEDs when, once a patrol turns around the next corner, all of the illusion of "control" of the territory that went into temprary hold while the Gi's were in sight, immediately returns to the Baghdadi normal of native control of the natives who already controlled the particular territory before the GI's walked in to spill their blood and brains. All for no purpose other than to give glory to the old men in Washington, the heroic "War Leaders."
If there is any "honor" in it, it is the "honor" of a suicide pact. Will we never learn?
Insane Idiocy!!!
Posted by Nobody at March 8, 2007 07:35 AMDean, I suspect you're right. I was an interrogator and I have suspected this slippery slope among my colleagues for a while.
Regarding the study, I've posted an analysis of some of the issues with its methodology and some suggestions for further studies.
I would appreciate some thoughtful criticism of my analysis, if any of you care to indulge me.
Yes, it's a shameless plug, but at least it's germane.
Posted by Decline and Fall at March 8, 2007 11:49 PM