diamond geezer
Jun 2, 2004, 11:02 PM
link (http://www.registerguard.com/news/2004/05/30/ed.col.epps.0530.html)
Psychologists have a term for it: "cognitive dissonance" - the tendency of human beings to reinterpret reality so it remains consistent with their beliefs. The revelations of torture and abuse by U.S. military personnel at Abu Ghraib are not the end of the world, of course; but they do challenge some of our deepest beliefs. So the national denial mechanism has begun to kick in. In the letters to the editor columns, on Fox News and on talk radio, the minimizations, evasions and denials are growing stronger every day. If we are to learn the lesson of Abu Ghraib, it's important not to fall into these fallacies. Below is a partial list, in roughly ascending order of perniciousness:
1) It was a few bad apples.
The evidence so far is overwhelming that abuse of prisoners was a policy deliberately adopted because of a belief that it would produce intelligence results. When New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh printed evidence that the abuse began with a "special access program" sanctioned by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Department of Defense issued a coy nondenial: "No responsible official of the Department of Defense approved any program that could conceivably have been intended to result in such abuses as witnessed in the recent photos and videos."
2) The abuse wasn't so bad - just "hazing."
Fraternity hazing rarely results in physical injury or death, and when it does, it is treated as the serious crime it is. Sodomizing prisoners with light sticks or attacking them with vicious dogs is not a prank.
No.2 is particularly pathetic, and one we've heard in this forum.
3) We're better than Saddam Hussein was.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., reacted this way: "I would guess that these prisoners wake up every morning thanking Allah that Saddam Hussein is not in charge of these prisoners."
I do not recall hearing any American official justify our invasion of Iraq on the grounds that we would be somewhat less brutal than Saddam. Our leaders proclaimed that we were the forces of good. Even if we are the "good guys" in Iraq - and that idea is always open to debate - being a "good guy" does not give us license to perform bad acts and claim that they somehow don't count.
4) They had it coming.
Here's Inhofe's explanation of why he was "more outraged by the outrage" than by the torture itself: "If they're in cell block 1-A or 1-B, these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands."
There are two problems with this argument. First, it is by no means clear that the abused detainees were all guilty of terrorism - or, indeed, of any offense at all. It's quite likely that many were there because of mistaken identity or just blind chance.
But beyond that, no system of law - not American military law, not American civilian law and not the international law of war - excuses any form of abuse or punishment against an unarmed prisoner who has not been proven guilty of an offense.
Oddly enough, President Bush gets this principle - when it applies to Americans, at least. "We have a presumption of innocent until you're guilty in our system," he told an Arab news network that asked about punishment for the guards at Abu Ghraib.
5) The murder of Nick Berg puts our actions in perspective.
A recent editorial cartoon showed the Abu Ghraib guards over the caption, "Stupid, stupid, stupid." In the next panel, a grinning terrorist held up a human head, over the caption "Evil." In what way does the brutality of al-Qaeda relate to our own? I am certainly glad that no U.S. personnel chopped off anyone's head. But the question is what they actually did, not what someone else did. We as a people bear no legal or moral responsibility for the actions of the Berg kidnappers. But the guards at Abu Ghraib wore our flag and acted in our name.
6) Remember 9/11!
A letter writer to The Register-Guard put this fallacy very well when he attacked a columnist for criticizing the Abu Ghraib torture: "How about our victims of Sept. 11, 2001, and the sorrow it caused our nation and how it impacted our economy?"
There is absolutely no connection between the Sept. 11 attacks and the helpless prisoners terrorized in Iraq. No sane person - not even President Bush, for that matter - contends that the Iraqi government or people were involved in Sept. 11. The detainees at Abu Ghraib were mostly there because someone thought they had been involved in resisting the American occupation. Torturing them because of our suffering in 2001 makes as much sense as blowing up innocent Spaniards in 2004 because of the expulsion of the Moors from Spain in 1492. In other words, it puts us on the precise moral level of Osama bin Laden.
7) "This isn't America."
President Bush told the Iraqi people they "must understand" that "what took place in that prison does not represent America that I know. The America I know is a compassionate country that believes in freedom."
This statement does nothing to reassure the people of the world that America understands - or even cares - what went wrong in Iraq. At best, it's an evasion; at worst, it's what psychologists call "dissociation" - splitting off part of ourselves and pretending it doesn't exist. It's not a healthy thing for a person or a country. And it fools nobody.
By their fruits you shall know them, teaches the Christian Bible. Other peoples and cultures understand the principle as well. What was done in Abu Ghraib was done by Americans and done in our country's name, and, no, noble words cannot change that fact. We cannot deny, spin or evade it without diminishing ourselves still further in the eyes of the world.
Psychologists have a term for it: "cognitive dissonance" - the tendency of human beings to reinterpret reality so it remains consistent with their beliefs. The revelations of torture and abuse by U.S. military personnel at Abu Ghraib are not the end of the world, of course; but they do challenge some of our deepest beliefs. So the national denial mechanism has begun to kick in. In the letters to the editor columns, on Fox News and on talk radio, the minimizations, evasions and denials are growing stronger every day. If we are to learn the lesson of Abu Ghraib, it's important not to fall into these fallacies. Below is a partial list, in roughly ascending order of perniciousness:
1) It was a few bad apples.
The evidence so far is overwhelming that abuse of prisoners was a policy deliberately adopted because of a belief that it would produce intelligence results. When New Yorker reporter Seymour Hersh printed evidence that the abuse began with a "special access program" sanctioned by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the Department of Defense issued a coy nondenial: "No responsible official of the Department of Defense approved any program that could conceivably have been intended to result in such abuses as witnessed in the recent photos and videos."
2) The abuse wasn't so bad - just "hazing."
Fraternity hazing rarely results in physical injury or death, and when it does, it is treated as the serious crime it is. Sodomizing prisoners with light sticks or attacking them with vicious dogs is not a prank.
No.2 is particularly pathetic, and one we've heard in this forum.
3) We're better than Saddam Hussein was.
Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., reacted this way: "I would guess that these prisoners wake up every morning thanking Allah that Saddam Hussein is not in charge of these prisoners."
I do not recall hearing any American official justify our invasion of Iraq on the grounds that we would be somewhat less brutal than Saddam. Our leaders proclaimed that we were the forces of good. Even if we are the "good guys" in Iraq - and that idea is always open to debate - being a "good guy" does not give us license to perform bad acts and claim that they somehow don't count.
4) They had it coming.
Here's Inhofe's explanation of why he was "more outraged by the outrage" than by the torture itself: "If they're in cell block 1-A or 1-B, these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands."
There are two problems with this argument. First, it is by no means clear that the abused detainees were all guilty of terrorism - or, indeed, of any offense at all. It's quite likely that many were there because of mistaken identity or just blind chance.
But beyond that, no system of law - not American military law, not American civilian law and not the international law of war - excuses any form of abuse or punishment against an unarmed prisoner who has not been proven guilty of an offense.
Oddly enough, President Bush gets this principle - when it applies to Americans, at least. "We have a presumption of innocent until you're guilty in our system," he told an Arab news network that asked about punishment for the guards at Abu Ghraib.
5) The murder of Nick Berg puts our actions in perspective.
A recent editorial cartoon showed the Abu Ghraib guards over the caption, "Stupid, stupid, stupid." In the next panel, a grinning terrorist held up a human head, over the caption "Evil." In what way does the brutality of al-Qaeda relate to our own? I am certainly glad that no U.S. personnel chopped off anyone's head. But the question is what they actually did, not what someone else did. We as a people bear no legal or moral responsibility for the actions of the Berg kidnappers. But the guards at Abu Ghraib wore our flag and acted in our name.
6) Remember 9/11!
A letter writer to The Register-Guard put this fallacy very well when he attacked a columnist for criticizing the Abu Ghraib torture: "How about our victims of Sept. 11, 2001, and the sorrow it caused our nation and how it impacted our economy?"
There is absolutely no connection between the Sept. 11 attacks and the helpless prisoners terrorized in Iraq. No sane person - not even President Bush, for that matter - contends that the Iraqi government or people were involved in Sept. 11. The detainees at Abu Ghraib were mostly there because someone thought they had been involved in resisting the American occupation. Torturing them because of our suffering in 2001 makes as much sense as blowing up innocent Spaniards in 2004 because of the expulsion of the Moors from Spain in 1492. In other words, it puts us on the precise moral level of Osama bin Laden.
7) "This isn't America."
President Bush told the Iraqi people they "must understand" that "what took place in that prison does not represent America that I know. The America I know is a compassionate country that believes in freedom."
This statement does nothing to reassure the people of the world that America understands - or even cares - what went wrong in Iraq. At best, it's an evasion; at worst, it's what psychologists call "dissociation" - splitting off part of ourselves and pretending it doesn't exist. It's not a healthy thing for a person or a country. And it fools nobody.
By their fruits you shall know them, teaches the Christian Bible. Other peoples and cultures understand the principle as well. What was done in Abu Ghraib was done by Americans and done in our country's name, and, no, noble words cannot change that fact. We cannot deny, spin or evade it without diminishing ourselves still further in the eyes of the world.
