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Something
rotten at the core of US body politic
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Mick Hall 13 June 2004
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I have deliberately tried not to
crow over how things have turned out in Iraq. Like
millions of others who opposed the war, it gives me
no pleasure to have been right by my having said from
the off "no" to this dreadful and unnecessary
war. Being English, with my country's shameful history
in Ireland and elsewhere when we had an Empire, I
understand only too well how the millions of Americans
who have opposed this war must feel. In many ways
I admire greatly those Americans who have been forced
by events to change their minds about supporting Bush's
war. Im sure they must have gone through a fair amount
of anguish before coming to that conclusion, having
much that they hold dear about their country collapse
before them in the process. In many ways I would have
preferred to be mistaken and that the US armed forces
along with their British counterparts had behaved
in a benevolent and noble manner and had soon rebuilt
the infrastructure of Iraq. An infrastructure, I must
add, that they played a large part in destroying.
History however, not least by the experience of the
British army's behaviour in the north of Ireland,
had taught me otherwise.
Something rotten is at the core of the current US
political elite and a section of the senior command
of its armed forces. Soldiers do not normally behave
in the systematic way US troops have in Iraq, as epitomised
in the Abu Ghraib prison photographs, and in all likelihood
continue too because of a hand full of lowly bad apples,
as the Bush administration and a number of very senior
US officers have claimed in the most un-elegant piece
of buck passing we have seen in years. They do so
because they can, without fear of retribution. When
such a system is being operated more often than not
it is being indirectly encouraged from above, via
a system of nods and winks being passed down the chain
of command (Whilst this article centres on US forces,
British troops are not behaving like angels in Iraq,
I was told five months ago the following by a returning
British Squadie, "Mick, you would not believe
how we are treating the Iraqis out there, we could
do what we like to the poor bastards, no comebacks.").
Nor I might add do they do so, as some journalists
have implied, because the chain of command has broken
down. Where were the Lieutenants, Captains, Majors,
Colonels when the photos were being taken in the Iraqi
jail, having a coffee break? Over the past decades
we have heard time and again from senior ranks within
the US Armed Forces that they have learned the lessons
of their defeat in Vietnam. The wretched manner in
which the US army brass and their political masters
have dealt with the mistreatment and torture of Iraqis
and others whilst in US army custody demonstrates
that they have not even learnt a damn thing from one
of the more prominent outrages of the Vietnam war,
the torching of peasant villages by LT Cally and his
men. What happened back then as far as the brass and
their political masters were concerned was repeated
almost exactly over the Baghdad prison affair, i.e.,
when the shit hits the fan: pass the buck, the lower
down the chain of command the better. Today the brass
must be especially pleased with themselves, as unlike
their predecessors in Vietnam, they have managed to
heap the blame entirely on NCOs and below. The officers
corp, whilst not escaping bleach white, have almost
done so. What has happened one might ask, to officers
having responsibility for their troops behaviour?
When the German Army (not SS) behaved in such a disgraceful
way in Eastern Europe during WW2, they did so for
the reason I have mentioned above, i.e. they were
encouraged to, they could and there were no comebacks.
The same was true of US troops in Vietnam and the
French in Algeria. As too did the British in the north
of Ireland in the early 1970s. In all cases including
the current situation the army brass tried, with some
success to blame a few low ranking bad apples.
As with the US army today, the overwhelming majority
of German, French and British soldiers were ordinary
young men. Yet they behaved, when encouraged to do
so and told by their superiors that there would be
no consequences, like barbarians. These young people
are also victims, although of course not to the same
degree as those they brutalised. If this sort of thing
is not going to be repeated, we must reject this bad
apple nonsense and find out exactly why this happened.
People in positions of power have a responsibility
of care for those they command. When the latter go
astray, those who command them should take responsibility
for their actions. Does it not give our youngsters
a dreadful message that not a single senior officer
or politician has resigned over what has happened
in Abu Ghraib prison? We truly live in times of, "It
was not me guv, I blame the little guy".
The likes of Bush, Cheney and Rumsfield, Generals
Mears and Kimmitt when things seemed to be going well
in Iraq talked a great deal about how they take very
seriously all that happens on their watch. None of
them seem too keen to do this these days.
Finally one of the things that has struck me about
many of those Americans who are in Iraq, is how little
they understand about the country and its culture.
This ignorance of the world beyond US shores is epitomised
by the US President George Bush Jnr, who in turn is
reflecting the majority of his fellow citizens. In
a recent poll of US adults between the ages of 18
to 25 years, 65 per cent could not find Great Britain
and Ireland on a map. 92 per cent of Americans have
no passport. The main US TV Networks, ABC, CBS, NBC
devote little time to foreign coverage. In 1989 they
jointly devoted 4,032 minutes, by the year 2000 it
was down to 1,382 minutes. The increasingly popular
Fox News Channel by European standards would be regarded
as far right, jingoistic, xenophobic, rubbish. Yet
it has become the main source of news for millions
of people in the US, who take an interest in politics
and the outside world. One can only judge the reason
being is that this channel reinforces their prejudices
whereas a good media outlet challenges them.
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All
censorships exist to prevent any one from challenging
current conceptions and existing institutions. All progress
is initiated by challenging current conceptions, and
executed by supplanting existing institutions. Consequently
the first condition of progress is the removal of censorships.
- George Bernard Shaw
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