A Corrupted Culture

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The Washington Post jumps on the bandwagon with this editorial:

“Senior U.S. commanders in Iraq insist that they never approved harsh interrogation techniques for Iraqi prisoners. Yet those same commanders now acknowledge that abusive practices were employed against detainees all over Iraq — not just at Abu Ghraib prison — and in Afghanistan. The International Red Cross has reported scores of incidents, and Gen. John P. Abizaid, the head of U.S. Central Command, said in a Senate hearing yesterday that 75 abuse cases have been investigated, as well as a number of deaths. Some of the methods that the commanders say were never sanctioned in Iraq — and that, most experts believe, violate the Geneva Conventions — were nevertheless listed on a sign posted at Abu Ghraib under the heading ‘Interrogation Rules of Engagement.'”

This pervasive rot at the core of US military practice in Iraq and elsewhere, the editorial goes on to suggest, arose specifically from Bu**sh**’s decision to take the January 2002 advice of his White House counsel, in a blatant disregard for law and human decency, to ignore State Dept. objections and proceed with his decision to exclude Afghani detainees from the protections of the Geneva Conventions, although it was recognized that this could eventually undermine military conduct. As this policy on prisoner treatment spread to the Iraqi conflict, the president blatantly lied and stated that we were respecting the Geneva Conventions.

I am more than a little impatient with all the soul-searching public debate over just how high up the responsibility for such savage practices goes. A wanton disregard for the law has been the rule in the Bu**sh** administration since the struggle they waged to steal the White House in the first place. Combine that with a grandiose (Salon) and misguided adventurist sense of mission, guided by voices1 (Village Voice), against an enemy we reinvent daily as a self-justification for global war, and it is clear that a pervasive culture of barbarity and deceit (ABC News) is the inevitable outcome.

1“It was an e-mail we weren’t meant to see. Not for our eyes were the notes that showed White House staffers taking two-hour meetings with Christian fundamentalists, where they passed off bogus social science on gay marriage as if it were holy writ and issued fiery warnings that “the Presidents [sic] Administration and current Government is engaged in cultural, economical, and social struggle on every level”—this to a group whose representative in Israel believed herself to have been attacked by witchcraft unleashed by proximity to a volume of Harry Potter. Most of all, apparently, we’re not supposed to know the National Security Council’s top Middle East aide consults with apocalyptic Christians eager to ensure American policy on Israel conforms with their sectarian doomsday scenarios.

But now we know.”