Viewer Discretion Advised
I see that no less an imperial personage than the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Richard Myers, has asked a federal judge to block the opening of the Abu Ghraib Film Festival of the Damned:
Myers . . . said in a statement put forth to support the Pentagon's case that he believed that "riots, violence and attacks by insurgents will result" if the images were released.
"It is probable that Al Qaeda and other groups will seize upon these images and videos as grist for their propaganda mill, which will result in, besides violent attacks, increased terrorist recruitment, continued financial support and exacerbation of tensions between Iraqi and Afghani populaces and U.S. and coalition forces," he said.
Sheesh. Suddenly everybody's a movie critic. But surely Gen. Myers understands that while shots of helpless little boys being anally raped don't exactly meet local community standards (either here or in Iraq) the Freedom of Information Act doesn't have an obscenity exemption. Or a stupidity exemption, which would have left Myers, not to mention his boss, completely in the clear.
Unfortunately, Myers is having some script problems of his own. In his statement to the court, which I presume was given under oath, he cites Newsweek's Koran-in-the-toilet story as an example of the kind of havoc that the Abu Ghraib kiddie porn could unleash among the natives:
General Myers cited the violence that erupted in some Muslim countries in May after Newsweek published an item, later retracted, saying that a Koran had been thrown in a toilet in the United States detention center in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba.
That is, not, however, what Gen. Myers said at the time:
General Myers also told reporters at the Pentagon Thursday that the U.S. commander in Afghanistan, General Carl Eichenberry, disagrees with the reports that protests in the city of Jalalabad were caused by anger over the alleged Koran incident.
"It is the judgment of our commander in Afghanistan, General Eichenberry, that in fact the violence that we saw in Jalalabad was not necessarily the result of the allegations about disrespect for the Koran, but more tied up in the political process and the reconciliation process that President Karzai and his cabinet are conducting in Afghanistan. He thought it was not at all tied to the article in the magazine," he explained. (emphasis added.)
He and Rove both really need to work on their dissembling skills.
Gen. Myers might have been a little more careful if he'd known his words would make the New York Times. But the goverrnment originally filed his statement -- and all the other paperwork associated with its most recent attempt to block the release of the images -- under seal. This in turn forced the ACLU to file its countermotion under seal.
Left unchecked, this procedure would have resulted in secret litigation to decide whether secret videos should be kept secret. Hank Gonzales's idea of the perfect trial, in other words.
But Judge Hellerstein -- whose legal lap this horror show has landed in -- apparently has some old-fashioned ideas about the public's right to know. He unsealed the papers, giving us this chance to see Gen. Myers talk out of both sides of his mouth.
Given what we already know -- thanks to Sy Hersh and others -- about the high command's responsibility for the chain of events that led to Abu Ghraib, Myers' plea for secrecy bears at least a passing resemblance to the old chestnut about the man who murders his parents and then begs the court for mercy because he's an orphan. It would be a little easier to stomach if somebody above the rank of sergeant had been charged with a crime, if the man most directly responsible -- the colonel in charge of the Abu Ghraib intelligence unit -- hadn't been let off with a reprimand, and if the commander at the top on the chain of command in Iraq hadn't been promoted instead of being set to wash toilets in the Aleutian Islands.
Add in the fact that to this day the Pentagon is trying to shield higher ups from being implicated in Abu Ghraib-like abuses, and the temptation is awfully strong to tell Gen. Myers to go do what Dick Cheney told Pat Leahy.
But one of the things that makes this such a particularly depressing story (that is, over and above the sadistic fascism on display at Abu Ghraib) is the fact that to the extent Myers is right, the ones who suffer for it won't be the people who bear the ultimate moral responsibility for the scandal: the lawyers who wrote the Nazi-like memos justifying the presidential power to torture, the bureaucrats who set the policy wheels in motion at Guantanamo, the generals who "Gitmoized" the interrogation process in Iraq, and the sleazy partisan scumbags, like "neutron" Jim Schlesinger, who put the finishing touches on the cover up.
If release of the Abu Ghraib snuff movies does trigger a violent reaction in Iraq or Afghanistan, if it does lengthen the lines at the Al Qaeda recruitment office, or if it does inspire insurgent bomb makers to invent even more lethal IEDs, the ones who'll pay the price will be the troops in the field -- the same poor bastards who are already spilling their blood for the Pentagon's failures.
Would the Film Festival of the Damned have that kind of effect? I don't know -- and I don't think there's any way to know until and unless the videos are released. But I wouldn't dismiss it out of hand, just because Myers is a lying fuck desperate to cover his own ass. When I try to imagine the reaction of someone who already hates or fears American power to graphic footage of little Iraqi children being raped while a bunch of smirking hillbillies stand around and gawk, I can see how it might drive them crazy with rage -- just as the sight of the burned corpses of American mercenaries being dragged through the streets of Fallujah worked a lot of our wing nuts into a frenzy last year. And if there's one thing this tortured planet doesn't need right now, it's the crazed rage of cultural fanatics. We've already got more than we can handle.
Which is why I'm glad I don't have Judge Hellerstein's job. The law would seem to leave him little choice but to release the tapes, and pray the consequences -- for the guiltless, I mean -- aren't as dire as Myers predicts.
In the end, though, I also have to support full disclosure -- not just because it's the law, but because it's also the right thing to do, despite the risks. There's a greater danger here than the threat that the violence in Iraq or Afghanistan might temporarily escalate (would anybody even notice?) It's the risk that some future administration, or future army commander, might be encouraged to endorse -- or cover up -- war crimes, on the expectation that they, too, will be able to rely on official secrecy to protect themselves (and the country) from the consequences. Which may embolden still more distant bureaucrats and soldiers to commit even bigger war crimes.
We already know where that road ends. But neither the judicial nor the political system seem prepared to hold the administration and the Pentagon accountable for having started us down it. That leaves the court of public opinion -- which, unfortunately, is also inclined to imitate Sgt. Shultz.
What I'm hoping is that seeing the horror of Abu Ghraib captured on tape -- even if it is filtered through the corporate media nannies -- might at least have the same effect on American public opinion that the recent airing of a video from the Bosnian killing fields had on Serbia's willful amnesia about it's own war crimes. The tape didn't lead to some dramatic awakening of conscience, but it at least made denial more difficult. It also forced the government to do something about it:
Ms. Kandic, director of the Humanitarian Law Center in Belgrade, a rights advocacy group, said, "Until now the prime minister and others were afraid to touch the issue of war crimes.
"The tape has changed the strategy of the state," she said in a telephone interview. "For the first time politicians were forced publicly to react."
Of course, I may be both too optimistic and too pessimistic. After a year of media exposure, Abu Ghraib may simply have lost its power to shock at home and abroad -- no matter how graphic the images.
But if Judge Hellerstein opts for disclosure, I might at least have the satisifaction of hearing Rush Limbaugh try to explain how raping little boys is really not that much different than your average frat house initiation ritual.
billmon.org
I joined a fraternity in college and nobody ever tried to shove a glowstick up my ass. |
