May 10, 2004
A Few Peeves About the Abuse Coverage
A couple of peeves I need to get off my chest:
First, I don't think I'll get into a deeply hermeneutic argument about the abuse of language, and I know that blurring the line between atrocities such as those in Hussein's Iraq, Rawanda, etc. and mere rape, or even murder, as criminal acts seems to be rampant. I know that hyperbole is the order of the day, and of course some people consider learning calculus "torture." But just let me say that I do think that the failure to make those distinctions between criminal acts that, unfortunately, aren't absent from the prison system of any nation, and the events that tend to happen to millions of people in totalitarian regimes, has pretty ominious implications in this context.
And look, I know it's not the order of the day to, in any way, grant an assumption of innocence to Americans. I mean who'd want to apply the standards used by the "internationalists" for Saddam Hussein to the US, for heaven sake? But is this picture what it appears to be?
Specifically, is this picture of a hooded individual standing on a box with his body attached to wires actually being tortured? I'm not a military legal expert, but it seems to me that as long as the wires weren't attached to a power source there is nothing about the picture itself that necessarily violates the rules of just conduct of detainee interrogation, at least not in these guidelines. (Hat tip: Ed Morrissey) Maybe some details of his state of hygeine might a violation, or it may be a violation if the proper approval wasn't sought, or maybe it was hard to breath through the hood and he was in danger of suffocation. But merely threatening someone with electrical shock, in the absence of an intent to actually carry out the threat, is probably allowable isn't it? (At least, I think that's the case. I'm not an expert, of course.) It is certainly cruel, but so are terrorists who murder innocent people, so in spite of the fact that the picture looks sensational it doesn't necessarily document statutorily significant abuse.
And about the following quote concerning worse pictures and allegations to come:
NBC News later quoted U.S. military officials as saying that the unreleased photographs showed American soldiers “severely beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi prisoner, and ‘acting inappropriately with a dead body.’ The officials said there also was a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping young boys.”
I suppose it's possible that the difference in wording between the behavior of Americans "having sex with" a female prisoner, and Iraqis "raping" their charges, could just mean that some American was filming a fraternization. I mean, people do that sort of thing I've heard. But it's not very likely, so odds are they're talking about rape in both instances, and as a friend of mine pointed out recently Arabs might be inclined to take offense at such a selective use of language. Anyway, they are just allegations, so far. Maybe there was a distinction that requires the use of selective language.
As for "acting inappropriately with a dead body,' while that's undoubtedly disgusting (and probably a crime) I'm not at all sure that it amounts to prisoner abuse, at least from the facts we've been presented. And though I don't want to make light of allegations that, almost certainly, involve serious abuse of helpless people, there was a pretty humorous movie that involved a lot of inappropriate necro... something. Lets not get ahead of ourselves.
By the way, here's a nice fisking of Sy Hersh by the Mudville Gazette. (Hat tip: Instapundit)
Posted by Demosophist at May 10, 2004 01:29 PM | TrackBack