How Did Abu Ghraib Happen -- An Essay

This was written a few months ago, but I came across in my email inbox again, and I thought I would save it/share it here, in what amounts (for me) to a cross between a scrapbook, a Bookmarks file, and a captain's log. Hopefully, on a the occasional good day, it amounts for you (for someone) to a few carefully chosen words, from a good source -- in this case, my wife's father. This is a lecture he delivered at a church in Lamoni, Iowa.

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by Bob Mesle (Professor of Philosophy & Religion, Graceland University, Lamoni, IA
bobmesle@graceland.edu)

Today is Mothersí Day. We can best honor this day, I think, by turning our hearts toward all the mothers, and toward every motherís child, involved in the recent horrors we have had to confront in Iraq. The sons of Iraqi mothers have borne the greatest torment, but also young boys, girls, and women have been victimized. Not to mention the agony in their mothersí hearts. Sec. Rumsfeld has confirmed that there are video tapes and pictures of rape, torture, and murder. And let us not forget the American mothers who are seeing their own sons and daughters on global television, caught grinning at their own cruelty, despised by the whole world. What motherís heart can bear such blows?

How did this happen?

First, I have to say how difficult it is even to discuss this in a nation so intensely divided as we are. Those of us who oppose Bush politically must root out, and repent of, those secret feelings of celebration that perhaps the revelations of this brutality will hurt his re-election chances. Such feelings are easy to have, but they make us complicit in the torture. Likewise, those who support Bush must root out and repent of those secret urges to minimize the horror of these events. Those feelings, too, are easy to come by and make people complicit in the torture. Somehow, we must struggle against the urge to make this a purely partisan issue.

Yet, even as I say this, it is impossible for me to discuss my understanding of the cause and meaning of these events without making a strong political statement. The only thing I can offer by remediation is to keep focused on the fact that whatever criticisms I have of the Bush administration are finally criticisms of our deeper choices as a nation. Most Americans, after all, have supported Bushís choices.

So, how did this happen? The decisions which led directly to these horrors were made when we chose as a nation how we would respond to the events of Sept. 11. Following those tragic events, almost the entire world was on our side. We could have chosen to follow Martin Luther King, Jr., who endured the brutality of Bull Connor by turning the other check, and hence drawing the compassion of the nation onto his side. We could have chosen to draw upon our Christian heritage to heed the admonitions of Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, not to return evil for evil. Most especially, those who cry out loudest for us to be a Christian nation based on biblical principles could have urged us to turn the other cheek.

We did not choose that path. Instead, as a nation, we chose the path of violence. We were hurt badly, and we decided to hurt someone back. Since we could not find the enemy who hurt us, we decided to hurt the enemy we could find. We made the decision that the people we could get our hands on were terrorists, and hence not fully human. I do blame Bush for this. But, to be honest, we are not a Christ-like nation when it comes to turning the other cheek. So I think that Bush only magnified the national hunger for revenge.

So, we invaded Afghanistan, gathered up people, transported them thousands of miles away to the Guantanamo Bay Naval Base in Cuba. We made it clear that even though we had invaded their country, they were not prisoners of war. Why? Because prisoners of war have rights. We, as a nation, declared that these people had no rights. We set them entirely outside any law of any nation or international community. About 600 people have been held there without access to their families or to lawyers. They have not been charged with any specific crimes. Actually, I should clarify by saying that two American citizens were originally charged with crimes. When, in the court system, it became clear that those charges could not be defended, the prisoners were simply whisked away to Guantanamo Bay and declared to be enemy combatants, with no rights to a trial. The government insists that those 600 people can be held as long as we wantófor their whole livesówithout ever being charged with a crime, being given access to an attorney, or any visits with their family or friends. The people in charge of justice for our country, the people charged with preserving the Bill of Rights, insist that these prisoners are not covered by the Geneva Convention which grants prisoners of war rights like freedom from torture. When asked before the Senate if he thought that declaring that those prisoners had no rights under the Geneva Convention might have created a climate in which prisoners were more likely to be abused, Rumfeld said no. Yet, we ask, ìHow did this happen?î
It happened because as a nation we decided to return evil for evil. It happened because we as a nation decided that our prisoners were not human beings, that they had no human rights, not even the minimal rights of prisoners of war. It happened because we knew that most of the people we were arresting had nothing to do with Sept. 11, so we were not interested in charging them with specific crimes. They were arrested primarily as potential sources of intelligence, and the only way we could get that intelligence was through emotional and physical torture.

Now we are being forced to look in the mirror and see who we have become as a nation, where our choices have brought us. What we see is ugly.

The American men and women in the pictures are often grinning, enjoying themselves, giving us the thumbs up. They were not anguished at being ordered to act against their own consciences. They were not hiding in the shadows afraid to be seen. Rather, these pictures were simply trophies, tourist photos to be shown to friends at home. ìHere I am in front of a Mosque. Here I am at the local market. Here I am by some naked Iraqi prisoners. Here I am with my friends. Hereís another one of an Iraqi prisoner being tortured.î They are like vacation photos from a fishing trip where we see someone holding up a stringer of fish, with a big marlin strung up beside them. But in this case the marlin is a human being, and the stringer of fish is a pile of people.

If these soldiers were a few evil people, knowing that they were perpetuating a terrible evil sure to be condemned by their nation and even their own families, those photos would probably never have been taken, or would have been carefully hidden away. But they werenít. The soldiers apparently did not think they were doing anything out of line.

I wish that this was going to be a moment in our national history when things changed. Instead, we are defending ourselves. So far, the administration has insisted that these are the actions of a few and have nothing to do with our national character. On the very day that these photos became public, President Bush was explaining away that old ìMission Accomplishedî sign by saying that there were no longer torture chambers in Iraq. Rumsfeld clearly stated that it was not really knowledge of torture which was the problem, but the pictures, as if, in the absence of pictures, there would have been no problem.

I listened to Jay Lenoís monologue Friday night and the Michael Feldman on Saturday morning. Both of them cracked jokes about the photos, playing off of their eroticism, with no hint that this was a great national tragedy. Did preachers across the nation this morning called out for a national day of repentance? I donít know, but I doubt it.

Will these events affect the election? I donít know. So far Bush is seen by a majority as handling it well. I suspect that this is precisely because he is insisting that it has nothing to do with our national character, nothing to do with the policies of his administration, nothing to do with the big choices our nation made after Sept. 11, nothing to do with our decision to deny detainees at Guantanamo Bay any human rights, even the right to freedom from torture. Most people do not want the President to say that there is something about our national character which gave rise to these horrors. So, he is likely to do get popular support for blaming it on a few bad apples. Better to blame them, than to blame ourselves.

Yet, I am not entirely without hope. Bush is right that we do have deep values in our national character which insist that the humiliation, torture, rape, and murder of these prisoners is a terrible thing.

Today is Mothers Day. Perhaps the best thing we can do is to begin by turning our hearts with motherly compassion toward those Iraqi prisoners who have suffered. How would we feel if we were their mothers, fathers, sisters, and brothers? But also, how would we feel if we were the mothers of those American soldiers who committed these acts, and now must bear the whole weight of our nationís guilt? Surely, if Americans could feel the pain of all of those mothers, somehow the future would be radically different. We would find another path as a nation, would renew the deeper, better values in our nationís heart.