As world power go, US is not pretty begnign

Be serious...

Published on May 5, 2004 By Jepel In International

I'm sorry to copy a title from Brad, but I was a bit outraged about his article. (he is probably very happy about that...)

Any people who believe in the power of justice and law would not allow himself to have any deviation on torture because of their nationality.

One of his argument is that abuse by US force is OK, it is just depending on your angle. If your think that America is good for the world, so a little of torture is good for the world. So I'm not American, I do think that America can be a pretty good thing for the world, but there is no way than torturing can be good way to handle dissident. Torture is the divide between a state in which law rule and a state ruled by the law of jungle. Brad will argue that he hasn't clearly said that. but read previous articles and you'll find some arguments trying to diminish what the picture showed and increased the culpability of the victims. Notably that you don't know if those prisoner would have been killing GI before. How demagogic... I'm not going in this.

I happened to be not naive. Believe me or not, but when I heard about torture from US soldier on Iraq prisoners, I was thinking "It is war time, and there is torture, really?!"

Don't get me wrong, I'm against war, just because war mean death, war mean atrocity, and war mean pain. talking straight, but I would be a soldier in Iraq or in any hostile country, I would like to know the most in order to prevent anything bad happening to me or my men. I think that it wouldn't be normal time and you need to reach other level to get information. in a way, the big problem is that a lot of people think that a war can be clean...

Before people start to say that I'm supporting torture, let me say that:

- I was against war just because of this kind of reason, war is creating area of no law which is always used by the worst people.

- If USA was better to sell its war, and would show more efficiency in building Iraq, the Iraqi people would follow USA and therefore torture wouldn't be that necessary

- Bush and Rumsfeld can play their most naive acting, torture seem to have been under the supervision of private contractor (out of reach of military justice). So practical .. and so not wanted...

There is one thing certain, credibility of USA is going ground 0 in Arab countries. When you are selling freedom, you have to display samples... and not showing why US was supporting Pinochet.

PS. Brad asked "what real world power would you prefer be in the US's position? China? Russia? France? Germany? Japan? UK? "

Let see

UK is not that different. be serious

France and Germany have both been in colonialist war, and it looks very similar than Iraq war.

Russia: think Chechen

China: Think Tibet

USA: Think Vietnam (and may be Iraq in a few years)

Comments (Page 1)

Draginol

on May 05, 2004

The biggest problem with your article is that its basic premise is flawed.

You completely rely on the "torture" issue in Iraq as the basis for your argument. Abuse of POWs happens in every war. Regardless of where, why, who, it always happens. The question is a matter of how much, not whether there is torture. I wouldn't be surprised if real torture (i.e. physical torture) occurred in Iraq, by Americans, that we don't know about. What we do know, however, is that this "torture" was essentially pre-interrogation intimidation. The POWs weren't physically tortured in any conventional sense. But even if they were, trying to use a single incident as the basis for why the US isn't benign is not reasonable.

I think we can all agree that war is bad. But I also think that you really should look into history a little more. For example, the fact that you use Vietnam as an example of the US doing a "Bad" thing is telling. Do you know what the Vietnam war was about? Do you know what happened in Vietnam and the region after the United States left? Do you not think the people of a given terriitory have the right to decide for themselves who would rule them?

In Iraq, for example, I would be perfectly happy to let the Iraqi people hold a referendum after June 30 (date of the turnover) and if they want the US out, the US should then leave. But it should be up to the people of the country to decide that.

And despite your flawed thesis, you didn't even prove your point. All you did was say the USA is bad as others. You also, again, have a serious blind spot for history. Germany has been in a bit more than a "colonisalist" war. Russia has done a bit more than just crack down on Tibet. China has done a bit more than just crack down on Tibet. And in none of those cases could they be considered "liberating" those countries. The people in Iraq have overwhelmingly said they are glad Saddam is gone. We can debate all day whether Iraq has been liberated or not (I think it's pretty obvious that the US was a liberating power - unless you're going to argue that the US is planning to say annex Iraq).

Any leading world power is going to be like a bull in a china shop. The qeustion is whether that power is relatively well behaved or not. And relatively speaking, since that is the only comparison we can do, the US has been pretty benign. Nothing you've written says differently.

on May 05, 2004

Abuse of POWs happens in every war.

It may be the case, but why accept it? Is it because it is common? If that's the case, that agrument seems weak to me.

Saint Ying

on May 05, 2004

The good thing about totalitarian regimes is that they keep things like this out of the public view. Nazis and Stalinists for instance, were very particular about what people were able to see, and I'm sure they kept their torture procedures under tight security and scrutiny. When I see these photos, my disgust is not in the humiliation (this is a fact of war), but in the way the soldiers were posing for pictures. That is absolutely stupid and intolerable. These pictures should never have existed, much less been leaked to the public. You'd think that the U.S. military would have instructed its soldiers in the proper techniques of dominating a population while being professional enough to avoid this type of damage.

I disagree with Draginol. This is not about 'how much' torture there is. It's about the limited number of photos that were released, and the unlimited potential they pose to come back and bite us in the ass. Now every terrorist can keep a copy of one of these in his wallet before he blows up a bus full of Americans, just so he doesn't forget his cause. Smart fucking move, Pentagon. Maybe if Bush had waited a little longer before rushing into war, spent a few months on some much needed basic training for the soldiers, and actually prepared a decent strategy, we could have succeeded.

couchman

on May 05, 2004

First off, abuse of POW's happens in every war.....regardless of the sides...it happens....although with respect to what happened in Iraq...they are the exception...not the rule....and as for both the arab and world media in general and their biased outrage over it....please....where were they when the former regime was in power and torture was the rule..not the exception....nowhere......and linking Iraq in anyway to Vietnam is not only idiotic but uninformed

Solitair

on May 06, 2004

There are always sick individuals who will torture pow's in any war.

The important question is what the administration does to ensure the fair treatment of pows and minimise such abuses.

In Iraq the administration failed.

They failed to provide any training to soldiers on how to handle prisoners
They failed to provide details of the rights of prisoners to soldiers
They failed to answer soldiers uestions for MONTHS on how to treat the prisoners
They failed to stop the torture when it was first highlighted 4 months ago
They failed to stop the torture when UN and EU missions highlighted it 3 months ago
They failed to stop the torture after a report was completed 2 months ago
They failed to supervise the soldiers

This is the problem with Iraq. Not that some soldiers committed torture, but that the environment to allow such torture continued and was not changed. And to clarify, physical torture DID occur in both Iraq and Afganistan!

Paul.

Erique Dela Crappe

on May 06, 2004

Yeah but the problem is, America wnet in there because it is supposed to be BETTER, to be above these things. This is without a doubt the most damaging thing that could happen, as it completely destroys the halo America tries to picture over it's troops. This proves to the Arab world, already bestowed with a largely negative perception of America, what they had been thinking all along.

Jepel

on May 06, 2004

Brad:

As far as i know, there have been 25 dead prisoners in Iraq jail. So there might have been some physical torture at least strong enough to kill some of them..
But i agree with you, the pictures exhibited are outrageous but not torture as it maximum. But can you quantify torture? When does it start to be too much? Under what level it is still acceptable? Of course the answer is correlated to who is torturing. Democracy and Dictatorship aren't tie top the same principle. I could understand people in guerrilla warfare doing torture in a way to get information. I wouldn't agree with it, but I can get why.

I agree with Saint Ying, the picture show the humiliation of prisoner, and really stupid soldier who demonstrate brilliantly that you don't need any training to enjoy sadism. Again I can understand, it is human, but I will totally reprove it.

Now tell me, aren't soldier suppose to be supervised,?Does this fantastic machine is let freewheeling? or is there any decent people in control? In your article you were highlighting the action of American media compare to foreign media. What about the reaction of the leadership of the US? Didn't they know it? What was their reaction?

I was outraged by your series of articles because their only purpose was to diminish the responsibility of US leader into that great failure. All this story is just showing their lack of respect to the very principle they are suppose to defend. And consequently, you, Mr Wardell, are supporting unlawful, immoral and incompetent behavior because the responsible administration is of the same border as you.

There are time were belonging to the left or the right is the important matter. But sometime this border is not relevant anymore specially when confronted to unacceptable behavior coming from the oldest democracy of the world.

My article wasn't too much about the superpower defense ( we are big, we are overall good so you should be happy that we are proving we are human by doing mistake) that you have been brilliantly describing but about the fact that you were finding circumstances were torture were more or less acceptable. I know that my title was confusing, I didn't really mean that. Sorry.

Draginol

on May 06, 2004

Again: Unless you can demonstrate that prisoners who come into US custody are disproportionately in danger versus falling into the hands of any other major power then it is a futile argument.

Using the incidents in Iraq do not prove one way or the otehr whether the US is relatively benign or not.

If you want to start an article saying that the abuse of Iraqi POWs is bad then go right ahead, we're all in agreement on that.

Jepel

on May 06, 2004

For be honest, I don't understand the whole point of comapring it. As afar as I know only US put Iraqi people in custody. Other could do worst or not, actually they didn't get in a situation to do so in first place.

As i repeat, your are using this rethoric to decriminalise the whole torture thing.

Draginol

on May 06, 2004

The British have Iraqi's in custody too and have their own abusing problems.

Again: If you have enough POWs with enough people, statistically, some are going to be abused.

Now, my 2 cents on the issue as succinct as possible: I think the US has totally blown it in Iraq. I think the whole situation has been mishandled right from the start from where Bremer get appointed.

What I don't like is the lack of perspective being shown on this issue - we're only weeks since innocent Americans were brtually murdered by being set on fire, had their bodies dragged through the streets and then hung from a bridge. You have to keep that backdrop in mind. If the world showed even a remotely equal amount of outcry at the misdeeds of others then I think we could have a more reasonable discussion. But the people shrieking about this POW incident in Iraq are the same people who keep mum about the atrocities commited against Americans.

I mean really, it's pretty ironic for say the Egyptian papers to cry about US treatment of some POWs (and just a handful here) when its secret police commits all kinds of horrific atrocities against its own people. Same in Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, etc. I mean hell, ever heard the term "wouldn't want to get stuck in a Turkish prison"? These are all Iraq's neighbors. Relatively speaking, this is nothing.

It is STILL terrible because the US needs to be behaving at a higher standard and especially because it has made itself out as this personification of liberty, justice, and human rights. I think the US will have a hard time recovering from this incident in that area. But again, relatively speaking, the US is very benign and that is the whole thing.

Jepel

on May 06, 2004

OK speaking jsut on the Superpwer status, as you were pointing before superpower tend to be like an elephant in a porcelaine shop, there will be damage soon or later.

However, it is not possible not to compare US with anything else because you wpould agreee that there is hardly any equivalent now. A problem I would raise regarding the fact that it is now the only one, there is so far no alternative, no counter weight. You could argue that it is a better "empire" than all the previous empire, it is still one. With a lot of good and bad. It might be benign from your point of view, it still have heavy consequences all round the world. Because of his fantastic hegemony, US doesn't have to follow any rules. It create its own for its best interest. I'm sure that you believe in competition. Where is competition now?

Draginol

on May 06, 2004

There is always competition, not necessarily equal competition.

But, for instance, what contending super power would you prefer to be in the US's position? Your options are:

A) China

B)Russia

Maybe in 50 years you'll have more choices (India for instance).

So which of those options would you prefer to super-size it. Do you believe their international behavior would be better than the US's? Do you think that had the USSR won the cold war we would be better off?

messybuu

on May 06, 2004

This reminds me of what they say about democracy (well, actually, the US version of it): "It isn't a perfect system, but it's the best system we've got." If there was no "empire", I have a feeling that another nation would eventually rise up and become one. With the current candidates we have now, I guess my point is that the US isn't perfect, but it's the best we've got.

Solitair

on May 07, 2004

I tend to compare the US's actions against European countries actions. The biggest difference here is accountability. The US is accountable to no one. European countries are accountable to the EU justice system. This means that if British soldiers commit crimes in Iraq (I say if as there are serious questions about the authenticity of the pictures), the British government is responsible for punishing them and ensuring that adequate changes are made. Should they fail in this then the European system kicks in. As a last resort the European court of justice could take action. The individual soldiers can even be tried in the ICC. The bottom line is that people are sure that accountability is there and everyone from the soldiers responsibile to their commanding officers will have to justify their actions.

The US does not have these fail safes. If the US military finds a US soldier murdered an Iraqi they may just decide to discharge them. That has recently happened! The soldier who murdered one of the Iraqi prisoners was just discharged! No extra criminal proceedings! No justice seen to be done. From an international point of view the US is corrupt. It's soldiers are part of a club that protects them from the consequences of their actions.

This is NOT benign. This is corruption.

Paul.

Jepel

on May 08, 2004

It seems that we are in a dialogue of deaf.

- I reckon that my title is badly chosed, as i want to react more agaionst Brad than what he was saying
- US is not the worst, that's for sure, but it isn't at its best currently.
- My real point in this blog was to highlight the manner of right wing and Brad in particular to diminish the responsibility of the administration and the army. Fortunatly in europ, we can't hear fine people saying that soldier need to release the pressure and have good time by doing a bit of torture.

US is benevolent, and that's why antiamericanism has never been so high. I guess that's because the remaining of the world is pretty bad..

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