Most US citizens don’t reflect on the reasons for anti-American sentiment throughout much of the world. But policy makers once focused precisely on this theme. In 1947, George Kennan, who headed policy planning for the State Department, assumed this antipathy when he wrote: “We have about 60% of the world’s wealth but only 6.3% of its population. In this situation we cannot fail to be the object of envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of disparity. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury of altruism and world benefaction. We should cease to talk about vague and unreal objectives such as human rights, the raising of living standards, and democratization. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in straight power concept. The less we are then hampered by idealistic slogans, the better.”

In protecting and expanding US privilege through power, US Presidents used more than idealistic slogans; moralistic rhetoric emanated from the White House. Simultaneously, the presidential promoters of democracy, freedom, self-determination and peace, since World War II, have consistently altered the destiny of third world peoples who did not obey Washington. Until 1989, “fighting communism” justified armed intervention in Korea, Cuba, Vietnam, The Dominican Republic, Laos, Cambodia, Grenada and Panama (just some examples). As the United States emerged as a world empire its leaders categorically denied all imperial intentions. Indeed, President George W. Bush follows a parade of presidential disavowers of empire in repeatedly assuring the world of inherent US goodness; evil is externally located.

Dus, toe hy aangekondig het dat Amerikaanse troepe Irak sou binneval, het hy belowe om nie net die wêreld van die bose Saddam Hussein en sy legendariese massavernietigingswapens en Al-Kaïda-skakels te ontslae te raak nie, maar ook om Irakese ontvangers van demokrasie en vryheid te maak.

Evidence about WMDs and terrorist links didn’t overwhelm the President, but he knew his brain trust would find compelling arguments elsewhere. Led by sneering Vice President Dick Cheney and smug Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and surrounded with Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, former Defense Policy Board Chair Richard Perle and Cheney’s Chief of Staff Scooter Libby, this so-called neo con (neo-conservatives, or those who could con others in a new way) clan pushed Bush to war against Iraq (evil).

On March 19, 2003 Bush made war. On May 1, he declared victory. Then, the Iraqi resistance to occupation surfaced and casualties increased. Bush snarled: “bring ‘em on,” (meaning “send ‘em in”) and blamed the “insurgency” on foreign zealots. In April 2004, US casualties numbered 129 dead and thousands wounded. The Pentagon quietly admitted that the core of the insurgency was Iraqi, not foreign.

Reporters discovered that Iraqi exiles on Pentagon payroll had supplied the nonsense that Bush then propounded to Congress as solid evidence that Saddam had WMDs. Ahmed Chalabi, “our man in Baghdad” (while living in Washington), was the source of false intelligence before the war. Bush then appointed him to the governing council in Iraq where he possessed neither a constituency nor qualifications. Indeed, Jordan wants him extradited for embezzling some $200 million.

Because  the causes seemed so flaky, the move to war divided Americans. Before it started millions demonstrated their opposition in the streets. The rifts have grown deeper. In April, Spanish voters defeated the pro war party of President Jose Maria Aznar. On May 3, incoming Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero voiced the opinion of Spain’s majority.

“The mission in Iraq, which is showing itself every day to be a failure, should serve as a lesson to the international community: preemptive wars, never again; violations of international law, never again.” The real and most efficient fight against terrorism is through the cooperation of all democratic countries, all free countries, in the United Nations with the cooperation of all and not via unilateral interventions, which only lead to failure.”

Zapatero’s words appeared on newspaper pages alongside photographs showing US troops torturing Iraqi men and women. On May 5, wire services reported that 25 prisoners had died in in US-controlled prisons in Afghanistan and Iran. On that day, Bush lectured an Arab TV interviewer. He did not apologize for the abuses. He abhorred the systemic torture by US troops in Iraq, but called it an “isolated incident;” acts committed by “a few people” who “don’t represent the America I know.”

Rumsfeld dismissed the dirty deeds as “un-American.” Yet, US troops had repeatedly done far worse in Vietnam and Korea. Indeed, wars produce atrocities as day follows night and the United States has initiated more wars since 1950 than any nation in the world.

Apologies hardly suffice! But contrast Bush’s petulant moralistic pose to the language of the investigation by the 800th Military Police Brigade. According to Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, “US Army Soldiers have committed egregious acts and grave breaches of international law at Abu Ghraib/BCCF and Camp Bucca, Iraq.” He said that “key senior leaders” had “failed to comply with established regulations, policies, and command directives in preventing detainee abuses at Abu Ghraib (BCCF) and at Camp Bucca during the period August 2003 to February 2004.”

In other words, those ordered to win Iraqi hearts and minds committed “sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses.”

Taguba mentioned “the following acts:” 

“– Punching, slapping, and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet;

— Video-opname en fotografie van naakte manlike en vroulike aangehoudenes;

— Gedwonge reëling van aangehoudenes in verskeie seksueel eksplisiete posisies vir fotografie;

— Aangehoudenes te dwing om hul klere uit te trek en hulle vir 'n paar dae op 'n slag naak te hou;

— Groepe manlike aangehoudenes te dwing om hulself te masturbeer terwyl hulle gefotografeer en op video geneem word;

— Om naakte manlike aangehoudenes in 'n hopie te rangskik en dan op hulle te spring;

— Posisionering van 'n naakte aangehoudene op 'n MRE Box, met 'n sandsak op sy kop, en heg drade aan sy vingers, tone en penis om elektriese marteling na te boots;

— Writing “I am a Rapest” (sic) on the leg of a detainee alleged to have forcibly raped a 15-year old fellow detainee, and then photographing him naked;

— Placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee’s neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture;

— 'n Manlike LP-wag wat seks met 'n vroulike aangehoudene het;

— Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee.”

Taguba blames those in command. MP’s and the contract workers (mercenaries), he says, had received encouragement from their superiors to soften up prisoners before interrogation.

But the sadistic pornography trail of Abu Ghraib leads back to the White House. Iraq is George Bush’s war. If Saddam constituted evil, how to explain the stench of sin that now arises from Bush’s legions of “good”? Indeed, months before Seymour Hersh’s May 3 New Yorker story revealed the scandal, Army criminal investigators had interviewed 50 plus military, contract and Iraqi detainee witnesses. The Abu Ghraib horror photos and videos circulated in national security sectors months before this became public. Did Rumsfeld keep this from the President or did Bush know and do nothing?

Adults shoulder responsibility. Bush passed the buck. Military heads rolls; more will follow. But the torture issue goes beyond acts committed by frightened, frustrated, angry and sadistic US troops – encouraged by their superiors. Like the massacre of My Lai and others in Vietnam, abuses at Iraqi prisons follow from war itself – especially a war based on false premises.

In die tweede week van Mei het die Amerikaanse liggaamstelling 800 nader gekom; die gewondes byna 10,000 XNUMX. Die missie om Irak na ons politieke model te transformeer vervaag namate die afstootlike martelingfoto's deur die Moslemwêreld reis. In plaas van oorwinning in Irak, draai ons terug na dwase oorloë in die verlede.

In 1968, the Vietnamese launched their Tet Offensive proving wrong the US military estimate of their feeble status. Vermont Senator George Aiken advised the disconsolate President Lyndon Johnson to “just declare victory and come home.”

Ses plus jaar later, tienduisende dooie Amerikaanse soldate en miljoene Viëtnamese, het die Verenigde State gesny en gehardloop. In 1975 het die Kongres fondse vir die oorlog afgesny. Amerikaanse amptenare in Saigon het dokumente en geld woes verbrand. Amerikaanse ambassadewagte stoot bajonette na desperate Viëtnamese om die nuwe Viëtnamese regering te probeer ontsnap.

History threatens to repeat itself in Iraq. Having again launched an unjustified imperial war under the axiom of disavowing empire, the chief imperialist himself goes into denial. “Freedom, liberty, democracy,” chanted Bush in his rare and incoherent press conference in April. Bush the triumphant of the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln last May has turned defensive, seeking to place blame on others for his own foolish and bloody deeds. John Kerry has the moral and political duty to now call unequivocally for the rapid withdrawal of US forces from Iraq. Such a move would overwhelm Bush, the “decisive” coward, who thinks “honoring the fallen” means having more fall. He is unfit to hold office.

Saul Landau rig die Digital Media Arts-program aan die Cal Poly Pomona Universiteit. Sy nuwe boek, The Business of America, word in Mei gepubliseer.

 

 

---