----- Original Message ----- From: "Sonja van Baardwijk-Holten" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: "Killer Bs Discussion" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Tuesday, August 31, 2004 2:27 AM Subject: Re: Killings, evil and pictures to assure accountability L3
> >Not every one, probably not. But, it was common knowledge and there was no > >indication of public horror at it. As Gautam said, it wasn't accidental; > >it was deliberate policy from on high. > > > > > My point is that the lack of public horror wasn't contained or even > exclusive to Germany. Europe, the US and the rest of the world were > similarly disinterested in the stories of persecutions that did the > rounds. I have a lot of trouble with the word similar. The US leadership, on the whole, pushed to fight Hitler as hard as possible. The population of the United States wasn't really interested in getting into another European war..especially since it was sold getting into WWI on slightly false pretenses. Information held by the US government about the Holocaust coming before Pearl Harbor was not really that conclusive. Information available to the average German citizen during the Holocaust was conclusive. People wrote about it in personal letters, the concentration camps were not thousands of miles away; they were near population centers. Further, the German people supported the Nazis until WWII started going badly; the people of the US didn't. They bought into the reasoning behind the Holocaust; the Americans didn't. They Americans were not willing enough to start a world war to stop it. > I hold that it is too easy to dismiss a horror story (perhaps > also because of the fact that the scope and magnitude these crimes were > perpetrated on, up until then, were totally unheard of) when you > haven't got physical evidence as in f.i. pictures, portraying the actual > magnitude of violence happening. I mean would you have believed Abu > Graihb or believed that it was that severe if you'd not seen pictures of > it? If I read the Taguba report, without the pictures, sure. It wouldn't have had the same emotional impact, but I would realize what happened. Indeed, its not the abuse shown in those photos that really bothers me. Sexual abuse happens in prisons all the time. Its the breakdown of the system that was designed to minimize that type of occurrence that is the real problem, in my view. >Would there have been a similar outcry? Up until a point in the war, > the world simply didn't have an interest and without physical proof and > ready available pictures/physical proof there was no incentive to change > this attitude in what happened because it was convenient, not on their > doorstep and basically at the time without solid irrefutable widespread > proof. Its not that simple. The first announcement of the abuse was by the US military in January. It was investigated by Taguba, with the following report being generated. http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/reports/2004/800-mp-bde.htm My guess is that the fear of the impact of the pictures actually slowed the process. I realize that is speculation. I think the worst case scenario was that just the immediate perps would be punished. > Genocide starts with that first murder, the first act against a fellow > human. So I feel that there is room for thought experiments and comparison. Well, yes and no. Its like saying that a devastating hurricane starts with the first thundershower. It does indeed, but there are many thundershowers that don't develop into hurricanes. A young black man who robs and kills an Indian-American in a convenience store robbery is not the start of a race war in the United States. What separates this instances from an instance like Sudan is the reaction of the society, in particular those in power. > >One was, IMHO, a criminal neglect to establish a proper prison environment, where the long established procedure was not enforced. The second was a > >systematic, well planned slaughter of millions of innocent humans that > >gained momentum as new, more efficient murder techniques were developed. > >Information about this, according to documentation from the time, was > >readily available to the average citizen. > > > Actually here we differ considerably. It wasn't mere neglect that caused > it, to me it was a premeditated and consciously carried out policy of > establishing superiority toward what are considered inferior peoples, at > all cost. I'd like to see some documentation for that. I can show, in Nazi rhetoric, how Jews are the inherent enemy of Aryans; how the Aryans are the master race. If you could show similar arguments of George Bush concerning the people of Iraq, it would greatly aid your argument. However, I think that will be _very_ hard to come by. I've read and heard countless arguments about "the freedom loving people of Iraq" being brutally oppressed. How those who are attacking the present government and the US are a small minority that wish to stop this progress towards freedom. If anything, Bush tends to underplay differences between the citizens of Iraq and the citizens of the US. Now, he does talk about "evil doers." Lets look at one in particular: Hussein. Isn't he someone who did evil? Wasn't it wrong for his son to torture members of the soccer team when they didn't perform to his expectations? Is it really imposing a Western system on a Mid-East country to call this evil? Now, there are risks involved with doing this. One may see the evil doers as deserving anything that happens to them, and thus cross lines concerning the proper handling of them. In particular, the "ticking bomb" scenario can be overused. That is to day, if there was a bomb that was about to kill hundreds of people, wouldn't it be acceptable to use any means to stop it. My answer to that, and Gautam's for that matter, is no. The cost of putting torture in one's arsenal are just too high. The US military had a set of rules that ensured that any interrogation stayed far away from this. What happened at the highest levels was that, after 9-11, the worth of interrogation techniques that were closer to this line were reexamined..with the thought that one could go closer to that line. IMHO, too much was allowed; including dunking known AQ members under water for extended periods during questioning. But, there was no evidence that things like the human pyramid and forcing men to masturbate in front of women were part of the plan from on high. Rather, a much more complicated picture emerges here. First of all, AG was woefully understaffed, undersupervised, and manned with undertrained people verging on the untrained. It was under fire from outside and inside, and under tremendous pressure to get results. Further, there was word of the Geneva convention not applying; without any clear delineation of what wasn't thought to apply. <aside> (I'll give one example that is reasonable...POWs who are covered need not answer questions. I really think there is nothing inhumane about questioning AQ operatives in order to see if planned attacks can be defused before they happened. Saying these operatives are not covered by this ban because they do not qualify under the provisions of the Geneva convention for this particular protection seems pretty logical to me, because that appears to be the plain meaning of the text of the conventions. ) <end aside> This is a recipe for disaster. When you add a leader who has acknowledged an abusive past and has been implicated in prison abuse, one should expect about what happened. The fact that this type of abuse wasn't stopped before it happened indicates dereliction of duty to me...and a long way up the chain of command. While I certainly support due process for all alleged criminals, in principal, jail time for the officers responsible as well as the immediate perpetrators seems appropriate. Do you consider this viewpoint making excuses for the behavior? If so, how and why? But, a comparison to the Holocaust is not supported by the evidence. Even before the pictures were out, there was a formal inquiry into the matter, that implicated superior officers as well as the people in the photos. I'll agree that the wheels of justice were turning slow, but part of that could be attributed to the explosive nature of the photos themselves. Compare that with the Holocaust. At a bare minimum, the German people knew that all Jews who could be found were imprisoned, not for what they did, but who they were. They were declared enemies of the nation for who they were....and carted off to concentration camps. Data indicates that the likely level of understanding was higher than this. People wrote about the killing in casual letters. Some of the camps were located near major cities. It was a massive undertaking, with no evidence that secrecy was being strongly enforced. If you have evidence that counters this understanding, I'd appreciate seeing it. I am convincible. >So the intent factor and the underlying potential for worse, to me makes >it really bad. If I read it correctly, its not what actually happens that makes something bad, but reading of intent...with a minimal of documentation, and unsupported projections for future actions. > >In the US, there was a hue and cry about the crimes. It may very well be > >that we will not sufficiently punish people far enough up the chain of > >command, but it is also clear that a number of pro-military people in the > >US are mad as hell that things were not done right. > > > > > As always only some, not all. There are those that are even madder at > the story getting out in the first place, and I'm not so sure that the > displayed outrage for some isn't a mere saving face gesture. How would you test for this? Do you consider data? For example, after Viet Nam until this war, the US's record on the treatment of prisoners was far better than its NATO allies. Was this an accident? Could this have been a source of pride? The abuse has done tremendous damage to the United States. I'll agree that many >Of course > there are those that are truly outraged so there is still hope for the > future, although the edict to forbid camera's in the army isn't exactly > inspiring much confidence. :o) > > > > > There is a magnitude of difference, but do I have to acknowledge that > everytime I breach the subject. Almost every responsible people who mention minor and major infractions in the same breath do. It is extremely useful in precisely making one's point. An example of this is Gautam's discussion of Bush and AIDs. He makes it very clear that he doesn't support Bush 100% on his position, letting me know exactly what his point is. A straight reading of your posts would indicate that you think that the main reason that the Holocaust killed six million, and AG only involved the degradation of a few score is the pictures. Without photos, we could expect millions killed in Iraq. With photos, the Germans would have repented of their hate. >To me it is just as offensive to lump > all people on the BAD&EVIL heap each time something controversial on US > behavior is mentioned on Brin-L. If I'd wanted I could construe that > into something along the lines of being a denier and defender for > massacres committed in the name of the US and it's believes. Which massacres are you referring to? The last thing the US did that was close to genocide was in the 19th century. Even that was not, for the most part, a systematic killing...with disease taking most of the toll. Was Jackson a war criminal? Sure thing. But, he was called such at the time, by people like Sam Houston...who refused to speak to him after being boyhood friends with him. What else can you think of that even involves the systematic murder of 100,000 defenseless, peaceful people (roughly a factor of 100 lower than the Holocaust) by the US government since its inception? In particular, look at the record for the last 100 years. Is there an example that's comparable? Lets look at smaller acts; with My Lai as an example. There was no indication that this type of action was ordered by Westmoreland. The average US citizen did not see civilians rounded up. They were not taught that, because of race, all people in Viet Nam were mortal enemies. Rather, they were told that the Cold War was a battle against tyranny, just like WWII. There is some justification for that argument. I thought 'Nam was wrong for a number of reasons. But, it does not compare to Hitler's war on Europe. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
