Is It Really The Media's Fault Or Is It Just Incompetence?

Soferr: It's the media's fault...again

The North Shore Sunday is a small-time newspaper that does an excellent job of reporting local issues for communities on the North Shore of Boston, including Lynn, Peabody, Salem, Danvers and surrounding areas in Massachusetts. It has done a less excellent job since it was bought up by a conglomerate of local newspapers, but it occasionally comes out with an op-ed piece that catches my eye. The following piece is one such op-ed.

Our politicians describe these days the situation in Iraq as "sectarian violence." This thoughtful description is probably used to alleviate the general, anxious concern that the "war on terror" has, somehow and unpredictably, gone astray. It connotes the idea that this "sectarian violence" is only a temporary deviation from the "regular" violence, and that our soldiers will soon return to dying at the hands of common and ordinary insurgents. There is something encouraging in knowing that things in Iraq will soon return to normal, despite academic and media exaggerations.

The Bush administration is actually using the PR spin and words that misdirect our attention as part of their war effort.

The wondrous use of language does not stop there. Somehow in the war on terror we fight only "insurgents" or "sectarians," We do not fight terrorists - perhaps because we've already won the war on terrorism, or perhaps because we declared war on terror, not on terrorism. Terror means fear, which is relatively easy to conquer or overcome. Terrorism means anarchy, chaos and lawlessness, which are not so easy to defeat.

I think Mr. Soferr has identified an issue worth paying attention to in the political process. We are seeing a subtle change in the rhetoric used to justify our actions in Iraq, Afgahnistand and elsewhere. Seeing that we arewking up to the false rhetoric of "terrorism" and the repeated failures of the Bush gang to come up with honest-to-goodness WMD, pre-invasion Al-Qaeda connections, and Iraqi support for our efforts to "free" Iraq. The shift is now focused on "preventing insurgents" and "foreign influences" from creating a civil war. Perhaps the reality is something different... Perhaps the totalitarian regime of Saddam Hussein and the Baathists kept a lid on the civil strife that was always an undercurrent between the Shi'ites, Sunnis and the Kurds. When we invaded Iraq we toppled the Hussein regime, but blew the lid off of the can of worms that was--and is--Iraq. We also opened the flood gates for external influences to come rushing in to feed these already existing undercurrents. We did not do our homework and once again we are stuck supporting a government that is in a state of deterioration that will either require a lifetime committment of our involvement or a willingness to permit civil war to sort it all out.

Another deliciously wise use of language is in the question that usually accompanies the many analyses of "sectarian violence." It is the question of whether Iraq is already "on the verge" of Civil War, or not just yet. In other words, if we treat "sectarian violence" carefully and wisely, perhaps it won't graduate into the stage of Civil War.

The term civil war stems from two assumptions: that it is not military, and that it happens in a civilized place. In reality, however, war becomes "civil" when civilians begin to kill members of their own civilization by using military instruments, if not also means. The killing parties are not bound by any rules that regulate mass killing and make it a civilized war. This killing is carried out regardless of how civilized the civilians are, regardless of the civility in which the killing is done, and without regard to the cultural symbols of the civilization that is killing itself. In reality, "civilized war" becomes "civil" when the fighters take a break from killing their foreign enemies and begin, instead, to kill each other. The Iraqis have been doing this on a daily basis for a while, mostly by using means that are unrecognized by the UN rules of civilized slaying. We might, therefore, assume plausibly that the Iraqi "Civil War" has already begun.

I think the nail has been hit on its head.

Since, despite their good efforts and intentions our politicians can't help us understand the Iraqi soul, perhaps we ought to listen to the Iraqi soil. The blood-soaked soil of Baghdad and Basra, Karbala and Samarra, Qum and Najaf would tell us, if we cared to listen, that sectarian violence and civil war did not start yesterday in Iraq, nor are they likely to end there tomorrow.

The sanguinary soil of Iraq would tell us how, some 1326 years ago in Karbala, around 680 AD, the Muslims became Sunnis and Shiites who, driven by their love for justice and peace, never stopped killing each other even when faced with external, mutual enemies. Indeed, the Iraqi soil has stories similar to the stories of the soil in Europe, where Christians became Catholics and Protestants who deliveredtheir message of merciful love for all people through the tips of their swords. Like the Christians who could never "forgive the murderers of God," the Shiites could never forgive the Muslims who murdered the "legitimate" successor of the only "perfect" Believer. And the desirous killing goes on, again camouflaged as ideology and hiding in words.

Gee, one would think that our government would pay attention to the history, culture and sociology of a region where we are getting involved. After all, we pay a ton of analysts and experts to provide such background and analyses. But lest we forget, Mr. Bush doesn't read, doesn't listen, and will not change his mind even in the face of contradictory evidence and/or testimony. That too is a matter of history, culture and sociology... of the Bush administration.

As this war continues to wage in Iraq, as Iraqis kill Iraqis and Iraqis kill Americans and Americans kill Iraqis, our most exalted politicians continue to see things differently. They continue to tell us that things in Iraq are not as bad as depicted by the media, by "certain media especially." Certain politicians continue to insist that the Iraqis are advancing in their acceptance of our advances of bringing "democracy" to them.

Simple bullies are recognizable by their tendency to minimize pain that they give, and to maximize simultaneously pain they receive. Complex bullies turn shrewdly the pain that they give into pain they receive, and then blame their victims for the demise they cause them.

The Bush administration is quite adept at blaming the victim (c.f. William Ryan, "Blaming The Victim), bullying those that voice opposing or contrasting views, punishing those that openly disagree, and turning things around to blame anyone or anything other than their own folly. But the idea of blaming the media for such things is a Republican tradition that we can see in the Nixon, Reagan and Bush (Sr.) administrations. Nixon blamed Watergate on the media and attacked PBS news reports for being "one-sided" because they focused on his foibles. Reagan pushed the media around as if they were his own indentured servants. Both Reagan and George H.W. Bush blamed the media for twisting the issues and events involved in the Iran-Contr Affair.

Politicians who send soldiers to kill and to die in a perpetual civil slaughter about which we know only when it started, and blame the media for exaggerating the outcomes, ought to memorize carefully the distinction between simple and complex bullying.

Bullying, as applied here, is an interesting way of understanding the actions of this administration. Since Mr. Soferr works for a sheriff's office and works against various forms of violence, I would say he knows a thing or two about how bullying occurs... and exactly what it looks like when it occurs.

Shimon Soferr lives in Beverly and works for the Suffolk County Sheriff's Department., running the Freedom From Violence Program. E-mail him at ssoferr@hotmail.com.

In a similar vein, the NY Times offers the following views:

The Joy of Being Blameless

The contrast could not have been more stark, nor the message more clear. On the day that a court-martial imposed justice on a 24-year-old Army sergeant for tormenting detainees at Abu Ghraib with his dog, President Bush said once again that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, whose benighted policies and managerial incompetence led to the prisoner abuse scandal, was doing a "fine job" and should stay at his post.

I still contend that some of the folks in the highest echelon of decision-makers need to be held equally accountable for the actions in Abu Ghraib, prisons in Afghanistan and Gitmo. But as the title of this article sates, there are many in the higher echelon that experience the joy of being blameless.

We've seen this sorry pattern for nearly two years now, since the Abu Ghraib horrors first shocked the world: President Bush has clung to the fiction that the abuse of prisoners was just the work of a few rotten apples, despite report after report after report demonstrating that it was organized and systematic, and flowed from policies written by top officials in his administration.

Having served in the military--two separate branches--I know that when an order is given it is obeyed. There are not many times when an individual soldier, sailor, airman or marine acts in a manner inconsistent with the standing orders and authority of superiors. There are memos and other documents coming straight from the White House and Secretary Rumsfeld's office that clearly point to a culture of support for torture, mistreatment and coercive interrogation, as well as denial of basic liberties and human decency.

Just this week, Eric Schmitt and Carolyn Marshall provided a bloodcurdling account in the Times of how a Special Operations unit converted an Iraqi military base into a torture chamber, even using prisoners as paintball targets, in its frenzy to counter a widely predicted insurgency for which Mr. Rumsfeld had refused to prepare. In early 2004, an 18-year-old man suspected of selling cars to members of a terrorist network was arrested and beaten repeatedly. Another man said he had been forced to strip, punched in the spine until he fainted, put in front of an air-conditioner while cold water was poured on him and kicked in the stomach until he vomited. His crime? His father had worked for Saddam Hussein.

The account offered by Schmitt and Marsahll details abuse that could not have occurred without the approval of the "higher ups."

As the Iraqi insurgency intensified in early 2004, an elite Special Operations forces unit converted one of Saddam Hussein's former military bases near Baghdad into a top-secret detention center. There, American soldiers made one of the former Iraqi government's torture chambers into their own interrogation cell. They named it the Black Room.

In the windowless, jet-black garage-size room, some soldiers beat prisoners with rifle butts, yelled and spit in their faces and, in a nearby area, used detainees for target practice in a game of jailer paintball. Their intention was to extract information to help hunt down Iraq's most-wanted terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, according to Defense Department personnel who served with the unit or were briefed on its operations.

The Black Room was part of a temporary detention site at Camp Nama, the secret headquarters of a shadowy military unit known as Task Force 6-26. Located at Baghdad International Airport, the camp was the first stop for many insurgents on their way to the Abu Ghraib prison a few miles away.

Placards posted by soldiers at the detention area advised, "NO BLOOD, NO FOUL." The slogan, as one Defense Department official explained, reflected an adage adopted by Task Force 6-26: "If you don't make them bleed, they can't prosecute for it." According to Pentagon specialists who worked with the unit, prisoners at Camp Nama often disappeared into a detention black hole, barred from access to lawyers or relatives, and confined for weeks without charges. "The reality is, there were no rules there," another Pentagon official said.

These accounts are tragically familiar. The names and dates change, but the basic pattern is the same, including the fact that this bestiality produced little or no useful intelligence. The Bush administration decided to go outside the law to deal with prisoners, and soldiers carried out that policy. Those who committed these atrocities deserve the punishment they are getting, but virtually all high-ranking soldiers have escaped unscathed. And not a single policy maker has been called to account.

Therein is the rub... NONE OF THESE ABUSIVE APPROACHES LEADS TO RELIABLE INTELLIGENCE! The only accomplishment is giving our nation a black eye in the view of the international community, especially those that have claimed we are just as cruel and unjust as those we have sought to topple.

Col. Thomas Pappas, the former intelligence chief at Abu Ghraib, testified at the dog handler's trial that the use of dogs had grown out of conversations he had had with military jailers from Guantánamo Bay led by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who had been sent to Iraq to instruct soldiers there in the interrogation techniques refined at Gitmo under Mr. Rumsfeld's torture-is-legal policy. Colonel Pappas said General Miller had explained how to use the "Arab fear of dogs" to set up interrogations.

Our higher echelon knows how to take advantage of a situation to really stink it up.

What of General Miller? He invoked his right against self-incrimination to avoid testifying, and Time magazine reported this week that he was exonerated by an Army whitewash. Apparently he was not responsible for the actions of soldiers operating under rules he put in place.

Why not invoke the 5th Amendment... There is no dishonor in doing so... However, there is inherent dishonor in allowing subordinate members of the military to take the heat and suffer consequences for orders--direct, indirect, implied or explicit--given from on high.

About the only high-ranking officer whose career has suffered over Abu Ghraib is Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, who was the commander in Iraq at the time. General Sanchez should certainly take responsibility, but he was also a victim of administration blunders.

General Sanchez was vaulted inappropriately from head of the First Armored Division to overall commander because Mr. Bush declared "mission accomplished": the war's over. He was then denied the staff, soldiers and equipment he needed to deal with the insurgency that quickly broke out and produced thousands of prisoners.

Is General Sanchez another sacrificial lamb? We have had several enlisted persons sacrificed by the Bush gang and its military leadership. We have had a female general lose her career as a result of being sacrificed to preserve the status quo. And we have Sanchez, another minor sacrifice. But where are the civilians that are supposed to uphold the principles of the Constitution? Hiding safe from any and all prosecution... just like the favored generals that followed their orders.

Mr. Bush has refused to hold himself or any of his top political appointees accountable for those catastrophic errors. Indeed, he has promoted many of them. And this is not an isolated problem. It's just one example, among many, of how this president's men run no risk of being blamed for anything that happens, no matter how egregious.

I love living in a world where screw-ups are promoted and good soldiers are prosecuted. Nothing in the military has really eve changed. We always have our sacrificial lambs along the chain of command that can push the heat away from the real perpetrators. But I ask you, which Sargean, Private First Class, Lance Corporal, Gunny or Petty Officer is really going to refuse to do what an officer instructs them to do? Even if the enlisted personnel are taught about "lawful" versus "unlawful" orders, a direct order from an officer requires an enlisted person to follow the order and submit an after-action protest or report. Far too often, the complaints of an enlisted person is swept aside... and junior officers dare not sacrifice their careers by refusing a direct order from a superior... especially a general or the Secretary of Defense.

But it is a joy to be blameless and bully everyone else around.