Yes, I know, Bush has just released a mountain of documents to demonstrate that his administration didn't authorize the use of torture and abuse during interrogations. But that mountain comes out of an entire range, the rest of which has NOT been made public.
I'm sure a lot of Bush detractors are hoping that someone can comb through this confusing morass of records and find a "smoking gun" that will lay the blame at a high level in Bush's administration. But we don't need one because we already have one. And other evidence keeps surfacing that administration agents were attempting to define existing laws narrowly and to skirt as close to that altered edge as they could.
Now I ask you, if they were doing that, who told them to? And even if someone else did it without King George the second's knowledge, we must admit that a president sets the tone, goals, and restrictions of his administration. (If he wants to deny that he will have admitted that he was never qualified for the office in the first place.)
Let's look at some of the indirectly related events that have a bearing on this issue. A recent report indicates that a group of military Judge Advocates General (JAGs) have raised a complaint about the tone of the pronouncements coming from civilian lawyers working in and with the administration. So while George has tried to present himself as the friend of the military, even the military is uncomfortable with some of his actions.
Just the day I write this the United States withdrew a resolution at the United Nations to extend the immunity of U. S. troops acting as peacekeepers from prosecution under international war crime law. This wasn't something the administration did willingly, however. It was the result of powerful dissent by other members of the U. N.
We're going to see how this issue reveals many of the habits and practices of the current administration. But first let's go back to the REAL cause of the prisoner abuse. We'll do that by first debunking some of the lines being played by all sides in the debate over this humiliating episode in U. S. history.
George has said the acts that were uncovered at Abu Gharib prison are not typical of American society; that they violate the country's values. And it might be true that a majority of people in the United States finds what the soldiers did disgusting and vile. But the fundamental violence of our society does much to counteract this majority -- often with the consent and support of that same majority. Some examples:
So while we may be truly disgusted by the photos that returned from Iraq, and by the International Red Cross reports that the government tried to ignore, we continue to foster the culture that led these soldiers to enjoy torturing these marginally guilty Iraqis (you can't see the pictures and not come away with the impression that the soldiers pictured were really enjoying what they were doing).
Mr. Bush's detractors tend to suggest that a failure in the military chain of command allowed these practices to take place. Commanders in charge of the prison have been hung out to dry. This may be appropriate, since it is the duty of commanders to know what those under them are doing. And while generals cannot meet all the individuals under their command, it is their responsibility to promote people they trust to positions where they can report on the actions of a portion of those individuals in a way that all individuals report, through others, to the commander.
But there is mounting evidence that those in charge were carrying out what they believed the White House was expecting of them. Those beliefs may have been wrong, but there are reasons why they might have appeared to be right.
To see the real source of the problem we have to go back to the early days of the Bush administration. This event got only a little news coverage because at the time there was a lot of uproar over other ways King George was ripping down years of progressive work. And some of us knew that George, just like Ron before him, was going to run up a massive deficit and add to rather than subtract from the incredibly huge national debt.
We remember all the hulabaloo generated when Bush opted to withdraw from the Kyoto accords. That had to have been a gift to the powerful industrial interests that worked so hard and pulled so many strings to get him elected -- by hook or, more likely, by crook. But there was another international agreement George summarily pulled us out of. You just might remember it when I reveal it.
Philandering Bill had arranged for the U. S. to be part of an international war crimes tribunal. Of course such a membership meant that our own soldiers must be subject to the same scrutiny and consequences as everyone else's troops. George claimed that such an agreement violated our sovereignty (anyone remember the arguments of the Iraqi government during the '90s?) and he withdrew from that agreement too.
Now he may not have intended this, but it sent a message to our troops. "Go ahead and act up a bit, because you won't be held accountable to the international community." And from this we must draw one of two conclusions. Bush may have not realized what message his action sent. But that means he's a low I. Q. idiot who has no business in the White House. If he did mean it, then he's a dangerous megalomaniac that has no business in the White House.
Now we all know that our government lost some credibility during the Clinton administration. Clinton, wary of the perils of military action, was reluctant to put teeth into our restrictions on Saddam Hussein's behavior. He eventually managed to drive the weapons inspectors out. Clinton pulled stakes and ran (at the request of Republicans, I might add) when our soldiers were killed and subsequently humiliated in Somalia. And his scandalous behavior in the White House made a mockery of U. S. leadership.
All these together probably helped convince the American electorate that a religious man who was "strong" on defense was just the remedy we needed. But the elected man's tendency to bully his way through everything has done far more harm to our credibility in the world than Clinton would have had he hosted a different young female intern every night.
We knew during Clinton's two terms that the Islamic world hated us. I think a lot of us, maybe even myself included, believed this was because we, as a nation, supported Israel. But there was more to that hate, and every thing Bush has said, and everything he has done has only confirmed in their minds that they were right about us. I fear that generations will pass before we restore what Bush has undone. And if we keep electing right-wing idiots it may never happen and we will never be safe and secure.
A brief word about the sovereignty argument. Do we not believe in reciprocity? Do we not understand, as Christians, what it means to do unto others as we wish they would do to us? George told us that such a tribunal would allow other nations to harras our military personnel for political purposes. Isn't that the point? A country so arrogant as to think it has the right to do as it pleases deserves to get its blood-stained hands chopped off!
That Bush could say, against the clear evidence presented, that the actions didn't match American values, demonstrates this administration's approach to everything, including governing the electorate.
We have a strong sense that George will never admit his role in encouraging prisoner abuse. I've never heard anyone else even suggest it. But we need to say so, and we need to say so loudly and clearly, or this 230-year-old republic will have begun its slide to an eventual fall.
A quick thought about the weapons of mass destruction issue.
Just because nobody has found the WMD doesn't mean they didn't exist. But that doesn't let George off the hook for lying to us to get us to support his personal vengeance war. He told us the reason we had to take out Saddam was to prevent terrorists from getting his WMD. One way or the other that's a lie. Either Saddam didn't have them, or the terrorists now have them.
I haven't heard evidence enough to convince me that Saddam would have let someone else use his WMD. He was keeping them in Iraq for use in maintaining his power. And how does that make him so bad? The United States keeps a massive arsenal that includes WMD for use in maintaining our power.
I see this legitimacy in the message of Mel Gibson's successful film. What is happening to Christ in that film represents the human race's inability to treat itself humanely. Jesus once said (I paraphrase), "Just as you have done it to one of the least of these brothers of mine, you have done it to me." The film, then, is a metaphor of what we are doing to Christ in the persons of Afghans, Iraqis, and Palestinians. In that sense the violence of the film doesn't begin to portray the violence being done.
A favorite author of mine once wrote, "The cross is but a dim revelation to our dull senses of that pain which, from its very inception, sin has brought to the heart of God." Mr. Bush will probably never admit that what he's doing is sin -- but that won't change the fact that it is and that he will have to answer in the judgment for every death and injury both to our enemies and to our own soldiers. Bush has invented a religion which makes allowance for his fundamentally evil tendencies. In that he is joined by a large number of Christians, Muslims, and others nationwide. Instead of trying to stop everyone else from "sinning," maybe the religious community needs to spend a lot of time inspecting its own behavior.