Some thoughts on "apples"

(sorry guys, I tried to fix the weird spacing and ended up deleting y'all's comments! I fail.)

In discussing the events at the Abu Ghraib prison, we've been dealing with the question of whether this was an isolated incident, propogated by a handful of errant, sick, cruel MPs (the "bad apples"), or if this was one incident in a string of many incidents that share the same basic fact pattern and environmental/cultural conditions (the "bad barrel"). Most of us have handled this division in our blogs, and I had a few thoughts on some of the related issues.

The Administration has said from the very beginning that the disgrace that was the AGP events esd the result of a few "bad apples" misbehaving and taking serious liberties with their positions. It was represented to the American people that these kind of things were not policy, were one-off abuses by a bunch of yahoos and that those involved would be severely punished, as well as the commanders who were responsible for their subordinates and should have maintained tighter discipline. Case closed.

At first, it would seem that the public believed this reasoning, for a number of reasons. We're taught to believe our leaders, to trust their judgement and wisedom. We're also more inclinded to believe what we're told by the people who are in charge, especially when it doesn't involve us directly. (Think the Stanley Milgram experiement on obdience to authority.)

I would argue also that we lay people, who are not military people or have no special expertise, really want to believe that the AGP events really are one-off abuses, that the whole system is not structured to encourage/condone/produce such monstrosities. We're Americans, after all, and we don't abuse, torture, humiliate, degrade or chew with our mouths open. This is what makes us better than those 'A-rab and Al-Qaeda heathens, an' don't you forgit it!'

However, the evidence suggests otherwise:

· *We have a number of public documents that indicate that harsh treatment (oddly similiar to practices the US has condemmed as torture when used by other nations) has been authorized for use "when appropriate."
· *We have a military fighting an insurgency, which historically does not bring out the solider's most kindly responses.
· *We have an atmosphere of 'do what needs to be done, at any cost."
· *We have a group of soldiers who are not trained for the job they've been told to do.
· *We have a group of soldiers who are quite young and inexperienced.
· *We have weak oversight from the General in charge of the area
· *We have a higher General with a reputation for setting up facilities that "get results" coming into the theatre and making sweeping administrative changes, namely putting Military Intelligence in effective (though not formal) control of AGP.
· *We have the influence of agents from "OGAs" ("Other Government Agencies") who don't seem to be bound to any sort of pesky rules and regulations on what they may or may not do to detainees.
· *We have a continued campaign from the highest levels that has branded all Iraqis who are suspected of misdeeds, often on little more than rumours or denounciations, as dangerous "terrorists" who are so wicked and evil that they're not really people.
· *We have a group of "bad apples" who, despite being vilified in the open, most of whom get relatively light punishments for minor offences. Only the supposed ring leader of the group gets a harsh punishment for a serious offence, and even that seems odd somehow.

Doesn't this sound much more like a "bad barrel," into which these otherwise good soliders were thrown? Who created these conditons for the perfect storm? Perhaps only Graner, the former prison guard, was really a bad apple, in that he enjoyed behaving cruelly towards his charges. But the others? How did they go along with something so disgraceful and un-American? Why did they participate, if only to laugh and point and take photos? Why did they not step up and say something?

(And when someone did speak out, the guy who reported the shameful photos, he was 'outed' by Rumsfeld as an example of valour... and was later afraid to leave his parents' house in Frederick, MD, for the death threats against him... why was he treated this way?)

These are not new questions. (Dr Nolan's course, "Ethics and National Security," addresses a lot of these questions about why people act/don't act for the public/moral good in an organziational context. I highly recommend it.)

[Hannah Arendt's book "Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil" looks at Adolf Eichmann's 1963 trial in Israel for crimes against humanity and the Jewish people for his role as the "organizer" of the Nazi death-machinery. She argues that people always have the ability to make a moral choice, even in totalitarian systems. (We read this in Dr. Nolan's class and it was one of the best books I've read in graduate school.)]

RoW as a Western conception?

While reading ch 1 in Johnson last night, about the philosophical origins of the Rules of War, I had flashbacks to my undergrad class on international human rights. Both concepts, HR and RoW, have their philosophical underpinnings in Judeo-Christian morality and ethics, as advanced over the centuries by Christian thinkers such as St. Augustine (of Hippo) and Thomas Aquinas, and Reformation-era thinkers such as Grotius. These concepts later developed into "natural rights," based on God's divinity and creation of people; 'natural rights' are something that are vaguely familiar to us in the form of 'proto-rights.' Johnson talks a bit about this progression in terms of RoW through the centuries to the modern era. Rightly so, as our focus is not on the past but on the present and future.

Having said all of this, there remains the fact that HR and RoW derive from a Judeo-Christian, and later Western, tradition. And unfashionable as it may be, is there not the same tension in the world of RoW as there is in the realm of HR about exactly how universal these principals are?

(This is the part where I remind my dear readers that I believe in the need for respect of RoW and HR, so don't leave me obnoxious posts calling me a fascist and such, cuz I'll delete them. I'm engaging in a thought-exercise-- nothing more, northing less. If your bleeding heart is offended, quit reading.)

In the various debates on the universality of HR, some countries have asserted that "western" HR standards don't apply to them, as they are non-Western cultures. While the motives of the questioning countries must be carefully considered (Burma, China, Iran anyone?), is it not possible that they just might have a point?

Different countries have different cultures and mores. Different things are considered appropriate in different places: in the US it is appropriate for females not to cover their hair when in public, while in religious neighbourhoods in Israel, it is inappropriate for females not to cover their hair in public. Of course, there is a major distinction: what is socially appropriate and what is legally required. If a lady does not cover her hair in a religious neighbourhood in Israel (say she's a visitor), she may be asked politely to cover herself, or perhaps jeered at by the inhabitants. But it's *highly* unlikely she would be subject to arrest (or worse) by the police. Not so in a place like Saudi Arabia, where she could be fined and whipped publically, or in Taliban-ruled Afghanistan, where she could be fined, whipped, gang raped or executed for such a "crime." (Or in certain areas of Iraq under the control of religious extremists, where women are routinely murdered for visiting the hairdresser and wearing make-up) (I also have plenty to say about the barbarity that is Shari'a, but that will have to wait for another time)

In a similar vein, countries that have cultures that are more group-focused than individual-focused have different conceptions on what is appropriate treatment for individuals. Some countries with Confusian cultures have made this argument (Burma, China). Assuming that these states are not merely covering up or explaining away their own poor behaviour towards their citizens (a tall order indeed), isn't this a legitimate claim? We Westerners do things our way, they Chinese do things their way. In their culture, what we call "the rights of the individual" are not as strongly emphasised as in ours. So, in their context, it's not improper to treat citizens in a manner that appears more brutesque than in our culture. Why can't HR be relative? And further, what right do we Westerners have to impose our philiosophy on the non-Westerners?

I have to say that these arguments do have a certain ring about them. However, I'm less inclinded to believe them since they appear as a way of brushing off international criticism over how certain governments treat their citizens. I'm not sure that all HR are relative; some might be, especially economic-social ones. But I, personally, believe that all people have a set of fundamental rights, such that they are able to live in peace and with physical security, and not fear mistreatment at the hands of their government (from both what gov'ts do and don't do).

Taking this same concept and applying it to RoW, is it not possible that different societies have vastly different views on appropriate conduct in wartime? Are some of the things that we Westerners find so appalling and repulsive merely a part of another culture's pattern of warfare? Are there certain things that are now banned by the RoW regime a result of modernization of Western warfare, but still are practiced by less advanced militaries (for example pilage for the purpose of supply)? And again, who gave Westerners the perrogative to establish what is appropriate and not?

Hopefully I'll have some ideas on how to answer these questions by the end of the term.