Saturday, April 07, 2007
Iran's treatment of the hostages: A legacy of Abu Ghraib?
I've never been an apologist for torture or other coercion in the war on Islamic terrorism, although I admit that I have never been too worked up over it either. I have no real defense for this, other than to say that there are a million injustices in the world that crank me up and another million that don't -- I have only so much emotional energy.
That said, this bit from Andrew Sullivan (who is very cranked up on the question of torture) struck me as wildly off target. Sullivan quotes a reader email and then comments on it (the email is in italics):
I found myself thinking thank God they got away so easily and then I realized that I was comparing their treatment to Abu Graib - my frame of reference was the horrible treatment meted out by America - not some far away dictatorship! And this is supposed to be the land of the Miranda law - the irony has me stumped.
The one silver lining of this humiliation is that finally - finally! - some have begun to absorb what the Bush detention policy has led to...
Surely Sullivan isn't suggesting that the Iranians treated these British sailors shabbily -- indeed, illegally -- because of Abu Ghraib? In fact, they seem to have been treated much better than the American diplomats held for 444 days during 1978-1980 or the various hostages grabbed by Hezbollah and detained in Iran during the 1980s. The Iranians have known how to abuse prisoners for a very long time, and did so without the example of Abu Ghraib.
Perhaps Sullivan's point is a different one -- that the "Bush detention policy has led to" people sending him overwrought emails about Iran looking good by comparison to the United States. May I respectfully suggest that people who are inclined to write breathless emails about the perfidy of the United States will always have some hook on which to hang their outrage. Had there been email and blogging and such during the Cold War we would have seen this sort of thing all along the way. Every indignity, abuse or crime on the path to that great victory -- and there were many -- would have been the subject of some anti-American's supposed disillusionment.
No, I'm not defending Abu Ghraib on moral, legal or consequential grounds. It was a disaster on all three counts (I've even linked Andrew approvingly once or twice). However, every subsequent case of prisoner abuse and every romantic anti-American's reaction thereto is not necessarily evidence of the impact of the Bush administration's detention policies or practices. Indeed, it almost certainly isn't.
3 Comments:
By 
The Mechanical Eye, at
Sun Apr 08, 03:02:00 AM:
I'll give the Iranians this: they understand the power of the image far more than we do.
We have Karen Hughes or other nonsensical people bleating ineffectively to the Arab media, while the Gitmo and the legal procedural nightmare there continue on.
All while Iran gives us pictures of grinning "detainees" in suits mugging for the camera.
The reality is different, but the visual image is: Iran is morally better with its prisoners than the United States.
"Oh!," you're saying! "That's not fair! Why, DU, do you hate America so much?"
No.
I don't believe Iran has a right to lecture anyone on how it treats prisoners. But they're smart and savvy enough to understand the power of the image to sway. The images of Gitmo and Abu Graib don't exactly sell the notion of Truth, Justice, and the American way to the world -- the damage those images have done are incalcuable. We look like utter hypocrites, and Iran gets to present its well-coiffed prisoners in its deliberate mockery of our moral pretensions.
It is not anti-American to say we f***ed that up while Iran gets to play the good guy. And its hardly anti-American to point out what a ridiculously shabby job we've done for ourselves by smirking at concerns that we treat our prisoners better than how they'd treat us.
DU
By Purple Avenger, at
Sun Apr 08, 08:06:00 AM:
I'm pretty sure Abu Ghraib caused global warming too.
By Escort81, at
Sun Apr 08, 01:20:00 PM:
Anyone from the West who believes that Iran somehow has the moral high ground on any issue relating to human rights simply has to be better informed about what goes on inside Iran. Of course the U.S. has not perfect in its treatment of prisoners, with Abu Ghraib being the most obvious example.
Some have chosen to believe that AG was the logical outgrowth of a pervasive and systemic problem that flowed from the attitudes at the very top and the treatment of enemy combatants at Gitmo, and was only the tip of the iceberg.
There is not a great deal we can say to people who choose to believe that, other than pose the question to them of whether they know or have met many of their fellow U.S. citizens who are in a miltary uniform that they believe really get off on torture? Is it part of the culture or personality make-up of a lot of citizens to be sadistic? If there is pervasive torture still going on in the military (and I not read about any lately), shouldn't there be some parallel evidence in the civilian world that mirrors a torture-infested culture?
With respect to the most recent incident with Iran, let's assume that a Mexican coast guard patrol mistakenly motored off the coast of the U.S. section of Brazos Island in South Texas, say a mile off of the beach and just over the border. Would a U.S. Coast Guard cutter haul off the unfortunate Mexican crew and would George Bush then hold them in D.C. and broadcast video of the crew apologizing for their trespassing for two weeks? Or would the two coast guards swap a case of Bud for a case of Corona and be on their way? Hopefully the answers to that would help to clearly distinguish the Iranian approach from the American approach in such matters.
