Iraq pays high price for American glory
Date: May 2 2004
After seeing the disturbing pictures of abused Iraqis, Margo Kingston believes the coalition has failed.
G'day. Time magazine has interviewed Jumpei Yasuda, one of the Japanese hostages set free by Iraqi kidnappers. "The man who pointed his gun at me told me he was walking on the sidewalk and was arrested by the GIs when he wouldn't answer their questions," Yasuda said. "He said he was imprisoned for almost a month and regularly beaten up. One day, he said, he was taken to a private room and sexually assaulted. He asked me what I would have done if I were him, and I had no answer."
I didn't believe the man's story. Now I do. I've also reversed my opposition to Mark Latham's promise to bring our soldiers home by Christmas. The photos released by 60 Minutes in the US changed my mind (see http://www.smh.com.au/photogallery/2004 /04/30/1083224558215.html).
The photos record tableaux in a US prison in Iraq. In one, a man cloaked in black, his face covered, stands on a small box, electric wires attached to his genitals, after being told that if he falls off, he will be electrocuted. In another, several naked men, garbage bags over their heads, are arranged in a human pyramid. One American soldier stands behind them, arms folded, smiling to camera. A female soldier squats behind them, also smiling.
The photos are deeply disturbing, not just for their sadism, but because they are precisely posed. They are "artistic", not torture in action, but torture frozen to capture the moment for the camera.
The decadent American empire now sees itself as the star of its own movie. Remember when it rushed a few troops into Baghdad to show it could win quickly, meaning no one was there to stop the inevitable anarchy when Saddam's regime collapsed? Remember when President George Bush dressed up as a soldier to pronounce "mission accomplished" in May last year? Every non-American is a stage prop for the greater glory of America.
We're told that those directly involved in recreating the Caligula movie in Baghdad will be court-martialled. Yet if you read the very few stories on the matter in the US media, it's clear that the smiling faces are scapegoats for a US defence force which has lost its way. There was no training for the soldiers on holding prisoners. They were not even given the Geneva Convention on the treatment of prisoners, and were told to get on with it when they queried prisoner abuse.
When I wrote about my change of heart on Latham, a couple of readers accused me of being silly. "Surely you must have considered the possibility that, if psychopaths constitute between 1 and 5 per cent of the male population worldwide, then there must logically be a similar percentage of psychopaths in the volunteer US military," wrote Mike Lyvers.
Matthew Cleary wrote: "That you now think the troops should leave is akin to thinking jails should be abolished because there are instances of prisoner abuse by guards."
But the photos are the defining visualisation of what's been becoming clear since Saddam's statue fell last year. The Americans were unprepared for the task of securing the peace, with defence chiefs failing even to train soldiers on the cultural norms of the Iraqis so they would not needlessly humiliate or insult them. Even worse, the ugly side of being American, the side incapable of empathy with any other culture, has eaten alive any chance of nurturing democracy in Iraq.
Recently, a British officer said the US troops saw the Iraqis as "untermenschen", a term Hitler used to describe Jews, gypsies and other "racially inferior" groups: "My view and the view of the British chain of command is that the Americans' use of violence is not proportionate and is over-responsive to the threat they are facing. They are not concerned about the Iraqi loss of life in the way the British are. Their attitude towards the Iraqis is tragic, it's awful."
As one of three nations which invaded Iraq, Australia is responsible for what is happening there. What those pictures show is that the war is lost. The longer we stay, the worse it will get, for the world and for the long-suffering Iraqis.
As for the importance of the US alliance, the US under its present government is a force for evil and perpetual war. Until America elects a leader and an administration which listens to solid, thoughtful advice, we are endangering our security by supporting it.
All the reasons they told us to go to war have fallen apart, except the one about giving the Iraqi people freedom and dignity. Now this one is in ruins.
What is the job we must do now, Mr Howard? Bring our soldiers home. The longer we stay, the more complicit we are in the war crimes of an empire in crisis.
Margo Kingston is the political editor of The Sydney Morning Herald online. Her Web Diary is at smh.com.au/webdiary.