Images From Abu Ghraib: Appropriate

¶ … Images from Abu Ghraib: Appropriate for a Museum

One day not too many years from now there will likely be a high-visibility exhibition / exposition - featuring illustrations, graphs, charts, photography, audio and video clips along with timely printed information - about the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq. This presentation will cover the intelligence data and political arguments that were offered by the executive branch in order to justify the military venture. Under the scrutiny of post-invasion empirical analysis the exposition will reflect precisely how those previous justifications held up. And it will cover the military and political ramifications of the entire operation.

It will be widely publicized and will receive positive critiques for its thoroughness and revelations of previously unknown yet pertinent facts. This exposition may travel from museum to museum - or may find a home in one high-visibility museum for a long period of time - but it will eventually become part of a permanent record of the Iraq war.

THESIS: Among the photographic images that will likely be part of this proposed presentation are graphic and disturbing images taken of prisoner abuse in the Abu Ghraib detention center in Baghdad. There may be museum board members or staff that will not want those horrifying photos to be shown. They will use numerous arguments to present their case. In conservative areas of the country editorial writers will condemn the use of the photos.

Others will say that the truth about the U.S. involvement at all levels must be presented, lest it be called "censorship." The opinion expressed in this essay is that there should be no censorship of photos of Abu Ghraib, or any other images that were published during this war. For example, there are grim photos of U.S. soldiers hanging from an overpass in Baghdad, men taken prisoner by insurgents, beheaded, and hung by their feet. Those too should be shown.

The photo used in connection with this essay is the photo that some museums may well decide not to let be shown to the public in that format.

But beyond that specific photo, records of the entire bloody reality of the military venture must be made available to the public, and individuals can decide whether they wish to experience the exposition or not. The truth about many aspects of the U.S. involvement with Iraq was hidden from Americans for several years. Following the horrors of September 11, 2001, the George W. Bush Administration used patriotism and what it called the "War on Terrorism" to justify keeping many clandestine activities secret from the American people. But now that many of those hidden facts have come out, and now that the U.S. Congress has attempted to take legislative action against the apparent use of torture and other acts that violate international treaties and accords, everything should be out on the table for citizens to view and judge for themselves.

POINT # 1: ETHICAL ISSUES: TORTURE & DISTURBING PHOTOS

In April, 2004, photos began to appear on the Internet of prisoner abuse situations in Iraq. One of those photos is presented as an attachment to this essay. The photos showed hideously cruel and inhumane treatment being administered to Iraqi prisoners. Some of the prisoners are being abused sexually. Others are naked and piled on top of one another, with U.S. military personnel giving the "thumbs up" sign nearby. In one photo, an attack dog is approaching a prisoner who is handcuffed. Blood is seen on prisoners and on the floor.

The photos set off a firestorm of protests in America, with members of Congress, U.S. Senators, and other leaders demanding to know how such a thing could have been allowed. These photos were shown on the CBS program "60 Minutes 2" in mid-April, 2004. And on April 30, 2004, Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist Seymour Hersh published an article in the New Yorker called "Torture at Abu Ghraib." In the article, Hersh reveals harsh truths about the prison Abu Ghraib. He gained access to a 53-page classified Army report, which was prepared by Major General Antonio M. Taguba, at the request of Lieutenant General Ricardo S. Sanchez, the senior commander in Iraq at that time.

Hersh quotes from the report's conclusions, revealing that between October and December of 2003, instances of "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses" (Hersh 2004) occurred. Soldiers (male and female) of the 372nd Military Police Company, along with members of the U.S. intelligence community, were involved in the wrongdoing. Some of the acts that were revealed in Taguba's report included:

Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and...actually biting a detainee..."

In one of the photographs shown by CBS on "60 Minutes 2" a female soldier known as Private England, cigarette hanging from her mouth, is pointing at a detainees genitals and giving the thumbs-up sign as he masturbates. "Such dehumanization is unacceptable in any culture, but it is especially so in the Arab world," Hersh writes. "Homosexual acts are against Islamic law and it is humiliating for men to be naked in front of other men," Hersh continues, quoting from Bernard Haykel, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at New York University. "Being put on top of each other and forced to masturbate... [is] a form of torture," Haykel explained.

The testimony of a Army C.I.D. investigator - part of a sworn statement that was included in Taguba's report - identified Specialist Sabrina Harman (MP) as a person whose job it was to "keep detainees awake." To carry out her orders, Harman is quoted as saying to the investigator, she placed a hooded prison on a box "with wires attached to his fingers, toes, and penis." What was also disturbing about Hersh's copyrighted article was that "most" of the "detainees" who were tortured and otherwise abused were "civilians...who had been picked up in random military sweeps" and not accused of specific crimes.

POINT #2: ILLEGAL TORTURE of PRISONERS - HOW DID it HAPPEN?

An article in the American Journal of International Law (AJIL) points out that the U.S. was a party to the 1949 Geneva Convention Relative to the Treatment of Prisoners of War. In that convention, which has provided guidelines for POWs for nearly 60 years, it specifically states that "...no physical or mental torture, nor any other form of coercion, may be inflicted on prisoners of war to secure from them information of any kind whatever." The U.S. is also a party to the Convention Against Torture (United Nations), which prohibits governments from engaging in acts of torture, and defines torture as an act by which "severe pain or suffering, whether physical or mental," in administered intentionally on a prisoner.

In addition, the U.S. Department of Army's Field Manual (34-52) on "intelligence interrogations" prohibits the "use of force, mental torture, threats, insults, or exposure to unpleasant and inhumane treatment..." But those accords, laws and regulations notwithstanding, it is clear the Bush Administration had its own ideas about what was legal and what was available as a tool in the "War on Terrorism." In the AJIL article, a confidential report was signed by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in April, 2003, which basically said that international rules regarding interrogations conducted at Guantanamo Bay (and by implication, elsewhere) did not apply to the U.S.

Indeed, the report stated that Bush "enjoys complete discretion in the exercise of his Commander-in-Chief authority including in conducting operations against hostile forces." And hence, Rumsfeld signed off on twenty-four interrogation techniques including "...significantly increasing the fear level in a detainee..." And in October, 2003, the article continued, orders were given to police guards at Abu Ghraib to "manipulate an internee's emotions and weaknesses."

POINT #3: LEGISLATION AGAINST TORTURE THWARTED by BUSH

When the U.S. Congress and the executive branch of government agreed that legislation was necessary to assure the American people, and the international community - which was universally critical of U.S. detainee tactics following the release of the torture photos - that the U.S. was not planning on continuing to torture prisoners. An article in the American Journal of International Law (Crook, 2006) reported the Bush position as contending that legislation would "constitutionally interfere with the president's authority as commander-in-chief."