The Priest of Abu Ghraib
smithsonianmag.com
smithsonianmag.com
His decision to join the war as an interrogator, believing his presence and oversight would ensure the humane treatment of prisoners is admirable. I often wonder what is the right thing to do: non-participation, or conscientious participation to ensure abuses are minimized.
I'm surprised you see this. I see it differently. Excuse my language, but I see a horse-shit sandwich. Have you read any Noam Chomsky? This is a great example of 'Manufacturing Consent' - through these feel good propaganda manufactured stories. Yes, I do think he believed his struggle was holy and justified. Yes, I am aware that this sounds harsh.
For an honest confrontation with our very real Global North shadow watch this: https://vimeo.com/242569435
And I often hear people talk about how they would punch nazis. Yet when being in the reality of present day prevailing groupthink which justifies such abuses, expecting people to "conscientiously take part" is already getting hopeful.
Our collective unconscious, our collective shadow: https://vimeo.com/242569435
The full idea is something like this: There are no "purely good" people, the best we can see is part-good-part-evil, and thus improving the world requires an internal battle, but... people can actually become "purely evil", and the usual path is through ideology, when you simply decide that anything you do serves a goal that justifies the means, and then you feel free to become a cartoonish villain as long as you follow the ideology.
If it is not, then yes it's better to have good people do this job than bad ones, as with any job.
I mean, clearly his individual crimes aren't as bad as say those of soldiers raping a 14-year old. But he does willingly and knowingly take part in, and help perform, the the larger crime that is the poorly justified invasion and occupation of Iraq.
There is not such thing as "good" people raping, torturing, humiliating, terrorizing and doing evil things to other helpless and disarmed people.
There's no indication that he directly participated in any of that, and quite a bit to indicate he didn't. After all, he was heading towards pacifism before he was deployed, and became so disillusions that he was honorably discharged as a conscientious objector. I wouldn't be surprised if the people doing those evil things were careful to hide those activities from him. He seems like the kind of person who'd have caused problems for them, and they probably understood that.
In a war of aggression it very much is.
Or for that matter the idea that a "good" person will do less harm in a "bad" situation than someone that's outright malicious.
I don't think I would have courage to report in such situation. Socialization that makes it all normal and very real consequences whistleblowers get would stop me.
The issue is not dude. That issue is article writer trying to frame that work as something gentle glossing over the actual reality of the situation.
100%. https://vimeo.com/242569435 shows this.
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
It sucks to lose someone with such integrity, values and good character. I feel like I have known him personally. May he rest in peace.
Sorry? Who with 'integrity, values and good character' joins an interrogation squad?
Holy Christian soldiers who have the support/aligned-groupthink of their entire nation? Morals are relative - to an American growing up in the cess-pit of ethics that is modern USA, its immoral to not support the troops, and if its Gods Will™ that we defeat Evil Satan by dropping depleted uranium on innocent children then so be it, because God, like America, is Great™.
I mean, Who with 'integrity, values and good character' ignores the daily innocent life lost at the hands of America's out of control military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex? Americans do, that's who.
I think it is very hard to judge the motivations of people from the outside. The whole point of the article was to illustrate how torn you can be between your convictions, what you want to do, and what you actually do.
Most of us are very lucky insofar as we do not have to face such tough choices.
> Most of us are very lucky insofar as we do not have to face such tough choices.
That's why we talk about the ones who did. Since conscription in the US ended quite a while ago all of this is free choice.
One more thing, though: I am not sure it is always that much of a free choice (even given the fact that no conscription exists). There might be economic reasons for joining the military, for example. However, since I am not a U.S. citizen, I am not sure how much of an issue this actually is.
Best question on this thread.
Some food for thought: