Sadism at Abu Ghraib

Admittedly both President Bush and Prime Minister Blair have not only strongly condemned the alleged "the sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses" by soldiers and their civilian cohorts but have vowed punishment to the guilty. Both have been at pains to convince a stunned world community that the criminally delinquent behaviour of the few do not reflect the "the finest traditions" of the Anglo-US armies. But given the fact that the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Richard Myers (The New York Times May 3rd) asked CBS to delay broadcast of the photographs and the conflicting answers he gave to Sunday talk shows appear to indicate that the incidents at Abu Ghraib prison, infamous since Saddam days, were systemic in detention centres throughout Iraq. Seymour Hersh in his exhaustive piece in the New Yorker mentioned some of the incidents of abuse detailed in the fifty three pages corrosive internal report prepared by Major General Antonio Teguba completed in late February. Teguba study containing stunning evidence supporting the allegations was sharply critical of the rogue elements and found a virtual collapse of command structure at Abu Ghraib prison.

General Teguba found it particularly disturbing that Reserve Brigadier General Janis Karpinski in charge of military prisons in Iraq was unwilling to either understand or accept that many of the problems inherent in the troops under her command "were caused or exacerbated by poor leadership and the refusal of her command to both establish and enforce basic standards and principles among its soldiers". Samuel Hersh found in the Teguba report a tale of unsparing study of collective wrong doing and the failure of the Army leadership at the highest level. At Abu Ghraib both the US army regulations and Geneva Conventions were routinely violated. Additionally Human Rights Watch's complaint to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld that Iraqi civilians remained in custody for months with out charges being brought against them remained unresponded. Unfettered and uncircumscribed villainy encouraged through lack of supervision or acquiescence of the higher ups turned Abu Ghraib effectively into another Guantanamo where al-Qaida detainees are interred.

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Arabs, indeed the entire thinking world free from the contagion of bigotry, are inflamed at the sight of the savagery committed by those allied to the powers who threw international law to the wind and reduced the UN to an insignificant debating club in order to "liberate" the Iraqis from the clutches of Saddam Hussein. One wonders at the naiveté of the western powers, exuberant from their victory over the Talibans armed with eighteenth century guns and Second World War discarded tanks who were pulverised by high precision bombing and state of the art armaments never seen before in the history of mankind, equating western libertarian values with those of conservative Islam while planning the invasion of Iraq. Regardless of the fact that dehumanisation is unacceptable in any culture, the occupying powers should have known that homosexuality is against Islamic laws and forced nudity in front of others invites revulsion.

As it is escalating violence in Iraq is disquieting. An Arab analyst of Middle Eastern affairs feels that Iraq is disintegrating and the Iraqis are no better off today than they were under Saddam Hussein. Qatar Foreign Minister finds the current developments in Iraq as "alarming" and fears that Iraq is facing a civil war like what had happened in Afghanistan and Lebanon. Distinct possibility exists of Abu Ghraib incidents further inflaming Iraqi resistance on top of Falluja massacre of civilian population by the US army. To dismiss the murder of innocent men, women and children as collateral damages of war would be a travesty of justice. The Anglo-American authorities can not escape their responsibilities under Hague Convention (IV), Fourth Geneva Convention (1949) and Rules of Customary International Law as occupying powers. One of the basic rules of belligerent occupation is to enable the inhabitants of the occupied territories to pursue as "normal" a way of life as possible. The Fourth Geneva Convention specifically mentions that the right of respect for a person must be understood in its widest sense: it covers all the rights of an individual which are inseparable from a human being by the very fact of his existence, in particular the right to physical, moral and intellectual integrity an essential attribute of the human person. The laws on occupation will still apply if a new civilian authority is set up from among the nationals of the occupied territories to run the day to day affairs. Article 78 of the Fourth Geneva Convention will immediately apply to the detainees at Abu Ghraib prison, for example which was totally disregarded by the US authorities through their reprehensible acts.

There is no reason to believe that the Europeans and the Americans endowed with sparkling brilliance and with experiences of centuries of conflicts and having been principal architects of the construction of international laws have suddenly become ignorant of the very laws they helped to create. What is it then which impels a portion of the collective intellect of the west to consider itself as a society claiming, in the words of Vincent Tucker (The myth of development: a critique of Euro-centric discourse), "universal desirability while turning its back on others from which it is convinced it has nothing to learn" and thus promoting cultural elitism to cultural racism? Or can it be that the "imperial" mentality of Berlin Conference (1884-85) where in some nations were given the charge to "educate the natives and to each them to understand and appreciate the benefits of civilisation" or the of article 22 of the League of Nations Covenant giving the "advanced" nations the responsibility for these "people not yet able to stand by themselves the strenuous conditions of modern world" can still possibly exist in the western mind? Should one then subscribe to Ziauddin Sardar's views that "colonisation" later known as "westernisation" and now going under the rubric of "globalisation" transforming the world into a global village is actually to shape the world in the image of a single culture and civilisation? Despite the East-West divide caused by poverty and prosperity it is difficult to believe that Hitlerian concept of a superior Aryan race destined to rule the world is lying dormant in the cerebrum of the western world given the facts that Samuel Huntington is now obsessed with the Spanish speaking people overwhelming the English speaking people in the US mainland and that the growth of Muslim population in Europe and the US has made Islam the second largest religion in Germany and France and the third largest in Britain and the United States.

Both Colin Powell and Donald Rumsfeld are falling backwards to convince an angry world that the viscerally criminal acts of a few renegades should not be allowed to put blight on the benevolent acts in Iraq by the occupation forces who with Jesuit like discipline is trying to bring democracy to a country whose modern history is replete with murder of a king, a president and filled with killing fields during Saddam regime. One can not but agree with Donald Rumsfeld that it is indeed a most difficult task. Yet Bush administration's ex-post facto damage control measures to salvage American reputation among the Arabs after Abu Ghraib incidents appears to be too little too late. The Arabs who by and large did not have great affection for Saddam Hussein never accepted Anglo-US invasion of Iraq without UNSC approval. Then there is the pervasive belief among the Arabs and the Muslims that the US can never play the role of an honest broker in the Arab-Israeli conflict, a belief further cemented by the recent Bush endorsement of Sharon plan drawn up unilaterally and rejected by Ariel Sharon's own Likud Party involving unilateral withdrawal from some parts of Gaza and denying right of return to the Palestinian refugees. Interestingly more than fifty US diplomats have harshly criticised President Bush for his "unabashed support of Sharon's extra-judicial killings, Israel's Berlin-Wall-like-barrier, its harsh military measures in occupied territories and now your endorsement of Sharon's unilateral plans are costing our country its credibility, prestige and friends". Earlier more than fifty British ambassadors sent a similar letter of censure to Prime Minister Blair criticising his blind support of Bush Middle East policy.

Earlier this month Amnesty International had warned that Abu Ghraib incidents were only tip of the ice berg and that AI has uncovered wide spread torture by the US forces. It has now been revealed that two Iraqi prisoners were murdered by the Americans and twenty three more deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan are now being investigated. These revelations incensed lawmakers from both parties on the Capitol Hill. Senate Majority leader Bill Frist found the abuses "so disgusting, so degrading that I think humanity has been hurt badly" and he felt the incidents could undercut US efforts to bring democracy in Iraq.

Abu Ghraib could not have come at a worse time for President Bush. If this proves to be a systemic failure involving higher echelons then Democratic Presidential nominee to-be Senator John Kerry could portray President Bush as an inept commander-in-chief who should relinquish his command. Its effects on efforts to stabilise and eradicate violence in Iraq will be devastating. The Greater Middle East Initiative could face a premature death. Finally terrorism could get a boost. In an op-ed The New York Times (May 3, 2004) commented: "Terrorists like Osama bin Laden have always intended to use their violence to prod the United States and its allies into demonstrating that their worst anti-American propaganda was true .Abu Ghraib was an enormous victory for them, and it is unlikely that any response by the Bush administration will wipe its stains from the minds of the Arabs. The invasion of Iraq which has already begun to seem like a bad dream in so many ways can not get much more nightmarish than this". One could not agree more with the opinion expressed in the op-ed but at the same time one can not but wonder whether deep down, albeit condemned now in harshest language by the western leaders, the Abu Ghraib incidents do not represent an overt expression of the civilisational conflict between Islam and Christianity.

The author is a former Secretary and ambassador.