Tortured

President Obama wants the country to focus on the future, but there are a lot of voices who want the Bush torturers investigated and prosecuted. Some of this is fixation on the past--clinging to habits of obsession with the Bushites and rightist GOPers deepened over 8 years, and in some cases become part of identities--but there are also legitimate concerns over the rule of law and the necessity of judgment in order to make recurrences harder in any future administration.

And repulsion and frustration is a natural and worthwhile tortured response to recent revelations of the official sanction and frequency of torture in the Bush years, especially since much of that torture seemed not to be even an attempt to get information but an attempt to create the information the Bushites wanted: a connection between 9/11 and Iraq.

The Obama administration is not closing the door to investigation. And there are good reasons for not making this a public priority. But there may be ways to invesitgate this without making it a public spectacle. There are in fact ongoing investigations now--the Senate Armed Services Committee already issued its report and the Intelligence Committee is working on theirs. When that one comes out, and considering what it is likely to find, it would then be appropriate for the President to appoint a three judge panel to investigate criminal behavior and report to the Justice Department.

A panel rather than a single special prosecutor would be less likely to turn this into a circus that would distract too much from the rational debates needed on health care and the Climate Crisis for legislation this year. Eventually a catharsis will be needed on torture, but the most important action in the short term has been taken: the United States is out of the torture business.

"Good Germans"

The earliest reference the Wikipedia has to the expression, "good Germans," is a New York Times report from 1945: "There's a saying among our troops, that there are no real Nazis in Germany, only 'good Germans.'" The phrase dripped with hypocrisy, and came to mean Germans who claimed not to have supported Hitler, but did nothing to oppose him.

The truth is, for a long while, that described many people in Europe and elsewhere, but the phrase stuck, and as the Wikipedia says, "The term has come to be used to refer more generically to people in any country who observe reprehensible things taking place — whether done by a government or by another powerful institution — but remain silent, neither raising objections nor taking steps to change the course of events."

Like anything to do with Hitler and the Nazis, the phrase is heavily weighted. And so when on Sunday New York Times columnist Frank Rich used it to describe contemporary Americans, it ignited a controversy that still rages across the Internet.But it is an historical analogy that is work taking seriously, especially given the case Rich assembles. “BUSH lies” doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s time to confront the darker reality that we are lying to ourselves, he begins.

That the Bushites have been able to perpetrate a dizzying array of policies and activities that for at least the past few generations would have seen impossible, that no Americans would stand for torture, rendition, domestic spying, armed thugs, better equipped and much better paid than U.S. troops, acting beyond any laws in Iraq and then brought back to the U.S. to patrol the streets of New Orleans; the attempted hijacking of the justice system for partisan and ideological gain; the suffering being caused or tolerated in Iraq, Africa, so many places...the list just goes on and on. And a President, with the support of less than one quarter of the country, continues without effective public outcry. How in the world can this be explained?"Good Germans" comes as close as anyone has. Maybe because people don't want to lose what comforts they have--and those closest to centers of power have quite a lot.

Rich begins at the centers of responsibility: Both Congress and the press — the powerful institutions that should have provided the checks, balances and due diligence of the administration’s case — failed to do their job. Had they done so, more Americans might have raised more objections. This perfect storm of democratic failure began at the top. But he does not absolve the rest of us, nor should he: As the war has dragged on, it is hard to give Americans en masse a pass. We are too slow to notice, let alone protest, the calamities that have followed the original sin.

He brings the analogy closer to the source: Our humanity has been compromised by those who use Gestapo tactics in our war. The longer we stand idly by while they do so, the more we resemble those “good Germans” who professed ignorance of their own Gestapo. It’s up to us to wake up our somnambulant Congress to challenge administration policy every day. Let the war’s last supporters filibuster all night if they want to. There is nothing left to lose except whatever remains of our country’s good name.

Sometimes such a shocking analogy cuts through the fog, helps us find a moral definition. The analogy of the Good Germans is much too close for continued comfort.

The Outrage Basket

The Injoy basket is empty, but as usual the Outrage basket is overflowing. A few of the items tumbling over the top and onto the floor: A federal court, in perhaps the most legally torturous (in both senses) decision since the Supremes played Bush V. Gore, formally stripped detainees of their rights. So we're going to continue to pretend that "24" is reality, and that due process is some prissy thing we can't afford anymore, torture is necessary, torture works, and it's good for you, too--although there's the inconveniently authentic account in the Washington Post by Eric Fair, about his own experiences doing his country's dirty work, his current nightmares and self-recriminations:

I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself.

But at least he's not an amputee dumped in an abandoned motel across from Walter Reed hospital, although judging the relative pain of traumatic stress for life versus traumatic head injuries for life is as debased as this war has always been. The Iraq war is creating a generation of physically, psychologically and mentally maimed people who will be around long after the last haunted Vietnam vet has faded completely out of existence. And there are people who with a straight and noble face are proposing a new Draft.

But then we're deep into government by hyperbole. Countdown quoted some right wing radio nut job as saying that teachers unions are a worse threat that al Qaeda, and a Repub Florida congressman who is also a party campaign official as saying that he doesn't really care if the lies he spread about Speaker Pelosi were true or not. Unfortunately I don't think he's lying about that.

We've heard about the ideological extremes this administration has gone to, in hiring people for those inconsequential jobs reserved for political favors, like running the Iraq occupation and FEMA. But it wasn't until I ran across a column by Paul Krugman in the New York Times that I realized there was a playbook involved. (I would read everything Krugman writes online except he's part of the "times select" group of columnists, and I can't bring myself to pay for Dowd and Friedman, who are also a mandatory part of the package.) So I saw this in the print edition. Krugman quotes a Heritage Foundation document that instructs the administration to "make appointment decisions based on loyalty first and expertise second." Which of course the Bushites took one step further by eliminating the second consideration altogether.

So it shouldn't be surprising that a story in today's New York Times notes that: Scholars say Mr. Bush has been more strategic than most presidents in sprinkling loyalists throughout the administration. Paul C. Light, an expert in public service at New York University, says it has created an “echo chamber” in which the president gets advice he wants to hear.

Krugman's column (from 2/05) also notes that privatization, another ideologically driven obsession of this administration, may have added to the amount of government work hired out to corporations, but not to the competition for contracts. Competitive contracts have nose-dived from nearly 3/4 of the total to less than 1/2. No word on how many of those Halliburton got. And of course, contractors are often getting paid far more than ordinary employees of government would be. Especially if they don't vote Republican.

American Gulag

Amnesty International finds human rights abuses so extreme and systematic at Guantanamo, the organization is calling for it to be shut down.

"Guantanamo has become the gulag of our time," Amnesty Secretary General Irene Khan said as the London-based group issued a 308-page annual report that accused the United States of shirking its responsibility to set the bar for human rights protections.

Amnesty Takes Aim at 'Gulag' in Guantanamo - Yahoo! News

Captive Audience

The Bushmeisters are masters of the outrage barrage: create enough outrages, and nobody has the time, energy or space to focus on all of them.

So for months and probably years the Bushwhackers have been getting away with turning ostensibly public forums and rallys into private members-only events. They give Bush the obverse of a captive audience: instead of keeping people in, they keep people out. It's the shopping mall philosophy of public event, with a little J.Edgar Hoover brand of fascism to boot.

They pretty much got away with it in the campaign, as when attendees at a Cheney events literally had to sign a loyalty oath. So even with no election to worry about, they are continuing the policy. In Fargo, North Dakota, no less.

"City Commissioner Linda Coates says she was shocked to learn she and her husband were among more than 40 area residents on a list of people barred from attending President Bush's speech here Thursday.
The list was supplied to workers at the two Fargo distribution sites, along with tickets and other forms citizens were asked to fill out, The Forum reported.
The list includes critics of Bush or the war in Iraq. It includes two high school students, a librarian, a deputy Democratic campaign manager and a number of university professors. "

So if you want to see the President, bring your Bushamerica card. It's the only card accepted by the Bushmeisters. They don't take the Bill of Rights.

? IN-FORUM ?: "Media Partners:

Log In Register "

The State of Bushamerica, Inc.

Live from Washington---

Instead of a State of the Union, this year I thought I'd just read you highlights from our Annual Report. It's a nice document, with great illustrations and glossy paper, and I recommend it to all right thinking Americans.

Here's the cover. Pretty nice, huh? For our Spanish-speaking friends it says, BUSHAMERICA INC. And here's the list of our officers: Chairman of the Board of Directors and President-G.W. Bush, that's me. Vice-President and CEO-Dick Cheney. Vice-President of Operations--- Don Rumsfeld. Director of Marketing-Karl Rove. And so on.

So let me read you some of the highlights.

The state of Bushamerica Inc. is pretty darn good.

We're returning stockholder investment and building a future for ourselves. Our brand identity has never been stronger.

9-11

Our 9-11 Line continues to out-perform expectations. As everyone in our business knows, the secret of ultimate performance is in thinking big, which means being willing to take and manage big risks.

The key to selling products is keep it simple, and link it to strong emotions. Most products have to make do with simple anxiety, which is okay if you're selling mouthwash, but not war. For that you need the big smell of fear.

Of course we didn't know when and where a terrorist attack would come. Though we encouraged the illusion that we didn't expect it, we were ready to seize the opportunity. That it was larger and hit closer to home than we anticipated only made our response stronger. And actually made our job easier.

There are many ways to position a terrorist attack, and we chose imagery consistent with our goals and philosophy. We made it a very simple case of good against evil, and we made sure to stress that the triumph of good was no certainty. By painting the enemy as mysterious, inscrutable and very powerful, we ensured that our "us or them" polarity would enable us to exert control.

This formula of course matched the worldview imagery of our core customer, comfortable with the good v evil scenario. It's clear, it's definite, and those are two wonderful attributes for a product that sells itself. Benefit to the customer? That's easy.

Our product we called Freedom, but in essence it meant the continuing of the mindless work-and-spend lifestyle everyone loves. For our core constituency, it's work, worship and spend, and we made sure to integrate their lifestyles into our program.

To the fear we linked to terrorism, we added economic anxieties to increase dependence on our leadership. It's a delicate balance to maintain anxiety without widespread feelings of deprivation, so our outsourcing to China kept low-cost consumer products flowing in. Our Wal-Mart subsidiary in particular helped us keep their eyes off the ball out there in consumerland.

We have to acknowledge that we couldn't have had this year of success without the softening up work of the 1980s into the 90s, when it became clear to everybody that to be poor or sick and need help from the government is not only shameful, it is immoral. So Bushamerica could thrive, while millions of our non-partners worked 2 and 3 jobs for slave wages and never complained, except about liberals and foreigners and know-it-all traitors who don't support Bushamerica.

The underlying product support we utilized is the time-tested need for the king, especially in time of "invasion." There is nothing like fear to ensure loyalty, and nothing like the feeling of being in mortal danger to inspire both fear and "loyalty to the royalty."

Patriotism can be a powerful ally when you are in power, and we're happy to report that it still works great, even after the previous eight years when we didn't use it, for obvious reasons.

We want to particularly thank our media partners for their help in creating optimum conditions.


Iraq Inc.

Our returns on Iraq this year were strong. Through the smokescreen of "bad news" we saw the sunlight of a robust arms technology industry, and record profits for many of our contractors. We used the full federal borrowing and spending power for our short-term stimulus, as well as our long-term investment in that oil-rich region.

Stimulus from Iraq Inc. and even more from Homeland Security (our "stealth" profit center!) kept the national economy vibrant enough to offset tax revenue losses, which of course accrued as gains to our stockholders.

Contract Renewal

Of course the big news, and the big triumph of the year was our contract renewal for another four years. Our marketing team outdid themselves again this time, but we really must thank that peerless combination of our stockholders and contractors, plus our core constituency of consumers, for putting us over the top. Diebold, Sinclair,Fox---hey, you know who you are.

Forecast

Our strategic goals continue to be: 1. maximize immediate value for stockholders. 2. commit longterm federal investment to benefit stockholders, subsidiaries and contractors regardless of who runs the federal government in the future. New foreign markets are expensive to develop but we've invested a lot of taxpayer money in them, so Bushamerica will be in position to reap whatever profit opportunities may result. And if none do, well, it wasn't our money.

We're all justly proud that in the 90s, even without the White House, we were able to turn a citizenry angrily demanding affordable health care into wary consumers who preferred insurance instruments designed by our corporate partners. We're hopeful that we can work our magic again on an even tougher product: Social Security. But we will need all our partners help on this one. It has immense longterm potential for financing options, but even if we don't get there this time, the controversy should be sufficiently distracting that we can close any number of other deals without opposition.

Summary and Corporate Overview

Bushamerica has never been a stronger, more integrated corporation with a clear identity and clear mission for the future. In four short years we have transformed the country we took over, and by the end of four more years we hope that transformation will be complete, so that in brand terms, the difference between America and Bushamerica will be zero.

Of course by then, Bushamerica will be considerably more profitable, but that's for our stockholders to know, and our customers never to find out.

Gosh, maybe I wasn't supposed to read that part.

Good night and may God bless Bushamerica.

Gonzales Debate: Say No to Dictatorial Power

While we didn't watch it all, we caught some of the Senate debate on the Gonzales nomination. It seemed that Democrats succeeded in making torture the main issue, beginning with an impassioned statement by Senator Ted Kennedy, linked here.

KENNEDY URGES SENATE TO DENY GONZALES NOMINATION OVER TORTURE POLICIES

But we heard another compelling and important argument from Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan. She emphasized that Gonzales insisted in his memos and testimony that the President has the power and right to override law as passed by Congress and interpreted by courts. This is nothing less than a recipe for state fascism and dictatorship. Her statement, which at this moment is not yet available, was eloquent on the subject of the danger of making Gonzales the chief law enforcement officer of the country. She emphasized that his main qualification is as the private lawyer for George Bush, but this isn't the constitutional job description of the Attorney General.

Say No to Torture: Vote No on Gonzales

American Dash is one of more than 500 blogs on record opposing Alberto Gonzales for U.S. attorney-general. The Senate opens debate on his nomination today, and there may even be a vote. We urge our U.S. readers to contact their Senators and urge them to vote no. Torture is ineffective and therefore unnecessary, but more than that it is inhuman and immoral.

If he is confirmed, Gonzales' problems will not go away. His torture memos, which he has never clearly repudiated, will haunt the U.S. for a generation, and will keep the Iraqi prison photos alive around the world. But he also faces legal questions, including possible perjury and other crimes and improprieties in Texas, and now he has been named as a defendant in a suit alleging complicity in war crimes (link below), namely the torture of Iraqi prisoners and prisoners at Guantanamo.

CCR

Yet Another Effect of Torture

The torture photos, the White House memos by the attorney general designate, the international Red Cross reports alleging U.S. torture in Iraq and Guantanamo: besides besmirching the name of America around the world, inflaming the Islamic cultures, and making it difficult for American military to insist on Geneva convention treatment for U.S. servicepeople, and now one more effect: the Iraqis now in power, who are likely to be the ones in power after the "election," are accused of rampant torture of their prisoners. And exactly what can the U.S. say about it? That anybody will believe?

Don't look now, but the Bushies are going to have to revise their reason for invading Iraq once again, because "to get rid of the tyrant who tortured his own people" doesn't look so good right now. Unless they want to add, "and replace him with another tyrant who tortures his own people, and the folks at Halliburton."

There's very little they can credibly say, when the Secretary of State designate refuses repeated opportunities to condemn torture, and the Attorney General designate is one of the architects of U.S. permissiveness and policy of torture. Neither should be confirmed, but we join in the movement to deny AG designate Alberto Gonzales confirmation by the Senate.

Yahoo! News - Torture Still Routine in Iraqi Jails, Report Says

From shock to the awful truth

It's all happening so fast, each news cycle more dreadful than the last, and only shock and denial protects us. The media prattles, and the public---or that portion of it that can still afford the gas---hides in the malls.

But if we ever really do focus clearly, the next stage is anger. America has been disgraced, and every American disgraced with it. What has been going on in Iraq and Afghanistan and probably elsewhere is nothing short of sanctioned savagery.

We should be motivated by a cold determined anger to do something about it. These leaders have disgraced us. It's already abundantly clear, complete with paper trail, that all this started with Bush. He and his administration must go. If an election weren't scheduled for November, the only honorable course would be impeachment.

The frivolous self-righteousness of the rabid right against Clinton notwithstanding, impeachment of a president is a serious matter, especially in wartime, with troops fighting for their lives. So an election is better, and this one can't come soon enough. It is the only possibility to begin restoring any shred of honor, and any hint of decency.

The situation is so bad that however reluctant he may be to do anything that might endanger American soldiers, John Kerry must express this sense of our disgrace, and his awareness of the need to address it. This administration must be held accountable, and that means they must go.

It's worth noting that the prisoner abuse disgraces the U.S. military first of all, and honorable people within it are very aware of this. Apparently it was military officers in JAG units who tried for months to stir media and professional (lawyers) interest in this prison and torture issue, without success. So perhaps in addition to shock, one reason the media is unclear on this is that it also disgraces them.

There's been a lot of talk about the psychology of it all, but much of it has been misplaced. The psychology that gets to the root of it is the psychology of George W. Bush and his true believers.

Bush's rabid religious right supporters have unleashed their shadows into the public arena, not to deal with them, but to motivate policy and make decisions and judgments. Bush may be the most unreflective and fanatical of all, though in a slightly different way. He has convinced himself that his self-worth depends on being the war president. Politically it's a deadly delusion, for it is clear that if Bush needs to start wars in order to be the heroic war president, he will. It completely defines him. It defines his approach to every issue. Without war he would be lost.

War is his righteous instrument, his calling from his oddly Old Testament Christianity. His certainty---his staying the course---is fanaticism. It doesn't just mean keeping troops in Iraq until some reasonably stable government is forthcoming. It means destroying those he perceives as enemies. He sees the world in stark figures of his own delusions. Of course there are enemies. The Twin Towers didn't destroy themselves, at least not literally. But he can't see the actual threat of actual enemies clearly or deal with them effectively, when he is lost in a mirror of shadows.

The Bushies and their true believers see those foreigners as uncivilized, and so they commit the most scandalously uncivilized acts, and justify them with counter-civilized rationales. This behavior and these justifications unravel a hundred years of international law, and return us to the Middle Ages and the Crusades. Only it's not just European white men---this insidiously rational-sounding insanity apparently infects women, perhaps including the nation's highest ranking African American woman, and Asian-American and Latino-American administration officials and true believers. Americans all.

And why aren't we hearing more from Christian believers about this fanaticism? What kind of Christianity is this, operating in those prisons? American Christians are being disgraced.

But the news that has barely begun this week is writing on the wall another reason Bush must pray for re-election. It will postpone the possibility of his being charged in American courts with war crimes. Some of his underlings might not be so protected.

The Adminstration That Couldn't Shoot Straight

"He was one of those incredibly stupid, energetic people who seem sent by heaven to create disasters. His energy to the first glance seemed so wonderfully like capacity! But he had no imagination, no invention, just a stupid, vast, driving force of will, and a mad faith in his stupid idiot luck to pull him through."
H.G. Wells "A Dream of Armageddon"

This is the day the U.S. raided the office of the Iraqi exile they paid $27 million to, who told them they would easily find the weapons of mass destruction, that Iraqis would welcome American occupation with flowers and the oil wells would more than pay for reconstruction.

This is the day they had to release their Portland, OR suspect (AKA material witness) in the Spanish terrorist bombing, when the fingerprints they used to finger him turned out to be of the fingers of somebody else in, uhn, Algeria.

This is the day that their faux news commercials for the prescription drug cards that seniors hate because they are impossible to use, was declared illegal.

This is the day after the charge that the terrorists they said they bombed in Baghdad were actually a wedding party, and that they killed 40 people including children. This may turn out to be not true, but isn't it interesting that no one can say it's even unlikely, that the charge sounds credible?

The worry we've had is that the Bushies are screwing up so badly that any small suggestion of success will look like a breakthrough. Just by the law of averages something would seem to have to go right for them. So this continuing, not-very-slow motion collapse into chaos is becoming downright scary.


Two notes you saw here first that have since made the national press: Teresa Heinz Kerry is being touted as the secret weapon that could guarantee Pennsylvania for Kerry, and that there are now questions about prisoner treatment at Guantanamo.

One additional note to the prisoner abuse scandal, which also gets worse everyday. Some other psychologists have chimed in to suggest that the current screenfuls of so-called "reality TV", featuring large doses of people being humiliated in various disgusting ways, has encouraged folks to think abusing Arabs is a fun thing to do. We find this a hard one to dismiss. It rings true.

Amplifications

by Phineas Dash

Morgan's commentary below on the still evolving prisoner abuse scandal are apropos but need to be balanced with the other side of what he said, and of what others are saying. As I'm sure he would agree. Though circumstances aren't deterministic, they can be powerful, and individuals can get swept up in them. The shadow, the dark side within us all, can be called forth when we least expect it.

As for the individual soldiers involved,one has signed a confession which details actions contrary to what some others are claiming, including the woman who said she was following orders. Or at least, complicate the picture with the ferocious enthusiasm of the abuse. Evil was loose.

But in general I must agree with what these columns have been insisting, that the tone and the expectation was set at the highest levels, apart from the shameful laxity and the clear violation of international law in the established procedures. That the Iraqis the Americans were supposedly saving turned into the enemy as soon as they passed through the prison gate (and up to 90% of them there by mistake and random sweeps, or just because they were young males), is a predictable outgrowth of the Bush and the Bushie attitude towards preemption, how we deal with our enemies, and how we are right and they are evil, less than human. That's the self-righteous tragedy we've been sucked into.

The bravado that comes from fear can be dangerous, as it turns so quickly to wanton cruelty which is cowardice. This is the rationale and expression at the most basic and brutal level for a policy that is more abstract and holy-sounding, but at its base is the same. America the offended innocent becomes America the bully. We can defend ourselves better than this.

Psychology
by Morgan Dash

Yes, this is how it works. We torture and humiliate prisoners, perhaps kill some. The Others are angry, they call us bestial. They decapitate one of Ours. Our leaders go on television and call Them "barbarians" and "animals." An angry Senator is angry because so much fuss is made over a few incidents of bad behavior against killers, rapists and insurgents who have probably killed some of Us.

We can treat them as less than human because They are less than human to Us---they are predatory animals we must kill before they kill us. And vice versa. There is truth to the killing part, of course. Some of Them are killing some of Us. Some of Us are killing some of Them. But thinking of each other as Other, as less than human, is the key to how these "excesses," these alternatives to good, clean, fair slaughter from distant silos, happen.

PBS Newshour had a group of psychologists to explain how good American boys and girls could engage in torture. Maybe this is why psychologist rarely appear on TV---neither they nor the anchors know how to do this right. The psychologists gave a number of plausible, somewhat plausible, and not very plausible explanations. The basic thing wrong with them was the assumption that those American boys and girls were acting on their own (which was today's mantra, helped by the carefully parsed testimony of the investigating General who said that according to the interviews he did no one ordered them to specifically do those specific acts. If you look at that closely, it's the rationalization of somebody whose internal report was made public, and he wants to keep his job.)

Whereas the attorneys for one of those charged, the young woman, said that she maintains she was specifically ordered to pose for those pictures. She was handed the leash, she was placed in those pictures, so that the photos could be used on entering prisoners, to make them talk or be subjected to the same horrifying humiliations.

But though the moderator repeated a few times that they weren't trying to prejudge the accused, that's exactly what they were doing. They were explaining why and how these soldiers invented these acts, performed them, and took pleasure in performing them. They even explained that taking "trophy photos" and not thinking they could be used against them later, was consistent with their analysis. So now we know WHY they are guilty, although of course we don't know IF they are guilty.

The psychological explanations were about context: put people in certain situations and they will behave in certain ways. Put people in charge of a prison and they will torture the inmates, as a Stanford experiment proved. I've heard this kind of explanation before, and I just don't buy it. Sure, put people in particular situations, and they are perhaps more likely to act in ways radically different from how they would act otherwise. And yes, people will generally react in predictable ways according to the roles they are assigned. But sometimes is not most of the time, and most of the time or generally, is not always. And it most definitely does not mean: has to happen. Can't do nothing about it.

The Stanford experiment said more about the willingness of rich college kids to torture other college kids than about human behavior, let alone the behavior of trained people selected for their jobs because of aptitude, attitude and proven skills, commitment and judgment. Certainly, poorly trained kids with no leadership, experience or understanding of what they're doing, left alone with only each other and the military structure to protect them in a place very far from home filled with people who might kill them, are likely to do what they believe they have to do to survive.

One of the accused soldiers was trained---as a mechanic. The woman involved claims she wasn't trained at all. As her lawyers say, no one has proved she did anything, except pose in the photos.

And in general terms, these experiments get their patina of determinism---the situation made me do it-from the fact that "everybody" in the experiment acts in a particular way. That everybody is a fraud. In one of the most celebrated experiments, I know this for a fact.

It was the famous electroshock experiment in New Haven in 1970, when test subjects were told to give shocks to people in another room when they gave wrong answers, and even when they heard them cry out in pain and beg them to stop, they did it anyway because they were told to. Every single one of them did this.

But every single one of who? Of the people who participated in the experiment. Why did they? Maybe for money. I was in New Haven in 1970, down on my luck, and I saw the ad in the paper soliciting people to participate in an experiment on learning or perception or something vague. It paid $25. It turned out to be this very experiment, although I didn't know it at the time.

I called the number. I asked about what the experiment would entail. The answer I got was very vague and maybe deceptive. It didn't pass my smell test. At the time I was suspicious about experimenters giving weird drugs. I guess I'd read about experiments like that recently. It never occurred to me I would be told to hurt someone else. So I've kicked myself since for not showing up for the experiment, because I know I would have refused.

I recently communicated my misgivings about this experiment to a social scientist who knows the study well. He claims that the test subjects were a good mix, not just students and indigents who really needed the $25. And he didn't much credit my objection that perhaps the kind of people who wouldn't have cooperated were the kind of people who wouldn't have participated at all. He also said that I couldn't know what I would do in those circumstances, even if I thought I did. Lots of people think they are "good people" but when told to do something questionable by authority figures in white coats, they could rationalize it and do it.

But that wasn't my point. It wasn't because I thought I was a good person. I had explained to him what I was like in 1970. I was battered because I had been fighting authority figures for several years-first in college, later in the job world, and between them the big one: the draft, the people who were trying not only to kill me but to force me to kill other people I did not want to kill. I went to considerable lengths to prevent them from putting me in that position, and I would have gone even further. There was absolutely no way it was going to happen.

So the idea that I would give painful electric shocks to strangers because I was told to by assholes in white coats dangling $25 in front of me, after what I'd been through and the attitude I had, was laughable, and remains preposterous. Not only would I have refused, it would have absolutely made my day to tell them to fuck off, and to walk out of there. Who knows, I might have busted up their idiot lab on the way out.

My point in telling him this was to suggest that in 1970 I wasn't an isolated case. It was just about a highwater mark for anti authority behavior. Do they really believe that Abbie Hoffman would have followed their orders? And the many people who were suspicious of authority were likely not to agree to participate in their stupid experiment anyway.

My point in repeating this story now is that circumstances can have a great influence on behavior, and they may very well force you to make choices, but they don't determine behavior. Perhaps there is a situation which can be replicated in an experimental situation that would prove me wrong, but I haven't seen it yet.

More to the point, according to relatives of one of the young Americans involved in the Iraqi prison nightmare, he did object. He took it to his superiors, he asked for clear instructions, he asked for the rules of the Geneva Conventions. Somehow this story is more credible to me than the one being told by the Bushies and their minions, and supported unwittingly by those psychologists.

But at least they didn't blame it all on testosterone. With women in the pictures and in command positions involved, that hoary notion is gone.

Rumbles, Rituals and Rumsfeld

The spectre of possible scapegoating always makes us uncomfortable. Not that Donald Rumsfeld is innocent, just that he is singled out with such ferocious focus that if he goes, it might appear all is now right with the world. John Kerry got it right: we don't need a new Secretary of Defense. We need a new President. This administration must be taken off the stage.

For at the same time that Rumsfeld and Bush are trying to distance themselves from the prisioner photos, their Rabid Right lackeys on the talk media are justifying rough treatment as the way this war on terror has to be conducted. That is more credibly a reflection of this administration's beliefs and policies. It provides the clear answer to why the warnings from the Red Cross and others went unheeded from the very outset of the occupation. It is why Rumsfeld is more upset that he didn't realize the damage the photos would do than he is that he didn't care about the actual practices and their effects on the victims as well as the Iraqi public.

News reports are not emphasizing enough the indiscriminate as well as widespread use of these practices. The only conclusion that anyone can draw is that if these are meant to break the will of the enemy, then everyone in Iraq was the enemy.

The Senate hearing was political theatre, but theatre is where these matters receive their fullest focus. Donald Rumsfeld facing former prisoner of war Senator John McCain and his incisive questions in a quiet, calm voice, was the heart of it today. But the ritual here should be exposure, a common realization and shame, not blood sacrifice.

The Beginning of the End

The evolving story of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners is like so much else to do with this war, tragic, heartbreaking, disgusting and predictable. Let loose the dogs of war---just what did you think it meant?

A few facts and observations emerging...The prison housed "detainees"---people picked up in sweeps, randomly in some cases, never even suspected of a crime---as well as a range of other kinds of prisoners. One of the official investigations by the military itself said that the prison had no real means of sorting and distinguishing its prisoners. This is one item to keep in mind as the excuse of "tough questioning" of terrorist suspects surfaces, though probably only on Fox news.

The main defense by the military and the Bushies is: a few rotten apples. Haven't we seen enough of blaming the bottom of the chain of command, the most expendable, to know that tactic for what it is? That same investigation saw the problem was structural, i.e. the responsibility of those in charge. The soldier who forced the investigation by turning in these photos said that he was ordered to obey military intelligence and continue these abuses, even after he told superiors about them (contra what the general in charge is now saying.) Seymour Hersh's story in the New Yorker maintains that this torture and these humiliations of prisoners began almost immediately and continued throughout the occupation.

The layers of responsibility---military, military intelligence, and civilian contractors---is just beginning to be scrutinized. But it's worth noting that civilian contractors in Iraq are beyond any law: they are beyond U.S. jurisdiction, yet aren't covered by military law and apparently not by international law.

A panel assembled on Charlie Rose was unanimous in believing that the acts were deliberate tactics, they were intentionally humiliating to Arab sensibilities, that Arabs know this, and that the last hope for an American led transition is gone. It's the My Lai of Iraq. Charlie Rose looked more shaken than we've ever seen him, at not only the enormity of what has happened, but the prospect of what will happen. This, said one panelist, is the tip of the iceberg.

The scrutiny will spread, perhaps even to Guantanamo, perhaps even to the same kind of thinking in the Patriot Act, which always was: you can trust us to know who the bad guys are, so no innocent person need fear these measures.

As for the men and women "grunts" who posed for the pictures: what happened to them, what they became and did, that's also part of the dogs of war. It was surreal seeing all this break just as James Hillman's book, "A Terrible Love of War" was published. It says all too well what this is about.

And it should tangentially put the lie to the idea that war is simply a result of male testosterone. There were women in those photos, smiling and thumbs up. The general in charge of the prison is a woman. (She says she was not permitted to visit the wing of the prison run by military "intel.")

The investigations showed that in addition to the abuse in the photos--male prisoners stripped, piled on each other, attached with electrodes--they were subjected to various forms of sexual intimidation, including forced masturbation. And that guards performed sex with women prisoners (we're not sure that the report actually said rape, but what else could it be.)

As these words hit cyberspace, the first reports are coming in of large explosions in Baghdad in the vicinity of the prison where the photos were taken, the prison where Saddam kept his torture chambers. This story of American torture there breaks as the Marines turned over Faluja to some of Saddam's generals.

It competes with the "feel good" story of the Halliburton employee who escaped his kidnappers, rescued by passing American troops. This young working class man was reportedly in Iraq because he needed the money to pay for medical care for his wife, because his health insurance didn't cover it. That's not the feel good part we don't suppose.

It's worth mentioning as well that the military investigation is months old, that Iraquis have been telling reporters for months of abuses in the prisons but only Arab media has paid any attention.

We are shocked but not surprised by any of this. We are saddened, and we are angry. We are all going to pay for this. There will be young Americans who never thought this was going to happen to them when they joined the national guard, who will die because of this. We will see terror here again, because of this. It's no longer just a matter of a horrendous failure in a faraway country. This is the beginning of the end of Americans in Iraq. What else it becomes remains for us to see.