Abu Ghraib - it's no aberration - it's standard operating procedure

Here’s a new book you probably won’t want to take on your summer vacation:  “Standard Operating Procedure,â€� The Penguin Press (2008).  So, I’ll give you a precis and save you the trouble — unless you are ready for a very rough read, and more truth than many of us can handle.

Author Philip Gourevitch (“A Cold Case�) and filmmaker Errol Morris (“The Fog of War�) spent more than two years researching, pursuing and interviewing many of the actors involved in the ignominious events at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Although reports and photographs were widely circulated in the national and international media, the coverage was never anything like this.

Predictably, the unabridged accounts of Abu Ghraib are horrifying — far more so than previously reported. Less predictably, the true roles of such low-life characters as Corporal Charles Grainer, Private Lynndie England and photographer Sabrina Harman were not as they seemed, and certainly not as officially announced. These low-ranked soldiers were both the instruments and victims of injustice.

Some of the publicly circulated photographs from Abu Ghraib (nude pyramids, dog leashes and mutilated corpses) may have actually been intended to blow the whistle on unacceptable prisoner abuse. After some 200 photos were leaked to the press, the Bush administration and the Pentagon ordered the destruction of more than a thousand other photos showing real torture.

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According to Gourevitch and Morris, the prosecutions of these low-level participants were part of a systematic conspiracy to distract the public and the media from the truth about Abu Ghraib, and to conceal the direct links and responsibilities in the chain of command, from the White House and Pentagon on down.  

I was struck by the extent of debate within the administration, early on, about the nature of torture and the question of the applicability of the Geneva Conventions, but in the end it was the higher echelons that prevailed and forced the policy of torture and humiliation from the top down.

To put the matter succinctly, the horrific abuses at Abu Ghraib were known, researched, developed, condoned and promoted by every level of the U.S. chain of command. They were no accident. They were no aberration. They constituted standard operating procedure.

So, the authors ask, what’s the point? What’s the use? Why vex your soul?  What’s the choice?  They answer: “There is no keeping our hands clean of Abu Ghraib. There is no disavowing it, never mind denying it. The stain is inescapable and irreversible, and it is ours.â€� Abu Ghraib is uniquely American in its violence, sadism and perversion — at least as sponsored and practiced by the current administration.

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By contrast, when Navy pilot John McCain broke both arms in his plane crash, and was imprisoned and reportedly tortured in Vietnam, he did not have to fear being stripped, and made to march and crawl naked, forced to masturbate alone or with others, cross-dressed and photographed. He was not poked, fondled or beaten between the legs.  Electrodes were not attached to his genitals.

But if McCain were a “detaineeâ€� of the Bush administration today, in the hands of Americans, that is exactly what he would have to face: a culture of depravity, the  result of systematic research, deliberate national policy and standard operating procedure.

Abu Ghraib tells us more about ourselves than we want to know, or can stand to accept. Perhaps that is a reflection of our own juvenile weakness as a nation.  

So, when a black preacher overreaches the decorum of his pulpit, to remind his congregation that God damns those who who engage in genocide, slavery or torture, the reaction of many Americans and most of the mainstream press is to focus on the question of the preacher’s “patriotism,â€� rather than face the truth of his allegations.  

Ours is a nation in denial. This is the ultimate in cowardice.  Talk about un-American!

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Many Americans are concerned about the abuses at Abu Ghraib but are opposed to impeachment proceedings, Congressional investigations or criminal prosecutions, because such actions are unseemly, and because at this time Congress faces far more serious issues, such as:  (a) how to extricate ourselves from a mistaken war and occupation in Iraq;  (b) the need to save the U.S. economy devastated by the rule of deregulated capitalism; and (c) the need to restore the Constitution of the United States, the practice of democracy and the rule of law in this country.

Yes, all that is true. But there is another side to the question. Impeachment and criminal prosecution essentially serve two purposes: (1) To punish the guilty, and (2) to deter future criminal behavior.  

If Americans refuse to impeach or investigate or prosecute, then what we are saying is that for all future time, the depraved  practices at Abu Ghraib and other U.S.-run prisons and “black sitesâ€� are acceptable as a part and product of American national policy, culture and practice; in short, standard U.S. operating procedure. Violence, sadism and perversion will become “as American as apple pieâ€� — if we allow it.

The time to act is now. We must initiate full investigations and hearings in Congress on every aspect of illegal and immoral U.S. prison administration. We must support  U.S. Rep. Dennis J. Kucinich of Ohio in submitting all 35 articles of impeachment during what is a “window of opportunity,â€� namely Jan. 2 to 20, 2009.  From then on,  we must prosecute all perpetrators, at every level in the chain of command, under national and international law, for all crimes they can be shown to have committed — and for which, as you know, there are no statutes of limitation.  Our oath must be: “Never again, not ever!â€�

Sharon resident Anthony Piel is a former director and legal counsel of the World Health Organization.