From the President: Abu Ghraib and America

By Dr. Chris Seiple on 25 May 2004

"The line between good and evil runs through every human heart."

— Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn

As the photos and facts of Abu Ghraib prison settle into our psyche, we are arriving at a moment that will determine the rest of our policy in Iraq and, arguably, define 21st century international relations. We are at a moment where Americans must decide who they really are, and what this identity means for their engagement of the world. We can answer that question by carefully unpacking the many levels of hypocrisy that Abu Ghraib brings into bold relief, as well as the practical humility and resurgent hope that it urges us toward.

Hypocrisy

I served in the Marine Corps for nine years, and there were two leadership rules that I learned and still live by. First, the leader is responsible for all his/her unit does, or fails to do — period. Second, leaders can't expect what they don't inspect.

Abu Ghraib is, above all, a failure of leadership. While there is no excuse for the individual behavior at Abu Ghraib, it is hypocritical for senior military officials to champion the chain-of-command yet suggest that it was a "handful" of people operating on their own. To do so suggests their non-leadership, revealing that they were not responsible for those in their charge. Junior enlisted soldiers from rural Maryland and Pennsylvania don't develop systematic sexual techniques to shame the mind of the Arab male. If an interrogation routine was developed and approved, then someone should explain and take responsibility for it. The world and the courts will decide what, if anything, was appropriate from that routine, what was wrong and what can never happen again.

It is also hypocritical when America's apologists wrap themselves in absolute American ideals yet try to relativize the abuses at Abu Ghraib by saying they pale in comparison to actions of Saddam Hussein (whose tortures included ritualized amputations) or to those of Islamic terrorists (whose latest atrocity is the beheading of an innocent American). They are not the standard. We live, judge, and condemn according to our standards, nobody else's.

At the same time, some Americans smugly condemn these events from the comfortable cocoons of their suburban armchairs (not appreciating that their security is made possible by intelligence and interrogations). They would do well to remember that America is at war. There exists in Iraq and around the world today people who are organized to kill innocent people, especially innocent Americans.

It is hypocritical that Democrats who too quickly and easily gave their support to the President in the fall of 2002 for the war now use the realpolitik argument that Sadddam Hussein was sufficiently "contained" and therefore we should have left him alone. Meanwhile, with equal hypocrisy, Republicans now ignore their original realpolitik reasons for going into Iraq (WMD) and claim the advancement of human rights and democracy as their casus belli.

And then there is the hypocrisy of the Pentagon, which has shuffled and stymied on the cost of the war and the troops needed, while insisting that it planned for the post-war. If it had planned properly, it would have included other key U.S. agencies — instead these agencies were actively shut out by the Pentagon. If it had planned, the possibility of Abu Ghraib would have been anticipated, U.S. troops would have been trained for their mission in the prisons, and standard operating procedures would have been established for interrogations.

More broadly, it is hypocritical for Americans to not consider how others see us. We must take a long, hard look in the mirror, and come to terms with all the dimensions — including the darkest ones — of neo-imperial power. As George Will recently wrote:

Americans should not flinch from absorbing the photographs of what some Americans did in that prison. And they should not flinch from this fact: That pornography is, almost inevitably, part of what empire looks like. It does not always look like that, and does not only look like that. But empire is always about domination. Domination for self-defense, perhaps. Domination for the good of the dominated, arguably. But domination.¹

Moreover, even when American power manages to avoid the evils of sadistic abuse — indeed, even when we are at our absolute best — we will still threaten others because of the size and global saturation of our military and economic might (hard power) and our culture and ideas (soft power). We don't have to apologize for our influence, but we are certainly responsible for it.

Which is all the more reason to be careful about the analysis that informs the wielding of our national power. For example, it is hypocritical that an administration that prides itself on accountability has not held anyone responsible for the three greatest intelligence failures since Pearl Harbor: 9-11, no WMD in Iraq, and the sustained and systematic selling of nuclear technologies by elements of the Pakistani government. Loyalty is not leadership.

American engagement with many Islamic countries has long reeked of hypocrisy. While mouthing platitudes of liberty, we have struck one Faustian bargain after another with authoritarian regimes that prop up our national interests in the name of oil and regional stability. But what about our national values? What about human rights? Bernard Lewis writes that the American exemption of "Arab rulers and leaders from the normal rules of civilized behavior… is an expression of disrespect and unconcern — disrespect for the Arab past, unconcern for the Arab present and future."²

Finally, what about the hypocrisy of many Arabs themselves, the people and their rulers? They express outrage at Abu Ghraib, but do not note the fact that they are able to see these pictures (free press) or that the first trials are already taking place (rule-of-law). And they do not note their silence while Hussein was in power, nor do they mention the lack of freedom and torture in their own countries.

Simply, Abu Ghraib reminds us that we are all hypocrites.

Humility

We should approach the situation in Iraq — and its implications for U.S. global engagement — with a profound sense of humility. Paramount among the lessons to be learned is this: no more can there be a simplistic "with us or against us" approach when good and evil are in every human heart.

Sacred and secular sources provide reference for nuanced leadership. For instance, Jesus told one audience "If you are not with me, you are against me" (Matthew 12:30), while telling another audience "If you are not against us, you are for us" (Mark 9:40). If Christ didn't use cookie-cutters approaches, then neither should we.

Or as the new President of Georgia, Mikheil Saakashvili, has recently reflected on the lessons of his first few months in power after the democratic "Rose Revolution": "It's much more complex than just a fight between evil and good. It's hard to distinguish what is the right thing sometimes. It's all the time striking the right balance. That's what governing is about."³

This perspective is the beginning of humble leadership, and it is what we need for starting anew in Iraq. Not only is it required of us in Iraq, it is also required of American engagement of the world. Specifically, Americans must take several basic steps to overcome our own part in hypocrisy.

First, with respect to the prison abuses, we must follow the evidence wherever it leads, and let the chips fall where they may. We must have patience as the many investigations into Abu Ghraib are conducted. We must also examine other prisons, not least the secret American detention centers that seemingly exist outside the rule-of-law. In every case, the truth will be revealed. When it is, there must be accountability. And there must be established a defined process through which we interrogate some very unsavory types who seek to kill us.⁴

Second, we must develop and support, politically and financially, a worldwide public diplomacy campaign. Such a campaign begins with the clear acknowledgement of mistakes, beginning with Abu Ghraib. It necessarily highlights the best of the world's faith traditions, especially the Abrahamic ones, and what they have to teach us about respect. And it repeatedly describes exactly who we are fighting, and why we are fighting only them.

Third, we are not going to win this war with our military. We are going to win with the appropriately funded and trained intelligence and diplomatic officials. Their agencies, where need be, should be restructured and streamlined in order to help, not hinder, this effort.

Fourth, we need to make the president's "Initiative for a Greater Middle East" tangible and relevant. President Bush has boldly announced that we will support freedom in the Middle East, confronting the hypocrisy of the past. But slogans, needed though they are, do not make practical policy. Hand-in-hand with a public diplomacy campaign, a "Greater Middle East" initiative with substance would set the stage for America to claim some moral authority in the region.

Fifth, with agreement of the various factions we should be prepared to set back (by two or three months) the 30 June transfer of sovereignty from the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to the "caretaker" government that the UN and U.S. are now assembling. That interim government will lack credibility because, like the Iraqi Governing Council, it will be appointed by outsiders. Instead we should not be afraid to convene, with total transparency, a national convention — not unlike the Loya Jirga in Afghanistan — that determines the caretaker government.⁵ They would meet until they decided on an interim government and on elections for a true government.

Sixth, none of the above matters unless there is security. Under a new UN resolution, the international community should immediately provide the troops necessary to ensure that stability exists for the interim government and subsequent elections. An international UN force under the command of an American general (e.g., retired Marine General Anthony Zinni) is the only way this will work. As this force takes its positions inside Iraq, a plan must also exist to properly train Iraqi police and army forces; this cannot be a rush job. The international security force will eventually downsize itself out of existence, but it is a process that will take between three and five years.

Finally, we must understand that it is simply impossible to force a liberal-democratic nation into existence. What we do have the power to do, however, is to contribute to the building of a better Iraqi state, one with the necessary institutions and stability to develop democratically in its own way. Accordingly, we Americans have to take responsibility for how we train and educate our officials — from the diplomat to the military officer — to implement rule-of-law operations. It requires the right people with the right education.

Hope

September 11th marked the beginning of a new kind of hundred-years war, a war about identity and religion. It is a war that we must all fight, in our own way. And as those of us who are Americans choose our battles, we should remember that "the line between good and evil runs through every human heart." The American founders knew this well. James Madison wrote in Federalist #51: "If men were angels, no government would be necessary… In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place, oblige it to control itself."

Abu Ghraib forever makes clear that Americans are not angels. Hope for the future lies in coming to grips with our own hypocrisy, and finding realistic ways of adapting Madison's logic of checks and balances to foreign affairs. Particularly in this election year, Americans need to ask each candidate to define precisely his plan for Iraq. "Staying the course" is an unacceptable answer; the candidates must be able to spell out what that means. Nor should our questions be limited to Iraq policy; we must know each candidate's plan for American engagement of the world.

Still greater hope lies in the various faith communities who necessarily must have something to say, and do, about this religious war that will survive our lifetime. Now is the time to go back to the sacred texts, and to candidly acknowledge deep differences and areas of common ground between and among the world religions. Now is the time to know our own faith at its richest and deepest best, and enough about our neighbor's to not just tolerate it, but respect it. Yes, we are all human, but only because we are all made in the image of God.

Last updated 21 April 2009