Complete Control
It’s time to rant, and here’s why:
There’s a chilling sense of familiarity in the photo of this prisoner. A ropey halloween costume, perhaps… maybe it’s the Klan-esque hood…. or the arms folded out, a martyr waiting for stigmata. The anonymous cream background. The electrodes, the restraints, chains, barbed wire, hoods are the staple images of Amnesty International leaflets, and they’re being used by soldiers and guards under the US led coalition, which has so far bagged tens of thousands of Iraqi suspects.
To put it mildy, the leaking of this picture is something of a worry for the Bush administration. To put it in another, more pertinent way, it’s a fucking outrage that clangs on every desperate human bone in my useless human body.
In other news, lest we forget that the gun and the bomb are also implements of torture, Fallujah has become a living massacre. There’s deaths of US soldiers, deaths of those opposed to them, and deaths of children. And the deaths of men. And dead women. We can reason that in amongst those body parts there must be the blood of someone who hated freedom, or perhaps someone who would have endangered ‘our interests’. There must have been. We, the infallible West, have smart bombs and precision aiming daisy-fucking clusterfucks. All civilian deaths are regrettable but still acceptable.
In Fallujah last week, the second biggest hospital was bombed. Take a look at the link, there’s a photo of where a four year old child was standing. And who knows what he would have grown up to be.
British soldiers are to undergo a “Torture probe” over more holiday photos… (who decided to call it that?)… in these alleged British troops are showing prisoners some ageless global torture moves. One figure is seen urinating on a hooded, chained man. I’ll leave you now with a final quote taken from the BBC online coverage of this story:
The UK’s most senior soldier, General Sir Mike Jackson, said if guilty, the men were not fit to wear the uniform.
If it comes to a trial, old Saddam must be worried. For all his terror crimes against freedom, he might never be allowed to wear his old uniform again. Ever.
Amen!
Amen indeed. Here’s a good blog:
http://binarycircumstance.typepad.com/bc_blog/2003/10/cognitive_disso.html
Today the papers are full of reports that the British torture photos may have been faked. All I can say is, so what if they were? As the above article points out, the gun and the bomb are also instruments of torture. And the institution of the army - no matter what shirts the soldiers wear - is the biggest instrument of torture ever invented.
British troops piss on Iraqi soldier? Sounds like a Day Today headline. Not that I’m implying anything.
I’m disagree with equating guns, bombs and armies with torture as I think you’re moving between two definitions of torture. Torture is 1)severe physical pain for punishment or coercion
2)something causing severe pain or anguish.
While the army regularly cause severe pain and anguish, the army are not torturers as in definition one. Not all wars are punishments or coercion, and not all actions of armies are motivated by punishment or coercion, so what the army does isn’t always torture (under definition 1).
Armies certainly can be used as instruments of torture, that’s one of the major definitions of a war crime. But a pillow is an instrument of torture as is water, if used imaginatively. Don’t leap from the possibility of torture to branding an insitution an instrument of torture and don’t equivocate with emotionally resonant terms, you rhetorical scoundrals.
That’s a very diplomatic way of seeing it.
We must attempt to ‘define’ (or understand) events through any emotionally charged, human language we have; ideally (and excuse any poetic indulgence here) through the wild cries, sobs and screams of any poor human who is caught up in it.
Don’t intellectualise the matter into a game of definitions. It’s too bloody and real for that. The bomb is blowing up, and the gun is shooting.
“Not all wars are punishments or coercion, and not all actions of armies are motivated by punishment or coercion.”
If this was true - and I wish it was - then 90% of world history would read very differently.
Yes, bombs are blowing up, innocent people are dying, being maimed and ignored. Yes, we only understand these events through language. And that is exactly why we have to use the right language. If people are being killed because they are seen as acceptable losses or unimportant, then say that. Don’t call it torture when the dying aren’t the main target, because that misrepresents the situation.
I think its important to make a distinction between war and torture, and war and war crimes. A lack of distinction implies they’re morally equivalent, and I don’t think that’s true.
Have I misrepresented the situation?
Does the distinction between war and torture (neither of which I am partial to) make acceptable the recent military action?
No… and no. What are you trying to say, This Space For Rent? Are we wrong?
‘British Troops Piss on Iraqi soldier’does indeed sound like a Day to Day headline. Someone said last year: “trying to satirise the Labour Party conference is like streaking on a nudist beach”. Our government is beyond satire. This occupation is beyond send-up. The Day to Day couldn’t come up with anything more absurd than what’s actually happening in Iraq.
TSFR - you’re right that we have to use the right words. But surely the point is that the terminology of ‘torture’, ‘war crimes’, ‘war’ etc. etc. is used to justify and legitimise actions taken by the powerful parties.
Sometimes it’s done consciously and deliberately (’war on terror’, ‘war on drugs’, ‘terrorist’, ‘axis of evil’ etc. etc. - all obvious stuff). A journalist was sacked last week from one of Berlusconi’s channels for referring to ‘the occupation’ and ‘Iraqi resistance’, rather than ‘the liberation’ and ‘Iraqi rebels’. The words that we use matter.
We have to look beyond these glib definitions at what is actually happening in Iraq. And what is happening is the use of guns, bombs and armies as violent instruments of coercion: i.e. torture.
… and if you’re going to uncritically accept the terminology of the occupying forces (including the [false] distinctions between war, torture and war-crime) then they’ve already won the argument: their justifications depend on their terms. Read that blog on cognitive dissonance - it’s good.
Between a war on terror and a war of semantics I would choose the latter - but didn’t you here? ‘the war is over’ so it doesn’t really matter.
Question: would you prefer to have your face pissed on by the soldier of an invading army or the member of a stabilising peace force?
I guess the later, if they’re pissing in my face in order to stabalise some peace.
Right, series of thoughts. When you have state vs state wars, armies represent the states. They use force to make the other army give in. This is coercion, as coercion means using force to get someone to do something. Torture is using severe force/excessive force. This is a relative judgement. Otherwise when I push someone’s arm out of the way at the bar to get through, I’ve tortured them. Similarly at gigs. What’s severe force for an army vs an army? You can also try to make the state give in by attacking its unofficial representatives- civilians. This is determined a war crime depending on if you win or lose.
Then you have states vs defeated/invaded states, the state side is represented by the army, and the defeated/invaded state by a variety of different things. There’s no agreed/official representative for the defeated/invaded but can people nominate themselves for representative? If by firing on invading troops (defending your country), you are then a representative, the reasoning goes you can have force used on you. The use of this force being torture depends on what you count as severe between an army and an individual, or small group of individuals. Perhaps one side being better trained or equipped affects what is severe force and what isn’t? There are questions of how long you’re a rebel for (forever, until you put the gun down?). Or are conflicts between armies and individuals or small unofficial groups an example of excessive force regardless and so torture? Why?
You get two examples of war crimes when you use force on many people who haven’t nominated themselves representatives, or aren’t anymore due to capture.
What I meant about not using the word torture but didn’t express well: What the US did in Faluja was use indiscriminate force on non-representatives to try to get self-nominated representatives to give in and because the non-representatives’ lives were expendable in getting at the ‘real targets’. While torture represents the first part, it doesn’t represent the second part as it ignores the cruelty, dehumanising(?) and ruthlessness of the US in doing this. Which a word should.
Now other bits, the cognitive dissonance thing is kind of interesting, but it doesn’t tell you the difference between when people’s beliefs are true and so strongly rebelling against statements due to intense hatred of falsehood and when it’s cognitive dissonance. Telling the difference is the knack. Cognitive dissonance does work brilliantly though as a way of winning arguments by dismissing disagreement as denial of the truth. Classic Freud trick.
Jamie, it’s spelt ‘hear’. Be still my pedantic heart. With regards to people pissing on my face, my criteria for candiates isn’t based on whether they have legitimacy to be there.
I like inventions.
we must live with our inventions.
Guns and bombs can be used in the right way, like the farming process.
Bomb the fields, it would be quicker than ploughing.
Thankyou, bleurrgh, for finally bringing something human and sensible into this ridiculous debate. The idea of using bombs to plough fields has more value than anything else the rest of this argument has yet produced. This long-winded semantic wrangling about ‘what exactly constitutes torture’ is pedantic, silly and irritating. It’s like Geoff Hoon saying that the Americans are guilty of ‘abuse,’ not ‘torture’ - it’s like CIA torture techniques being refered to as ‘heavy interrogation,’ or a horrific weapon of destruction being named a ‘daisy-cutter’ - it’s like Guatanamo Bay prisoners being labelled ‘illegal combatants’ rather than ‘prisoners of war.’ And it doesn’t fucking matter if Jamie spells ‘hear’ as ‘here.’ We all know what he means, so why question it? Likewise, we all know that what the Americans are doing to Iraqi civilians is revolting, so why the Christ are we getting involved in this meaningless argument over meaning?
Love you all. x
Here here.
He’s right, torture is an equal opportunity.
come hither little squirmers.
On Radio 4 the other day, there was an interview with “the man in charge of teaching the Geneva convention to US soldiers” Now that does sound like something from The Day Today!
If we all know what’s happening to Iraqi civilians is revolting, why bother saying it at all?
That’s an absurd thing to say. Please can you explain your reasoning?
Peace! Can we have a little peace? This debate has become somewhat hostile.
Would everyone please read back over all the posts on this subject, read everything they have read, and consider whether they are an aggressor in these hostilities?
In doing so, you could meditate on the deeper motives for everything you’ve written. Gnash not your teeth at me, gentle reader! Why do you fear awareness? Question yourself or risk the shrink!
That way, we can all be as different from Saddam and Tony and Uday and George as possible. And we can all sit on the moral high-ground in tranquility.
When everyone’s made peace with themselves we can continue in a spirit of understanding.
“Very Zen. Reassuringly incomprehensible. We who are about to die thank you.”
Hostile - us? It’s hard to get too hostile when all you want is global peace and quiet.
Shhh!
I am an aggressor. I want your blood….grr
Well, phrased in a nicer way (and apologies for overly aggressive phrasing in previous posts), why did you think it neccessary to state that you are opposed to the treatement of Iraqi civilians by the Americans?
this is all very ernest, well done. like nick drake.
earnest. woops.
an interesting point herr schneider, i think more people should wear those nike air jerusalems and the world would be a better place, amen.
seems to me that TSFR attempted to deviate from the one string pluck pluck melody played by the group, and that consequently he/she got shouted down and told that his/her tune was “meaningless”. but everybody knows, or else should know, that the same melody played over and over again is very boring. a little counter melody is healthy. and interesting.
Tune from the hillside
And tune full of light
A flute in the morning
And a chime in the night.
I know the game again
I know the score
I know my name again
but this tune is more.
I think this says it all.
yevgeny potatoes, let us hope that our songs remain fresh, and under three minutes long.
“no matter what shirts the soldiers wear” the army is the “biggest instrument of torture ever invented”.
hmmmm. that comment is, to my mind, somewhat baffling. heat of the momment?
(this is not designed to be provocative)
I like an argument
however one can drift so far into obscure fjords of particulars that the whole shebangle is sullied and confused. A counter melody is not only essential but can be a very lovely thing. I wrote a four part baroque style vocal thing last week and put some randomly selected Latin words to shape the notes.
mummery