What's Wrong With This Picture? Missing in Action: Moral Courage
Hearings for Private Lynndie England and six others from the Abu Ghraib prison are back in the news and the abuse by American soldiers of Iraqi prisoners is again before us. We are reminded of the acts captured on film that graphically depict the moral and ethical challenge facing the Western world today. As inquiry findings now begin to suggest "leadership failures", the initial White House and Pentagon response to the crisis hasn't altered much and makes clear the failure of moral courage in today's leaders.
The inability to apologize, the spin on American values, the reminder of the "truly corrupt regime" of Saddam Hussein - all these elements point to the dangerous blind spot in the perspectives of President Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and the rest of the American Administration. Democracy is still being presented as the sole purveyor of values and God is still on our side.
As more videos show up and the trials of individuals unfold, what is missing from the picture? Answer: the systemic understanding that there are no "bad apples" without a fundamental flaw in the organization, and that half a dozen people can indeed represent the American Government. Others were standing by as apparently silent witnesses; those in immediate command failed to sanction the action of the few; leaders absented themselves from the scene and from the responsibility to know and influence the morality of those who were "serving" duty. The rush of commitment to punish the few caught on film dodges the many questions that are begging attention.
If the values of the armed forces do not sanction this humiliation of prisoners, what accounts for the gap in values that is so evident with these soldiers? Why is it that a soldier stationed back in the States was quoted defending these atrocious acts because "those guys are our enemies"? How many others didn't actually do anything but believe their colleagues' behaviour was justifiable?
For the sake of argument, if indeed these few soldiers do not represent the whole, it is difficult to imagine what is happening in the system that allows them the autonomy to enact something so outside the bounds.
Family and friends of the perpetrators were quick to defend these acts by saying "they were only following orders". What would have to happen to an individual's own morality in order to deliver such inhuman treatment by way of "following orders" - and to do so with a smile?
What the pictures show in stark relief is that good and "evil" (if we must use that word) are not so comfortably distinct as Mr. Bush would have us believe. The lines are blurred - lines that Mr. Bush has devoted his presidency to drawing hard in the sand. Evil if it exists is everywhere. It is in America as much as in Iraq. It is in Canada and the Canadian troops who were also "caught out" a decade ago when a Somali teenager died after being tortured.
If we are to elevate the suffering of the Iraqi victims to a higher purpose, we must be willing to see the true picture: that we are in danger of a most damaging hubris is we believe that we cannot, along with "the other", embody acts of barbarity or a baseness that is outside the realm of basic human dignity. To sit in judgement of the crimes of others without this simultaneous understanding of our own shadow is the basis on which we go to war in the first place. It is also at the root of other abuses of power as well as lesser breaches in ethical behaviour.
The abuse by the individual, the abuse by the corporation, the abuse by government and other systems all involve the same principles. And all are obscured and perpetuated by the pursuit of a simplistic approach to punishing the individual. We can repeat that pattern for eons - and we have. Put Private Lynndie England on trial, assign blame and sanction her and thereby miss the responsibility and culpability of the system within which she operated.
We all live and work in systems where these dynamics are at play. To view them only as relevant to the American Armed Forces is again to draw an artificial line between them and us. If we are to mature morally, it is incumbent on each of us to accept our imperfections even to the point of the "evil" within, tolerate the shame of that, and require more of our institutions, our leaders and ourselves.
The inability to apologize, the spin on American values, the reminder of the "truly corrupt regime" of Saddam Hussein - all these elements point to the dangerous blind spot in the perspectives of President Bush, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and the rest of the American Administration. Democracy is still being presented as the sole purveyor of values and God is still on our side.
As more videos show up and the trials of individuals unfold, what is missing from the picture? Answer: the systemic understanding that there are no "bad apples" without a fundamental flaw in the organization, and that half a dozen people can indeed represent the American Government. Others were standing by as apparently silent witnesses; those in immediate command failed to sanction the action of the few; leaders absented themselves from the scene and from the responsibility to know and influence the morality of those who were "serving" duty. The rush of commitment to punish the few caught on film dodges the many questions that are begging attention.
If the values of the armed forces do not sanction this humiliation of prisoners, what accounts for the gap in values that is so evident with these soldiers? Why is it that a soldier stationed back in the States was quoted defending these atrocious acts because "those guys are our enemies"? How many others didn't actually do anything but believe their colleagues' behaviour was justifiable?
For the sake of argument, if indeed these few soldiers do not represent the whole, it is difficult to imagine what is happening in the system that allows them the autonomy to enact something so outside the bounds.
Family and friends of the perpetrators were quick to defend these acts by saying "they were only following orders". What would have to happen to an individual's own morality in order to deliver such inhuman treatment by way of "following orders" - and to do so with a smile?
What the pictures show in stark relief is that good and "evil" (if we must use that word) are not so comfortably distinct as Mr. Bush would have us believe. The lines are blurred - lines that Mr. Bush has devoted his presidency to drawing hard in the sand. Evil if it exists is everywhere. It is in America as much as in Iraq. It is in Canada and the Canadian troops who were also "caught out" a decade ago when a Somali teenager died after being tortured.
If we are to elevate the suffering of the Iraqi victims to a higher purpose, we must be willing to see the true picture: that we are in danger of a most damaging hubris is we believe that we cannot, along with "the other", embody acts of barbarity or a baseness that is outside the realm of basic human dignity. To sit in judgement of the crimes of others without this simultaneous understanding of our own shadow is the basis on which we go to war in the first place. It is also at the root of other abuses of power as well as lesser breaches in ethical behaviour.
The abuse by the individual, the abuse by the corporation, the abuse by government and other systems all involve the same principles. And all are obscured and perpetuated by the pursuit of a simplistic approach to punishing the individual. We can repeat that pattern for eons - and we have. Put Private Lynndie England on trial, assign blame and sanction her and thereby miss the responsibility and culpability of the system within which she operated.
We all live and work in systems where these dynamics are at play. To view them only as relevant to the American Armed Forces is again to draw an artificial line between them and us. If we are to mature morally, it is incumbent on each of us to accept our imperfections even to the point of the "evil" within, tolerate the shame of that, and require more of our institutions, our leaders and ourselves.
posted by Pat Archer at 7:23 PM
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