Op-Ed Column: Timing Is Everything

While politicians and pundits debated the efficacy of surging U.S. forces in Iraq, conspicuously absent from the proceedings was the timing of George W. Bush’s announcement. His address conveniently hit the airwaves on the eve of the fifth anniversary that Guantanamo Bay prison camp opened for business.

This grim specter, the stain of Guantanamo - a symbol along with Abu Ghraib of the feckless, criminal and cruel prosecution of this war - coinciding with this new push to fulfill Dick Cheney’s midterm election promise to continue “full speed ahead” was lost on the mainstream media. As was, more importantly, the deft timing of Bush’s speech.

Choosing Wednesday night to announce the troop surge guaranteed it would dominate the next day’s news cycle and continue to suck all the oxygen out of newsrooms for days to come, keeping Guantanamo off the radar. Like most of this administration’s media manipulations, it was wildly successful. (Unfortunately, it’s the one thing at which this White House excels.) News of Guantanamo’s anniversary, which included protests at home and around the world, remained on the extreme periphery.

Never mind that 395 men are still being held in Guantanamo who’ve yet to be charged with a crime. Never mind that suicide is a growing problem. Never mind that more detainees are joining the hunger strike. Never mind that the forced feeding perpetrated on hunger-striking detainees constitutes torture and is intended to inflict great pain in an effort to deter them from refusing food. Never mind that torture techniques such as waterboarding – borne of the Spanish Inquisition and practiced by the Gestapo - is permitted there. There where journalists remain restricted to carefully orchestrated chaperoned tours by the prison’s officials.

Never mind that 75% of Americans think Bush should have to secure Congressional approval before sending any more troops to Iraq.

We know torture doesn’t work. We know that anyone in extreme agony will say anything. Psychologists, historians, military officials, CIA agents, journalists and former POWs all have long confirmed this. We recognize it’s morally wrong. We acknowledge it’s a clear breach of the Geneva Conventions. As the denial of habeas corpus is a clear breach of our Constitution.

But what binds Guantanamo’s fifth anniversary and The Decider's decision to consign 20,000 additional young Americans to his bloody fiasco is also something we know too well: Practicing torture is the surest way to put our own troops in danger of being mistreated when they fall behind enemy lines. It is one of the main reasons why the Geneva Conventions were created in the first place. Bush’s complete disregard of this principle speaks volumes about his concern for human life, Iraqi or American.

Yet, just as torture is counterintuitive, so, too, is a troop surge to quell a sectarian war and ready Iraqi troops to fend for themselves. General George Casey knew it. General John Abizaid knew it. That’s why they’re out and General William J. Fallon and General David Petraeus are in. Casey and Abizaid were well aware that there has already been four prior troop surges, none of which led to sustainable gains against the insurgency. Thanks to deficient reporting, many Americans have been led to think just what the administration wants them to - that this surge is a "new direction" in Iraq. But like almost everything related to this war, it is a sham. A calculated misdirection. 

So, left adrift in the mad abattoir of Iraq, more of our troops will die. Driven to despair and psychosis, more tortured detainees will commit suicide. As will our troops. Another topic our media treats like kryptonite. In fact, suicide rates among our soldiers have grown steadily since the 2003 invasion. We even know of at least one soldier, the third American female to die during the war, that committed suicide in reaction to witnessing the torture of detainees. 

The day after our president announced his plan to send 20,000 more troops to Iraq, he just happened to award the Medal of Honor to Corporal Jason L. Dunham; Dunham was killed in 2004 when he jumped on a grenade to save his fellow soldiers. During the ceremony, Bush, hardly known for his empathy, shed a widely photographed and incredibly timely tear. The Random House definition of “crocodile tears” is “a hypocritical show of sorrow.” An apt summation of Bush’s opportune weepiness.

Noting first that the majority of Americans sacrificing their lives for this war hail from depressed small towns, columnist Tom Engelhardt writes of Bush's plan: “Today, in our civilized world, we are shocked when we read of the bloody rites, the human sacrifices, of the Aztecs whose priests ripped hearts, still beating, from human chests to appease their bloodthirsty gods. These were, of course, the hearts of captives. In all his fervor, George W. Bush looks ever more like an American high priest who, for his own bloody gods, is similarly ripping hearts from the chests of the living. Make no mistake, in his speech last night, he was offering up human sacrifices from the captive villages and towns of the United States on the altar of blind faith and pure, abysmal folly.”

These human sacrifices must end. Guantanamo must close. Our troops must come home.

It’s high time we put a fork in this national nightmare. And take the knife out of George W. Bush’s hand. 

Comments

[MediaBloodhound]

Timing Is Everything

[scuttle]

Amen. Amen. Amen.

You have covered all the ground and turned up new turf as well. Hound: possibly your best ever. It's great that public opinion has turned against the war and the Dems took back Congress, but in spite of all that, the Bush White House is continuing its evil ways. Every voice of opposition is needed. Thanks for focusing on this.

Just as we in the U.S. sit back in judgment and question how people could stay silent during the Holocaust, Cambodia, Rwanda and Darfur, we seem to be pretty blase ourselves as our "President"/butcher sends more men and women into the meat grinder formerly known as Iraq. Human sacrifices indeed.

[MediaBloodhound]

Thanks for your kind words. And major props to Tom Engelhardt. If you haven't read his article, please do. It's brilliant. And definitely inspired me in writing this.