Compare and Contrast

Recently, uber-emotionalist Andrew Sullivan caused quite a stir with these comments:

The United States is a rogue nation that practices torture and detainee abuse and does not follow the most basic principles of the Geneva Conventions. It is inviolation of human rights agreements and the U.N. Convention against torture. It is legitimizing torture by every disgusting regime on the planet. This is a policy mandated by the president and his closest advisers. This is the signal being sent from the commander-in-chief to his troops: your enemy can be treated beyond the boundaries of what the U.S. has always abided by. When you next read of an atrocity of war-crime or victim of torture by the U.S., just keep in mind who made this possible. Keep your eyes not just on the troops but on the people giving them the orders. My column on Bush's responsibility can be read here.

The rogue nation comment is quite the heaping dose of hyperbole, however Sullivan does have a pretty basic argument he is getting at. George Bush, Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld are positive advocates for torture. In turn, this policy trickles from them, to our military leadership, and then down to the boots on the ground, manefesting as a license to kill.

Ok, I think I'll do some further investigation before I take Sullivan's slippery slope as gospel, no matter how tearful he is about it. You know, academic integrity and all that goodness. Andrew's view of the matter from Provencetown might be a bit removed from the situation, and since I am in the same boat (i.e. not being in Iraq), maybe it would be good to see a perspective from someone there.

Michael Yon, and independent journalist, has been an embed in Iraq. Contrary to Andrew Sullivan's claim, Yon demonstrates, while backing it up with actual facts from personal observation, that precisely the opposite of what Andrew claims is true:

It is hard to define the context in a place where the enemy regularly tortures and beheads people, and murders children on a daily basis, and this seems to raise scant ire. They can kill a dozen kids, or come to a classroom and murder a teacher in front of young students, and still be called “rebels,” or “freedom fighters.” I call them terrorists. A smart Australian recently told me during an interview that “terrorist” is not a subjective term; after all, terror is their principle weapon, and so the term is accurate.

Accuracy is important to defining context, but so is proportion. When a few of our rogue elements ran wild, creating the Abu Ghraib debacle that we cannot seem to outrun, the story, which is a horrible black mark on our military and our nation, seems to have been put on a permanent loop, albeit one that leaves out most of what might in fact be the most important news of all.

LTC Rodney Morris took me to a detention facility his soldiers operated in Tikrit. Prison and jail guards have told me many times there is one certainty with prisoners: they always complain. In fact, before going to Iraq, I met with a very experienced corrections chief in Massachusetts, Sheriff Thomas Hodgson, and asked him what to look for when snooping out signs of prison abuse or mismanagement. What are the signs? Sheriff Hodgson gave me a long list, and when I visited the detainees in Tikrit, nothing tripped my alarms.

When the prisoners saw my camera (photography was forbidden in the facility), they wanted my undivided attention. And so, in front of American soldiers, those prisoners gave me an earful. Said they didn’t have enough blankets, were cold at night, and did not get enough food. Several of the men who complained about the food were fat. But what those prisoners really told me, indirectly, was that they saw journalists as potential liberators, and even more importantly, that they were not afraid to complain about the soldiers in front of the soldiers. The prisoners knew when I left they would not be taken out and shot. I was there for as long as I wished to stay, asking an interpreter to translate graffiti written on some cell walls. The prisoners had time and possibly even opportunity to slip me a note. None did. But they all complained, complained, complained.

The Abu Ghraib travesty was an example of a journalist picking up the scent trail and following it. It took moral courage to break that story, and yet that writer knew our military would not hunt him down afterwards. The incident was investigated, and perpetrators were charged, tried and punished for their actions. Conditions in the prison greatly improved and methods of training and supervising soldiers who guard detainees were revamped to preclude future incidents. Somehow those parts seem to get left out of most sentences that mention Abu Ghraib. Today, terrorists view Abu Ghraib as an R&R and training destination. Combined with the catch and release policy, the net result is increased danger for our soldiers and Iraqis. I saw a commander get shot down in front of me by a terrorist who had just been released from Abu Ghraib.

We are facing a savage, savage enemy. I have seen with my own eyes how they have murdered children. I have seen our soldiers risking their own lives to safeguard Iraqi children and adults many times. Two occasions leap to mind.

The enemy rammed a car bomb into a Deuce Four Stryker in Mosul while kids were all around. They could have just as easily attacked our men a few blocks away from the kids. Instead, they cruelly wounded 15 children and killed two of them. I saw American soldiers furiously trying to save one little girl named Farah. One American officer, Major Mark Bieger, actually took Farah and her family in his Stryker and raced them all to the hospital. We needed that firepower at the scene in case of follow-on attack — we were in fact attacked there the next day — yet Major Bieger and his section, with permission from LTC Erik Kurilla who was on the scene, raced through the streets of Mosul to the hospital. Unfortunately, Farah died, and on that day some of our soldiers cried.

Much later one of our soldiers, SGT Ben Morton, who was there that day, died because his platoon was controlling their fire. On many missions when I tagged along, the commander would say things like, “Be careful about throwing flash-bangs [grenades without fragments] into rooms. Don’t throw them unless you really have to. Practically every Iraqi house has children, and flash-bangs can kill the small kids.”

There was hot intelligence that some terrorists were in a certain location. I watched part of the mission unfold from the TOC, but had left before Recon platoon hit the house. SGT Ben Morton from Wright, Kansas, who lived just next to me in Mosul, was a fine soldier, a highly respected young man who earned two Bronze Stars with V (for valor) and a purple heart. Ben’s Recon platoon was conducting the hasty raid in Mosul. The intelligence was correct.

Ben was the first up the stairs, and he took four bullets. Only then did his buddies throw flash-bangs and eventually shot down the terrorist who killed Ben. All the Iraqi kids were fine. But Ben Morton died. Soldiers cried that night.

Sounds quite simple. Michael reports that detainees in Iraq, in front of their American captors, openly cried about abuse to him after they noticed his camera. Usually not the best idea when you know you are going to get your face bashed in when the journalist eventually leaves. Not saying this is de facto evidence that the U.S. isn't torturing captured terrorists, but it does seem fishy that these captives were so fearless of their captors.

But the part that is convincing, in a classical sense, is that Michael provides numerous examples of U.S. soldiers going out of their way to avoid hurting or killing civilians, and many times at the cost of their own lives. Repeatedly, not only are soldiers making battlefield decisions to protect civilians, it also seems to tbe in line WITH THEIR ORDERS.

Michael Yon demonstrates with actual first hand accounts that completely refute Sullivan's claims. However, Sullivan is still on the warpath, providing baseless and, quite frankly, borderline traitorous accusations towards the majority of our troops who are on the battlefield and trying to do the job they were sent to do with the integrity demanded of them. But, maybe Sullivan is privy some information that I'm not aware of. Just where on earth is he getting his ideas from?

A reader captures what has been in my mind and gut for the last few days:

The BBC just released a video alleging yet another covered-up massacre of civilians by American personel in Iraq. 5 women, 4 children, and 2 men in Ishaqi in March. Just when I think I'm totally numb, I find out a fellow American may have executed a 6 month-old baby in the name of protecting me, and I can't hold back tears. What country are we in?

The same country that now practices torture. Cheney country.

Seems that the only thing that is in Sullivan's mind is quicksand, and the only thing in his gut are some old achovies that haven't quite digested. Naturally, this leathal combination was validated by an unsubstantiated BBC report.