WASHINGTON, D.C. (5/17) - Every day more and more the questions about the Iraqi detainee abuse scandal center on the leadership that allowed, condoned and created the abuse. New Yorker and Newsweek investigations published this week create concerns by many about whether the abuse was condoned from the top down, rather than the result of renegade acts of a few bad apple MPs.

Evidence of a secret strategy to avoid the Geneva Convention is emerging. This secret plan which included sexual humiliation was, according to the New Yorker and Newsweek, known to George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld. Apparently, the tragedy to do what had to be done to get information was justified by the Bush administration on the basis that the "war against terrorism is a new kind of war" that requires a "new paradigm render[ing] obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners." Bush and Rumsfeld approved the secret plan, over objections by the State Department  and requests to reconsider the new policy.

Despite administration claims of moral clarity in a messianic mission to rid the world of evil and impose democracy by military force, it must be asked, is the US sacrificing its principles and becoming that which it says it is fighting? Many would argue that it is not America, but, rather the renegade acts of a few who have gained control of the farm.

Are we in George Orwell's Animal Farm?  Orwell wrote it as a parable about the Russian Revolution, as an example of how a revolutionary government could be worse than its monarchist predecessor. The key lesson of Animal Farm is that the organization's bosses often manipulate the organization for their own benefit, and end up being as bad, if not worse, than the real or imaginary evils from which they are protecting their followers. When the pigs took over they began to justify why they were different and needed special treatment.  In the end they committed worse acts than the people they replaced.

Messianic mission and secrecy

What makes the Abu Ghraid detainee abuse so bad for Bush is that Bush sets himself up as a good Christian law abiding man that provides trusted principled leadership. He has betrayed that illusion and America by taking actions and failing to act, under circumstances that would lead one to believe he and his administration think they are above the law because of their noble mission.

Their hubris about their moral clarity justifies the means to their ends. Their good versus evil crusade creates self serving justifications that permit them to do evil for the sake of destroying evil.  This is what Orwell was trying to get across. When one gets in a position of power they justify why taking actions that they criticized other for is needed.   

Abu Ghraid may expose Bush for what he is - a man who will do anything and say anything to fulfill his secret agendas and a man that thinks he is above the law and truth because his is on a messianic mission to provide "God's gift of democracy." 

Bush has received bi-partisan criticism for his lofty goals. For example, Senator Pat Roberts (R), Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, recently stated, "In fighting the global war against terrorism ...we need to restrain what are growing U.S. messianic instincts -- a sort of global social engineering where the United States feels it is both entitled and obligated to promote democracy -- by force, if necessary." While stressing U.S. willingness "to use force unilaterally if necessary," he called it "time for some hard-headed assessment of American interests."

Another criticism of the Bush administration has been its secrecy. John Dean's book "Worse than Watergate" tabs the Bush secrecy as a threat to democracy itself.

This secrecy lead to war with Iraq. There were attempts to quell opposition to the war with, contentions that they knew more than they could tell (for security reasons) and the assertion of misstatements about what they actually knew (the aluminum tubes, batteries, mobile labs, Nigerian uranium, hundreds of tons of chemical weapons, alliance with al Qaeda, etc.), that led us to war in Iraq. The secrecy and deception of the Bush administration appear to be policy.

The combination of a messianic mission and secrecy are root causes and drivers for the policies that lead to the Iraqi detainee abuse scandal.

Approval of sexual humiliation

Although Bush and Rumsfeld admit they knew of the abuse, they have not been open about the extent of their involvement in creating the circumstances that lead to the abuse. The evidence is building.

Seymour Hersh’s article “The Gray Zone,” published on May 15 by the New Yorker, reveals how Rumsfeld, assisted by his Undersecretary for Intelligence Stephen Cambone, set up a secret program to assassinate targeted individuals in the Bush administration’s “war on terror.” This program was later extended to the interrogation of prisoners captured in Afghanistan and Iraq. According to Hersh, the program “encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq.”

An article in the May 24 issue of Newsweek, titled “The Roots of Torture,” has revealed the bitter internal disputes triggered in the US government by the Bush administration’s decision to discard the Geneva Conventions and foster a general atmosphere of lawlessness with regards to detainees held by the US.

Newsweek quotes a January 25, 2002 memo by White House counsel Alberto Gonzales to President Bush, advocating scrapping the Geneva Conventions so as to shield US officials from prosecution for war crimes during the “war on terror.” Gonzales wrote: “As you have said, the war on terrorism is a new kind of war. [...] In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva’s strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions.”

President Bush approved a policy that the Geneva Convention wouldn't apply to suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters held in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.  When the war in Iraq started to go badly, Rumsfeld extended
these aggressive interrogation policies to Iraqi prisons.   According to the current issue of Newsweek,

"It was an approach that they adopted to sidestep the historical   safeguards of the Geneva Conventions, which protect the rights of  detainees and prisoners of war.  In doing so, they overrode the objections of Secretary of State Colin Powell and America's top military lawyers - and they left underlings to sweat the details of what actually happened to prisoners in these lawless places.  While no one deliberately authorized outright torture, these techniques  entailed a systematic softening up of prisoners through isolation, privations, insults, threats and humiliation - methods that the Red Cross concluded were 'tantamount to torture.'"

These reports are consistent with admissions made by Rumsfeld  in hearing before Congress. According to Rumsfeld, the idea of "softening up, was not intended to permit the type of conduct which resulted. However, the Taguba report found "that contrary to the provision of AR 190-8, and the findings found in MG Ryder’s Report, Military Intelligence (MI) interrogators and other US Government Agency’s (OGA) interrogators actively requested that MP guards set physical and mental conditions for favorable interrogation of witnesses." Setting the conditions for exploitation, may have sent the wrong message when taken with language like "soften up."

Geneva Convention and war crimes

The Geneva Convention of 1949 prevents physical and mental torture. Yet, Bush justifies why his war on terror places his administration above that law. The rape, murder, some of the interrogation tactics used by the U.S., and detaining people without charges for over six months are clear violations of the Geneva Convention. But, the Bush administration will argue, a noble mission justifies the conduct.

In Animal Farm the animals had a clear standard to determine good and bad.  "Four legs good, two legs baaad!" The policies of the Bush administration as well as its actions are similar, clear lines of demarcation - good and evil - and justification for why their actions are proper based upon their perceived need to do what they do. Under the guise of protecting America, they are destroying the principles for which we stand. Is this a defense to war crimes? Some think we should find out.

According to Newsweek, "The White House's top lawyer warned more than two years ago that U.S. officials could be prosecuted for "war crimes" as a result of new and unorthodox measures used by the Bush administration in the war on terrorism, according to an internal White House memo and interviews with participants in the debate over the issue."

When we stoop to tactics which our principles abhor, we have lost the ideals for which we stand. Noble purpose which goes beyond the law is no defense. Although Kevorkian participated in assisted suicide mercy killings, he sits in jail because it was against the law. He may have meant well but the law is the law. No one should be above it.