prisoner abuse in a process perspective...
by John B. Cobb, Jr.
The Center for Process
Studies is not a political organization. However, we promote the view that
process thought is relevant to many issues. Accordingly, it seems
appropriate for process thinkers to speak their minds as process thinkers,
recognizing that others in the process community may not agree.
All of us here at the Claremont
Center
opposed the invasion of
Iraq. Among the reasons were that we saw the invasion as part of the American
political and economic imperialism we oppose, that we believe unnecessary
violence to be profoundly evil, that we resent being lied to by our
leaders and the media, and that, bad as Hussein was, we did not think that
our conquest of Iraq would have positive results there. We have seen no
reason to change our minds on any of these points.
Currently, the last of these reasons is gaining increasing
recognition. The most dramatic event is the publication of pictures of our
abuse of prisoners. Just as in this country police brutality becomes a
public issue only when it is caught on camera and shown on television, so
also our treatment of prisoners of war, including the war on terror,
becomes a public issue only when we see the pictures. Obviously, the vast
majority of abuses of all kinds are not captured on camera. Hence the
official response is often to argue that what we see are isolated cases
showing only that there are a few bad apples mixed in with the many good
ones. Once these few are dealt with, the broader problem is once again
ignored.
Is there anything distinctive about a process understanding of what
is happening? I doubt that there is anything unique. But the process model
does give a clear picture of how we should approach the question of
responsibility, and it is worthwhile speaking about this.
The model is summarized by Whitehead as "the many become one
and are increased by one." Each moment of human experience is largely
the product of its context and past. But no moment is wholly determined by
that context and past. Sometimes we emphasize one side of this; sometimes
the other.
Against
determinists, including social determinists, it is important to emphasize
that each individual in each occasion of her or his life bears some
responsibility for what she or he becomes. That means that the soldiers
caught on tape abusing Iraqi prisoners do bear some responsibility for
what they have done. We approve their trial.
However, in this case, it is more important to emphasize how
extensively human behavior is determined by context. The soldiers caught
on tape, and the many other soldiers who act abusively in one way or
another, are products of military culture. Military training in general is
more about enculturation than about skill in the use of equipment or in
the performance of particular roles.
Two features of this enculturation are particularly important. One
is the subordination of individual judgment, including moral judgment, to
obedience to commands. No modern army can perform its assigned role
without this deeply engrained habit of obedience. The second is the
desensitization to taboos against physically injuring others, including,
of course, killing them. This desensitization is targeted. The soldier is
taught that it is good to injure and kill "bad" people. The
"bad" people are, of course, the ones that the commanding
authorities have ordained that we should fight. Obviously, this
socialization is facilitated by deep-seated human tendencies to divide the
world into "us" and "them" and to view
"them" as enemies without humanly redeeming features. But
further indoctrination, and bayonet and target practice, often directed at
figures clearly representing those now affirmed to be the enemy, are
needed to turn ordinary people into enthusiastic killers.
I am not criticizing the military for this program of
enculturation. If a nation must fight, it is likely to do so more
successfully if it reshapes its troops in these ways. But the necessity of
destructive reprogramming of its citizens is one more reason for making
every effort to avoid the need for war and for a large military force.
Enculturating soldiers by dehumanizing the enemy works against
their effectiveness in nation building. Once one has learned that a
particular people are evil and subhuman, it is difficult quickly to shift
one's mindset so as to treat them with respect. Many manage to make this
change, but that some continue to view the people of the occupied land as
enemies should not surprise us. When, among these people, many are
continuing to resist the occupation and to kill the occupying soldiers,
the transition to a positive attitude is difficult indeed. What is
surprising is that those in position to treat the people they have been
taught to fight have abused them as little as they have.
Of course, those in command have the responsibility to hold these
abusive tendencies in check and to reprogram the troops. But consider
their goals. They want to protect their troops and suppress resistance.
Especially where violent resistance comes from many quarters, it can be
suppressed only with a great deal of information. Our troops capture some
of those who possess relevant information. Obviously, our goals can be
better pursued if we extract this information from these prisoners. Which
is more important, protecting our troops and suppressing the insurrection
or respecting the human rights of a few prisoners? Military commanders are
trained primarily to take those actions needed to fulfill their missions.
They are not selected primarily for their deep sensitivity to the human
rights of their enemies, and their socialization does not encourage that
sensitivity. That some of these officers create a climate in which those
under them feel free to do whatever it takes to get the desired
information is not surprising.
Those who wish to limit the horrors of war and the treatment of
prisoners have worked for, and established, international treaties. These
have had some effectiveness. This effectiveness depends on strong emphasis
from the top on strict adherence to these agreements. Our administration
has, especially since Sept. 11, belittled international organizations and
international treaties, substituting our own moral character and
judgments. These judgments will almost inevitably place the extraction of
information above the decent treatment of prisoners.
Once the
United States determined that it was engaged in a global war against terror and decided
that it would fight this war on its own terms, abuses of the sort that now
so appall us were an inevitable outcome. We may be sure that the ones of
which we become aware not isolated cases or the worst of these abuses. The
situation is exacerbated when the War on Terror is integrated into the
grand imperial design of our nation.
I have already said that from the point of view of process thought,
there is moral culpability on the part of those individuals who abuse
prisoners. There is moral culpability on the part of their local
superiors. There is a larger moral culpability on the part of those who
belittle international treaties and commitments.
But the deeper moral issue is that of basic national policy. If we
want to pursue American economic and political empire, the price will be
the creation of a global system in which American atrocities will multiply
exponentially. Indeed, in many places we will find that we, like Saddam,
can only prevent popular terrorism by using state terrorism. In the past,
we have trained our Latin American allies in such terrorism and supported
them in its exercise. Americans could learn much about the nature and
practice of the imperialist enterprise by examining our role in
Latin America
.
If we want a world in which the
United
States
can retain some of its moral ideals in the way it deals with other peoples
and in which its promotion of democracy and human rights can be by example
rather than by compulsion, then we need to shift direction quite sharply.
Such a world would depend on strengthening international organizations,
signing and following international treaties, and using our leadership to
develop collective security and collective, international ways of
responding to local crises. This would not lead to utopia, but it would
greatly reduce the pressure to dehumanize our enemies and, thereby, to
dehumanize ourselves.
