13 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE = Standard reading, June 26, 2008
This review is from: Standard Operating Procedure (Hardcover)
For an American, this is an extremely upsetting book. Actually, for a human being, it is very upsetting, but we Americans have prided ourselves (or at least I was so raised) on being especially civilized, especially humane, and especially respectful of human rights and dignity. Once again, however, we are confronted with our baseness, our inhumanity, our hubris, and our hypocrisy.
I had not followed closely the news as it broke of the atrocities at Abu Ghraib, indelibly and graphically documented via photographs. So STANDARD OPERATING PROCUEDURE is essentially my introduction to yet another disgrace, yet another blot on America's honor. (To cite just one example, which does not figure prominently in the book: how on earth can a decent society condone, much less actually practice on a regular basis, incarcerating ten-year-old children in a vile prison, based not on any suspicion that they were criminals or terrorists, but simply as pawns in the military's effort to capture or break their fathers?)
STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE is reasonably well-written and, from everything I can tell from internal evidence, the product of a scrupulous effort to be objective. And it certainly is sensitive to all aspects -- whether good, bad, or indifferent -- of the personality and character of the central actors.
What the book does not tell us -- something that may well be impossible to ascertain -- is who really is to blame for these atrocities. I am not referring to the everyday political "blame game"; whether or not the war in Iraq was ill-advised and launched with faulty or fictitious intelligence or with unworthy motives, Abu Ghraib cannot be placed solely at the feet of George W. Bush and the rest of his administration. More directly it is the result of staggering and distressing failures somewhere in the Department of Defense and the Army and, broadly speaking, the war organization. And it certainly is a travesty of justice that a few lowly, untrained, ill-equipped, and poorly supervised soldiers have been incarcerated for these incidents (which, given the circumstances and the absence of proper training, facilities, and supervision, were virtually inevitable) while anonymous higher-ups, who are much more responsible, apparently escape both censure and punishment.
The lesson to me is: As long as the United States is one of the military and economic powers in the world, there will be political debates -- legitimate debates -- about whether or not it should undertake military action or intervention. I can only hope that in the future those debates are conducted and the decisions are made honestly and based on information that is as accurate as possible and shared with the American people. (I would think it a bedrock principle of this nation -- so fundamental that it need not even be expressed in our founding documents -- that our elected leaders do not and will not lie to, deceive, or manipulate "we the people".) But if and when we do make the decision to take military action, we need to ensure we do so with a proper organization and properly trained personnel, so that whatever we do in the name of and for the sake of our ideals is in fact done consistent with our ideals. That clearly has been lacking in Iraq and that lack clearly was reflected in the incidents at Abu Ghraib -- to the everlasting shame of this country.
In an ideal (but, I recognize, utopian) world, there would be required reading for all Americans that would include such landmarks as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and King's "I Have a Dream" speech. But it would also include such things as "Without Sanctuary" (a photographic documentary of our shameful history of lynching), something on our treatment of Native Americans and blacks, something on My Lai, and, now, something on Abu Ghraib. To me it seems constructive that as a precondition for voting, people should spend some time pondering how it is that representatives of a democracy with such noble ideals can engage in such ignoble conduct -- supposedly in the name of law and order, democracy, and freedom. STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE would fulfill my hypothetical required reading with regard to Abu Ghraib.
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11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
stunning read, July 2, 2008
This review is from: Standard Operating Procedure (Hardcover)
It is a credit to the prose that a subject so upsetting could become a compelling work of literature, which is what this is. A harrowing descent into hell, a meditation on moral complexity, and a sad indictment of what's become of us. The book manages the genuine trick of compassion, to be astutely objective and subjective simultaneously. This is not only a story of Abu Ghraib, of American hubris, but also of human aspiration and folly. Truly a great war book. Stunning read.
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13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
An Important Book To Read and Digest, September 22, 2008
This review is from: Standard Operating Procedure (Hardcover)
While the general public in this country is somewhat knowledgeable of the prolonged agonies of the ongoing Iraq War, few of us are as acutely aware of the dark cloud of atrocities accompanying that war. Information about the 'progress' and purpose of that war are parceled out by the somewhat restricted media, the more serious and sad aspects of what is actually happening are scrutinized before the media releases that information, leaving us with a generalized anxiety about conditions and prognostications of the conflict that has so little support from the public at present. Too often this 'protective shield' from the facts allows a certain degree of near complacency, and it takes the intermittent release of data such as the unveiling of the atrocities and prisoner abuse at the hands of American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison that surfaced through blogs and magazines and newspapers to startle the public and remind us of the grim aspects that war can drive countries and individuals to perform. Yes, similar startle reaction accompanied the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War and the books and films that followed that event alerted the public of the realities that can happen in wartime. But it takes an important book such as STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE written by Philip Gourevitch with invaluable insights and interviews from co-author Errol Morris who created the film STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE to bring to our careful scrutiny just what is happening and what is possible under the guise of 'protection' in time of war.
Gourevitch wisely divides this book into three sections - 'Before', 'During' and 'After; - which allows the reader to absorb the events leading up to the creation of the Abu Ghraib prison, introducing the people involved in transforming this dank and pungent edifice housing Saddam Hussein's own grim prison and execution house into a 'redesigned' American prison. We meet the contractors, the military personnel from the officers down to the soldiers assigned to guard the detainee prisoners, to the prisoners themselves, and it is this thorough approach to reportage that engenders confidence in the writing and makes every riveting page of this immensely important and terrifying account sear the reader's eye. Photographs, such as those that flooded the blogsites and media for a brief moment a few years ago, can create a visceral impression, but Gourevitch's choice to exclude the visuals from his evaluation of Abu Ghraib and the inhumane atrocities perpetrated by our own soldiers on the prisoners makes his book even more disturbing.
The use of letters home by the soldiers witnessing and taking part in the torture and 'interrogation techniques', letters and interviews supplied by Errol Morris from his research for his documentary film, allow us to hear about the situation first hand. Gourevitch is careful not to press his thumb on the scales that weigh the balance of 'indicated' and 'not indicated' actions and his doing so makes the reading all the more vivid. He allows us to observe how the situation arose, what actually happened there, and the repercussions and cover-up of the full story once the activities within the walls of that now infamous prison leaked out. This is a book that should be read by all citizens of this country (and of all countries who engage in war) to remind us all just how distorted and tested the state of humanity can become when the umbrella of 'war' alters human behavior that at times only retrospection (such as this book supplies) unveils. STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE is an important document and a fascinating, if grim, read. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, September 08
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