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.
