|
Torture Works
Qaeda-Iraq Link U.S. Cited Is Tied to Coercion Claim
The Bush administration based a crucial prewar assertion about ties between Iraq and Al Qaeda on detailed statements made by a prisoner while in Egyptian custody who later said he had fabricated them to escape harsh treatment, according to current and former government officials.
The man was renditioned to Egypt, was tortured and testified on Al Qaeda-Iraq links. The professionals did not believe him, but the Cheney administration did use the testimony to justify the Iraq war.
So it did work for them. Too lazy to make up the lies themself I guess.
Too lazy to make up the lies themself I guess.
Yes, and that is a weakness. It shows how much they need group-think, a hierarchical structure, and auto-suggestion. ‘They’ need to really believe (and no doubt many do) or at least to semi-believe in a temporary fashion. At the top, of course, these mechanisms are understood.
So they are very much into interpreting signs and portents (here, one finds a link to religion, various cults, zany belief systems, etc.) and to getting hysterically involved in details – recall the cardboard missiles, the tiny vial of dead botulim, the movable bio labs which were clapped out trucks, the 45 min claim, etc., Atta’s alleged trip to Prague, etc.
It is a peculiar way of interpreting ‘reality’. At the same time, this folderol works, as the public is American too, and follows the same bent: damning details are endlessly dwelled upon, mendaciously re-interpreted, etc. I suppose a very individualistic society is condemned to decode everything as if one was dealing with rowdy, pesky neighbors (Holy bananas, didja see that, they left the broken lawn mover right there in front..) or personal relations (the suspicious husband who watches his wife and convinces himself she is unfaithful..).
When things get serious, reality resists: no WMD were found in Iraq. It doesn’t matter much….or does it? Part of the past, move on, nothing to see here.
In this way, in function of personal aims and interests, friend can turn into foe, or vice-versa, in the space of three weeks. No consistency, loyalty, truth or hard analysis is necessary. Power turns the world into a high school, with its shifting personal loves and hates and mini groups, all rivals playing image games and jockeying for domination, breaking the ‘rules’ whenever they can.
The non-people (prisoners, towel-heads, etc.) thus become fair game or legitimate fodder for anything that can be dreamed up.
The problem with this way of acting is that it is based on the presumption of a setting, a world, which is stable; which adheres to certain clear values, and has self- or other- imposed limits (e.g. the high school), even if these are basically unjust.
When the world is no longer stable (which it is not today) the strategy breaks down, as too much energy must be expended on keeping it as it was.
Disclaimer: No primary anti-Americanism on my part, I am just trying to figure things out; the French in Algeria were horrendous as well, but in a different (and not better!) way..
Posted by: Noisette | Dec 9 2005 17:21 utc | 5
|
