Sunday, May 09, 2004
Abu Ghraib torture: The fog machine
Hersh drops the other shoe. Read "Chain of Command".
Eesh. Setting dogs loose on the prisoners. And taking photographs was a standard part of the process of dehumanization.
Reading Hersh, it looks to me like there's no smoking gun issue, but I think it's a "fog machine" issue, not a smoking gun issue.
It's no coincidence that the chain of command that led to the torture was chaotic; the chaos would be a matter of policy, intended to produce exactly the behavior it did produce, with plausible deniability built in. Standard operating procedure for Bush. The fog machine was deliberately built to replace the chain of command.
The intelligence produced by the fog machine would from from civilian contractors/military intelligence people out of uniform to.... Where? Nobody will say. My guess, FWIW, is that information flows through operatives at the RNC/CPA right to the West Wing (that is, it's Iran-Contra all over again, just a thousand times worse).
I'm guessing that the workings of the fog machine that has replaced the chain of command, in both Afghanistan, Iraq, and probably Gitmo, have a distinctive feature: What historian Ian Kershaw's calls "working toward the fuhrer". For example, wasn't necessary for Hitler to issue specific orders for the final solution, since all his supporters knew what He wanted anyhow. It was Hitler's executive style to leave the details to others, and as a result there are very few of his fingerprints on policy.
In consequence, it's highly unlikely that there are orders for torture flowing down from the West Wing; with the chain of command replaced by the fog machine, specific orders would not be needed. It's highly probable, however, that information—in the form of digital photos, interrogation reports, perhaps voice—flowed up to the West Wing and is stored there, even today. Over the top? Think: It seems that the abuses, though present since Afghanistan, became much worse during the hunt for Saddam. Can anyone seriously believe that interrogation results, and methods, for the Saddam hunt didn't flow up to the West Wing?[1]
Nacht und nebel ... In my own country.
Oh, and not to make anyone seriously paranoid, but the fog machine principle of "working toward the fuhrer" would be quite easy to implement in the multi-level marketing scheme that Rove has set up for the 2004 campaign. Eh? If that structure becomes any sort of "permanent campaign."
Notes
[1]It would be interesting to see if an enterprising defense lawyer—perhaps even a brave Army lawyer at the show trials about to take place in Baghdad—could work out a way to subpoena such information, perhaps before an international court.
Eesh. Setting dogs loose on the prisoners. And taking photographs was a standard part of the process of dehumanization.
Reading Hersh, it looks to me like there's no smoking gun issue, but I think it's a "fog machine" issue, not a smoking gun issue.
It's no coincidence that the chain of command that led to the torture was chaotic; the chaos would be a matter of policy, intended to produce exactly the behavior it did produce, with plausible deniability built in. Standard operating procedure for Bush. The fog machine was deliberately built to replace the chain of command.
The intelligence produced by the fog machine would from from civilian contractors/military intelligence people out of uniform to.... Where? Nobody will say. My guess, FWIW, is that information flows through operatives at the RNC/CPA right to the West Wing (that is, it's Iran-Contra all over again, just a thousand times worse).
I'm guessing that the workings of the fog machine that has replaced the chain of command, in both Afghanistan, Iraq, and probably Gitmo, have a distinctive feature: What historian Ian Kershaw's calls "working toward the fuhrer". For example, wasn't necessary for Hitler to issue specific orders for the final solution, since all his supporters knew what He wanted anyhow. It was Hitler's executive style to leave the details to others, and as a result there are very few of his fingerprints on policy.
In consequence, it's highly unlikely that there are orders for torture flowing down from the West Wing; with the chain of command replaced by the fog machine, specific orders would not be needed. It's highly probable, however, that information—in the form of digital photos, interrogation reports, perhaps voice—flowed up to the West Wing and is stored there, even today. Over the top? Think: It seems that the abuses, though present since Afghanistan, became much worse during the hunt for Saddam. Can anyone seriously believe that interrogation results, and methods, for the Saddam hunt didn't flow up to the West Wing?[1]
Nacht und nebel ... In my own country.
Oh, and not to make anyone seriously paranoid, but the fog machine principle of "working toward the fuhrer" would be quite easy to implement in the multi-level marketing scheme that Rove has set up for the 2004 campaign. Eh? If that structure becomes any sort of "permanent campaign."
Notes
[1]It would be interesting to see if an enterprising defense lawyer—perhaps even a brave Army lawyer at the show trials about to take place in Baghdad—could work out a way to subpoena such information, perhaps before an international court.
