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Remorse vs. Shamelessness
Created: 18.05.2004 13:05 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 13:46 MSK, 1 hour 1 minute ago
Natalia Gevorkyan
Gazeta.ru
“Your US Army is loathsome. There they are, the rescuers of mankind. Look at them pulling a miserable Iraqi prisoner by the collar. Scum and rapists! Now the whole world knows the truth. Democrats, damn them!” this is roughly how the Russians and French alike are savoring the prisoner abuse scandal that has flared up in Iraq.
It seems that quite a few people had been waiting for something like this and it has eventually happened. Now there is something for which America can be censured — Americans are not harmless lambs; they are vermin and fiends.
Apparently, certain individuals now feel better for some reason.
The pictures of Iraqi prisoners tortured and humiliated by the US troops in Abu Ghraib prison are, indeed, appalling. The Pentagon, meanwhile, claims it had launched a probe into abuses in the Iraqi prison long before the information leak.
Moreover, more evidence is being brought to light. All the shocking pictures have been published. The report on the facts of prisoner abuse first drawn up several months ago, judging by the date indicated on it, is proof in itself.
The top brass, including Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, are questioned painstakingly by a Congress commission in public before the eyes of the whole world.
Remorse without delay — something that is quite a rarity among those who now take such pleasure in lambasting Americans.
Rumsfeld publicly takes the blame without hiding behind the backs of American Budanovs. He admits that had all the pictures that he had seen been published, the shock would have been even greater. And he says this not 50 years after the Iraqi operation, but at the height of the war when the coffins of US troops killed in action are still being brought home to the US.
The US military are not ashamed of being ashamed. The American nation feels the shame but still covers the evolving scandal. No closed hearings. Direct questions, direct answers, horrifying pictures — for the whole world to hear and see.
All this is done to prevent such abuses in the future, to forestall the development of the Vietnam syndrome. All those guilty are called to account without delay and with publicly. A spade is called a spade. Not a single senator even uttered the slightest word of support to the US troops involved in the scandal.
That ability to repent in public without delay is amazing. And, I am convinced, in the long run it will help the nation and its army save face and end the military campaign with honor.
The French, who readily moralize on the subject of US and British troops in Iraq, have still not brought themselves to admit their guilt for abuses committed during the Algeria campaign or World War II. When one of the French generals confessed in old age to having tortured prisoners in Algeria and recounted in detail to which parts of the prisoners he used to attach the electric wires, France winced in disgust and tried to forget his confession as quickly as possible.
While reacting with an attack on the morals of US servicemen following the revelations of atrocities in Iraq, Russia was acquitting its own intelligence agents of murdering a group of peaceful Chechens in cold blood.
Which Geneva Conventions does the Russian military abide by in Chechnya? Ask those who were held in custody in Chechen filtration camps and remand centers. Ask Andrei Babitsky, the Radio Liberty correspondent, who saw it all with his own eyes.
That is why no Babitsky will ever be allowed into Chechnya again. And no Russian defense minister will ever claim responsibility for what his soldiers are doing in Chechnya. And no senators will ever pose inconvenient questions, especially in front of the cameras. And fifty years later we will be playing down the Chechen problem just as the French are playing down Algeria today.
We are incapable of remorse altogether. If we could repent we would be living in a totally different country today, ruled by a totally different person. And now we are green with envy of the Americans who have learned to pull out a rusty nail from the wound so as to prevent the blood from poisoning. That’s because they learn their lessons of history well.
How do we treat our prisoners in Russia? No, not the adversaries, not those who shoot and hit their targets, but the ordinary prisoners. Take a look at the latest footage of the session of the Basmanny Court in Moscow once again extending the term of pre-trial detention for Mikhail Khodorkovsky, the former Yukos CEO, and everything will become clear.
To humiliate an Iraqi soldier, held captive in Abu Ghraib, it is enough to make him wear women’s lingerie. This does not hurt, but is terribly humiliating. He will never complain about it, never sue his tormentors, because if he ever mentions the incident, he will never be considered a man again.
This is quite a subtle way of harassment with the goal of making a prisoner obedient; to break him, destroy his dignity.
Why, do you think a person who has not killed anyone, not eaten anyone alive, whose guilt — of an economic, not violent, crime! — is yet to be established, is placed in a cage — a disgrace for any civilized society — on a screen installed in the courtroom?
It is fun to humiliate the oligarch. Let the billionaire writhe in the cage. We will not only keep him behind bars pending trial, we will also humiliate him as long as he is in our hands.
The shamelessness of society will sooner or later backfire. The society that feels remorse and is able to repent will overcome everything. I am writing this with great respect towards the Americans and with a feeling of deep sorrow for my own homeland, that never ever repents.
"The power to Destroy the planet, is insignifigant to the power of the Air Force----Mudd Vader
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