Berg Execution and Abu Ghraib: The Propaganda Wars : Houston Indymedia

Berg Execution and Abu Ghraib: The Propaganda Wars
(Sequel to Saddam Hussein: The Phantom Menace)

The issue here, at least for the moment, is not the torture itself (unacceptable behavior from a democratic nation) but rather the fact and the timing of its being publicized. The torture itself is more or less standard procedure anywhere the US engages in substantial military intervention (see: the controversy surrounding the School Of The Americas, and Operation Phoenix during the US war in Southeast Asia, etc.).

I don't mean that all, or even most US military personnel are involved in torture. I am a veteran, and torture is as abhorrent to many US military personnel as it is to anyone else. But there are segments of the military whose operations are shrouded in tight secrecy and thus invisible to fellow service members. In the 80's I was an infantryman stationed at Ft. Bragg, just down the street from such units as Military Intelligence, Delta Force, Psychological Operations (PsyOps), and Special Forces. My fellow soldiers and I could only rely on rumors as to what these more secretive units were up to.

When people involved in military intelligence, counterintelligence, etc., are going about their jobs, they do NOT do so for benefit of fellow soldiers with cameras and microphones or for any other audience with recording devices. Even in my position as a rifleman in the 82nd Airborne Division, with no security clearance whatsoever, I and my fellow soldiers were constantly going to places for routine training that were prominently marked with signs warning against photographs, drawings, or making any kind of record. These could be seen at our arms rooms, where there was nothing more sensitive than racks full of M-16's being stored, or firing ranges with nothing but trees and target silhouettes. And every time we were briefed about potential hot spots we might be sent to at a moment's notice (such as Haiti), we were warned against sharing the information with anyone else - not even fellow soldiers; not even spouses.

So now we have a commandeered prison in a forward deployment zone in occupied "enemy" territory, where we have extremely sensitive (illegal but almost routine) interrogation procedures taking place, and it seems someone has flung open the barn door and invited all comers to enter with their cameras and document whatever they find interesting. We should pay attention to what Rumsfeld was most shocked and outraged by: not the torture, but the release of the photos into public hands.

Some commentators have pointed out that today's soldiers have personal technology not available in previous wars, such as cell phones and digital cameras. But pocket cameras are all that is needed for this kind of torture revelation, and these have been around for decades - certainly long enough to reveal numerous US military exploits, assuming lax enough operational security.

So who threw open the barn door? Who would have both the motivation and the ability to pull off such a PR attack against the Bush-Rumsfeld camp?

No possible culprits come to mind except the US intelligence community. According to Senate Intelligence Committee chair Pat Roberts, the CIA has had 44 of their people "in and out" of Abu Ghraib over time. I apologize for picking the easy target here: the CIA gets saddled with blame for nearly every theorized conspiracy since the crucifixion of Jesus. But the 1973 Church Committee hearings and the 1984 Iran/Contra hearings show us that the CIA has at least sometimes been at the heart of genuine, indisputable conspiracies. And not only do we know with certainty that the CIA was in a position to gather (or create) all this incriminating evidence at Abu Ghraib, and also in the perfect position to disseminate the evidence, but we further know that the CIA might have the motive for doing so.

On July 11, 2003, George W. Bush publicly blamed the CIA for the "intelligence failures" that Bush & Co. used to justify invading and occupying Iraq. Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet dutifully accepted blame, although one suspects Mr. Tenet had his fingers crossed when he issued his 'mia culpa'. Powell, Rice, and the GOP chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee have also laid blame at the door of the CIA. Last month we saw Ashcroft continue this pattern of finger-pointing before the 9/11 commission, blaming both the CIA and the FBI for the "intelligence failures" used to explain official US inaction before and during the September 11, 2001 attacks.

Yet on Feb 5 of this year, DCI Tenet declared in a speech at Georgetown University that the CIA never said there was an imminent threat. And leading up to the invasion, Tenet issued a letter to Congress stating that only if the US attacked Iraq would Iraq be likely to use its WMD's - an assessment which, although intuitively sensible, ran counter to everything the Bush administration ever said about the dangers posed by Saddam's regime.

So when Bush & Co. publicly shirked responsibility for its own decisions by blaming the CIA for an agenda that the neoconservatives had been pushing all along (see: Project for a New American Century), how many of us thought in the backs of our minds, as one internet blogger said: "sit back and watch the torrent of leaks and counterattacks from within and outside of the Agency." Of course, us long-time conspiracy watchers know that the bad luck that befalls those who cross swords with the CIA can often take forms far more disturbing than "leaks and counterattacks".

Although Bush supporters believe that the neoconservative agenda is good for national security, the CIA knows better. There is a split between the petro-military-fundamentalist-neocon-right wing who believe in "peace through superior firepower" and "kill them all and let God sort 'em" on the one hand, and civilian intelligence types like the CIA on the other. You might be surprised to know that the CIA is considered "liberal" by superpatriot types. And in this regard, the CIA is not alone. Not all of the ruling class is so supportive of an ultra-belligerent foreign policy. Most business leaders like stability, predictability, and security. When an administration pursues a Hitler-esque policy of military aggression, resulting in skyrocketing anti-US sentiment around the world, as well as nationwide increases in opposition activity including demonstrations and boycotts on a scale unseen since Vietnam, our nation's business interests are likely to take notice. They are likely to support a change of US administration that will continue to pursue the same neocolonial foreign policies but with a much more diplomatic touch - a kinder, gentler approach specifically advocated by former Director of Intelligence, George Herbert Walker Bush, during his son's build up for the invasion of Iraq.

There are two particularly interesting threads to follow from here. One is a New Yorker article by Seymore Hersh at http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/ in which we learn that the goings-on at Abu Ghraib were part of a Pentagon operation using such methods of torture. "A senior C.I.A. official, in confirming the details of this account last week, said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld’s long-standing desire to wrest control of America’s clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A." The other thread to follow is the series of peculiarities surrounding the execution of Nick Berg. If you will browse the following articles, for example:
http://aztlan.net/fake_video.htm
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=94&contentid=1237.
http://www.chronwatch.com/content/contentDisplay.asp?aid=7391
http://www.nj.com/news/ledger/index.ssf?/base/news-15/1084428623228340.xml
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/gregory.php?articleid=2582
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_7655.shtml
http://www.muslimwakeup.com/archives/000809.php
...you might find support for the idea that the release of the infamous execution video, if not the creation of the video itself, was a Pentagon-sponsored public relations operation aimed at minimizing the damage done by the Abu Ghraib torture photos. One might conclude that the public has been given a front row seat to a propaganda war between the Bush-Rumsfeld neoconservatives on one side and the CIA neoliberals on the other. At stake is the 2004 presidency, and possibly (and far more importantly) the duration of the continued US occupation of the Middle East. The conflict underlying the propaganda wars is the question of just exactly how recklessly the US will continue its pursuit of global hegemony. Meanwhile, the torture and deaths of civilians and soldiers, be they American or Iraqi, and the elevated threat of terrorism, are merely "collateral" issues.

(Credit to the gang at anarchy-list@lists.village.virginia.edu for ongoing discussion of the Berg case.)

Mark Waller
Houston