No, not Nuremberg - this is Mr. Graner's defense counsel,
at his court martial.
"He was doing his job. Following orders and being praised for it," Mr Womack told the court.
...no one did anything they thought was wrong...
I have said often that we need Truth & Reconciliation in the USA, for slavery, for the indigenous peoples, for things done since here and abroad and the fact that we have always brushed these things under the collective rug of memory is why we keep doing them over again - our denial is part of the cause of our continual cruelty.
Nobody wants to hear this. We're
still the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human beings anyone in the rest of the world ever met in their lives, and they should be grateful to us, no matter what we do or have done or have stood idly by that was done at our request, on our behalf, and in our name...
Mr Womack said tethers were "a valid tool" when dealing not only with prisoners, but also with children. "You've probably been at a mall or airport and seen children on tethers; they're not being abused," he argued.
He said the soldiers took pictures of each other "because no one did anything they thought was wrong".
He was only following orders. It wasn't torture. It was legitmate prison discipline. He's a good man, a hero.
That's the arguments that are being made, and which will be accepted by, I have no doubt any longer, a majority of Americans. Some wholeheartedly, others with fingers in ears, eyes closed, see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak no truth.
And plenty here, even, all over Left Blogistan will still be grasping at straws, willing to accept the few bad apples, the legitimate defense, the "we're not like that, we're not evil," assertion even while others cry in horror, "How did we come to this?" as we hear that the goverment is contemplating [is creating] death squads as it aided in [organized] in the very-recent past.
Read MLK's diaries on Central America, listen to Meteor Blades, we've tried to tell you: there is nothing new under the sun, and Americans are not exceptional, except in our historical hypocrisy, perhaps. Other empires, until Prussia in the last century maybye, have always been more honest about what it was they were doing, and for whose benefit.
Lest We Forget...
"This comrade said, 'Come with me, I'll show you.' I was so shocked that I stood at a distance. The fire was flickering up and the kapo [a prisoner in charge of work details] there told me afterwards details of the burning. And it was terribly disgusting - horrendous. He made fun of the fact that when the bodies started burning they obviously developed gases from the lungs and these bodies seemed to jump up, and the sex parts of the men suddenly became erect in a way that he found laughable."
Gröning was upset by the sights he had seen and went to his boss, an SS lieutenant, and put in a request for a transfer to a front-line unit. "He listened to me and said: 'My dear Gröning, what do you want to do against it? We're all in the same boat. We've given an obligation to accept this - not to even think about it.'"
With the words of his superior ringing in his ears, and his transfer request turned down, Gröning returned to work. He had sworn an oath of loyalty; he believed the Jews were Germany's enemy; and he knew that he could manipulate his life at the camp to avoid encountering the worst of the horror. So he stayed.
Gröning then discovered there were "positive" aspects of working at Auschwitz: "I have to say that many who worked there weren't dull, they were intelligent." When he eventually left the camp, he went with some regrets. "I'd left a circle of friends who I'd got familiar with, I'd got fond of, and that was very difficult. Apart from the fact that there are pigs who fulfil their personal drives - there are such people - the special situation at Auschwitz led to friendships which, I still say today, I think back on with joy."
Now make no mistake, I think Mr. Gröning was, and is, a courageous and yes, conscientious man, at least as much as the American who chose to be shot rather than to go back for another tour of duty in Iraq, and now faces jail for it. True, he was not strong enough - raised as he was, in the "We can do no wrong" atmosphere, the conviction that they alone had been unjustly wronged, of the 30s, how could he be otherwise, with no moral support? But he preferred to risk being killed than this safe berth, chose it twice!) and used alcohol to try to kill the pain of his wounded humanity crying out, unsuccessfully, because when the time came - he again chose combat and likelihood of death, rather than security.
No, he may not see things as clearly as someone like Wolfgang Borchert, another soldier-poet - drafted, not volunteer - who had no hesitation, no rationalizing second thoughts, in his brief post-war life.
But he is now brave enough to speak up, even though he knows it is discreditable to him, for truth and against the perpetuation, the endorsement, of the atrocity. He is not standing idly by the blood of his neighbor today, as those who nowdays justify the Tiger Force atrocities in Vietnam do, for example, in the face of Holocaust Denial.
Are you as brave as Mr. Gröning? Would you, faced with his choices, choose to go into combat rather than to passively witness atrocity? Would you shame yourself, by admitting to it?
Until then, be careful how you say, "We are not like them!"
"Whatever happens is going to happen, but I still feel it's going to be on the positive side and I'm going to have a smile on my face," Spc Graner said last week.
Kathryn Cramer has found a grim article on the phenomenon of how those who are supposed to take care of autistic children find it not only easier, but more satisifying, to use brutal, painful, repressive methods on them, and bask in a moral glow for using these "more effective" training and displinary methods on helpless children who cannot communicate. It's all for their own good, you see.
We both saw the connection, independently.
...Autism equals tragedy, suffering, and doom. Either autistic children are successfully treated through early intensive behaviour interventions or they are condemned to a life of isolation and institutionalization. Autism is incompatible with achievement, intelligence, physical and psychological integrity, dignity, autonomy, and learning: either you are autistic or you have access to these possibilities. Either the autistic gets ABA, and comes to resemble a non-autistic, or the autistic is doomed. Autism equals a nuclear bomb, a stroke, diabetes, a terminal illness, being "riddled with pain from a terrible accident", and again, always, cancer. If you are against ABA then you are for institutionalization. If ABA is criticized then children will be destroyed. Autism is incompatible with humanity: either you are autistic or you are human. If an autistic is deprived of ABA then he will end up being thrown to the floor and sat on by four large attendants in a group home.
Does this not sound like the rationalization for waterboarding recently made in the Wall Street Journal - we must torture those Arabs so we will not have to torture Arab citizens here at home--?
There is no difference between what Ms. Dawson describes, the hurting of autistic children for the saving of their social selves, the US Army hurting Iraqis for the salvation of their country, and the Inquisition hurting heretics for the salvation of their souls, except in degree.
That's how decent, ordinary folks can torture in the day and go home at night and sleep soundly, without qualms of conscience, knowing themselves justified.
How did we fall so far? By deluding ourselves that we were so much higher than our fellow mortals, all along.
There is no such thing as "human progress," there is only each generation, each country, each individual soul's free choice to do right, or to tolerate evil, to take the hard road or the easy.
Artwork inspired by a photograph of the churchgoing Mr. Graner doing what he was not ashamed to do...