Abu Ghraib was probably the most damning and graphic expose of the blasé regard for prisoner treatment that western military personel have behind closed doors. The grey area lies in so-called Standard Operating Procedure, the line delineating what constitutes a legal and viable interrogation procedure and plain unlawful treatment of prisoners. Revered documentarian Errol Morris examines this line and the answers it gives are at times unsettling and at others just downright repugnant.
After World War II, the Nuremberg trials established that “just following orders” was not a viable excuse for war crimes. Soon after the US military adjusted the Uniform Code of Military Justice nullifying this defense stating that American military personnel are allowed to refuse unlawful orders (although this still falls under the crime of failing to obey an order, lawful or not). Still the excuse is used by those in the military today. So the question becomes, do you stand up for what is right and stare down the barrel of the gun, or do you do what is wrong even though you know it’s wrong and hope that nobody gets caught? Apparently in this day and age, going along with the crowd and then going to jail whining is better than a shorter sentence for standing up for what’s right. If you ever hated modern society before watching Standard Operating Procedure your opinion will find new depths here.
Eschewing the Michael Moore school of manipulation, Morris opts for a simple straight-to-camera interview technique with all his main subjects, interspersed with the occasional flow chart to put things in context or short dramatic clips of what is being described to break things up. Also punctuating the documentary and lingering in the mind are the photographs. They are a reminder of the true horror of what happened, putting real visuals to go with otherwise dismissable spoken words and occasionally exposing the cracks in the interviewee’s explainations.
Standard Operating Procedure is a difficult 2 hours to sit through. While the majority of soldiers who go and fight in these countries and situations must be saluted for their bravery and courage, the soldiers featured in S.O.P. are a sickening bunch of self-pitying idiots. Blame culture ekes it’s way in to the military painting a picture of “poor me” martyrs instead of responsible military personel. These guys almost completely fail to take any kind of responsibility for their actions of any kind. On the rare occasions they do, the acts are rationalised away with immature and contradictory results. Humiliating prisoners for their own amusement was okay because “at least we weren’t killing them”. “Nobody got hurt” yet later on they describe a cover-up of a prisoner dying under interrogation, of sneaking in to take pictures of the dead body. Standing a guy in a pool of water with wire around his fingers threatening to electrocute him was okay because it was “just words”. One describes how she only took pictures to document what happened, to get it out there what was really going on, and how she faked smiling and didn’t enjoy taking part. Yet the pictures only came out when somebody else got a copy of them and leaked them to the press. Her claims of a human rights crusade while hiding behind excuse after excuse ring false.
That nobody higher up the ranks was punished for what occurred in the prison is made clear and exposing notions of evidence amnesties to try and cover up what happened is pretty damning there is no doubt on this, however, that the higher ranks escaped charge does nothing to lessen to guilt of those directly responsible. Sadly none of the group involved seems to care about this, instead bemoaning spending a year in jail for what they perceive as “doing nothing”. Even the eventual investigation itself, having to be based solely on the photographic evidence results in a shocking number of the pictures you have seen before being branded as lawful S.O.P. As the investigator points out however, when having to take emotion out and deal solely on facts of such a disturbingly fine line, difficult conclusions sometimes have to be drawn.
The overall picture however, is of a group of people sorry because they got caught not sorry because they believed they did wrong, working for a military who just didn’t give a damn what was happening as long as it was suitably brushed under the carpet. That nobody seemed to learn anything from the experience is both disturbing and a damning condemnation of how easily people can justify their own actions to suit their own needs and how easily those at the top can wash their hands of it, offering up just the grunts as media cannon fodder. Those that did get offered up for sacrifice point out that they would face jail either way so what choice was there?
Head Honcho Josh Tyler is a fan of Babylon 5 and despite being a rather geeky sci-fi show it often has some profound things to say about life in it’s monologues, so I found a suitable quote with which to end and perhaps answer the hanging question; “There's always choice. We say there is no choice only to comfort ourselves with the decision we have already made. Now if you understand that, there is hope. If not...”
