As US Republicans and right-wing media outlets have been scrambling to eat humble pie over the last few weeks since the publication of the grotesque Abu Ghraib 'holiday snaps', the Wall Street Journal has managed to excel itself by bucking the trend with an editorial that, quite frankly, beggars belief.
According to the WSJ, 'apart from Iraqi soldiers detained in uniform and certain members of Saddam Hussein's chain of command--most Iraqi detainees are arrested as civilians and fall under the protection not of the Third Geneva Convention but of the Fourth.' This apparently entitles the US, as an occupying power 'to use its discretion within wide parameters to maintain law and order (Article 64), and contains no specific restriction on interrogation, other than saying that "protected persons" not be subjected to "physical or moral coercion" (Article 31). But--note well--protected persons are defined as "persons taking no active part in the hostilities" (Article 3).' In other words, says the WSJ, 'the Geneva Conventions do not speak specifically to the interrogation treatment of non-uniformed Baathist or jihadi guerrillas detained in connection with attacks on U.S. forces or Iraqi civilians ... With that in mind, we'll risk liberal censure and suggest that 45 minutes of uncomfortable posture (the guidelines' limit) and the other techniques ... are certainly appropriate. The U.S. holds some very dangerous people in Iraq, and it's easy to forget that the point of interrogating them is to better protect both U.S. soldiers and the Iraqi civilians that the Geneva Conventions oblige us to safeguard.'
Damn, I feel so stupid now being utterly appalled and sickened by the photographs. If only the WSJ had pointed this out to us earlier we needn't have worried. Seriously, though, as my good friend Vijay Srinivasan pointed out in his unpublished response to the Editor (see below), one minor oversight on the part of the WSJ is the notion of innocence until proven guilty.
An unpublished letter to the Editor of the WSJ by Vijay Srinivasan
This letter is from a common man on the streets of Singapore, who reads your Journal everyday. Of late, I have been reading your editorials, apart from the usual business and financial news, for which your newspaper enjoys undisputed standing around the world.
I was totally taken aback and completely appalled when I read the editorial of your newspaper dated 18th May titled Geneva for demagogues. Of course, your projection of American military supremacy and consistent, unfailing endorsements of the Republican Administration’s hard positions on the war on terror, did not surprise me at all till now. However, trying to justify what happened in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, in the oblique manner that you have tried to, would upset all freedom loving people of this world. You may be right in pointing out the technicalities of the Geneva Conventions, but you have forgotten the spirit of the same.
America has been a beacon of human rights and freedom for a long time, and it still remains as the most favoured destination of would-be immigrants from around the world. However, the strange, unconnected and ill-conceived policies of the Bush administration, post 9/11 and the unjustified war on Iraq, have resulted in creating a poor image of America in most parts of the world. What happened in the Abu Ghraib prison, and what might have happened in Afghanistan and Guantanamo, to prisoners held by the U.S., will, forever remain as a disgrace to American values.
There is an old saying that “if one innocent person is punished by the powers that be, that would lead to the city burning up in flames”. How can your valued newspaper assume that it is alright to treat prisoners held in the above prisons as though they are some animals, not subject to Geneva conventions? How can you be so sure that all the persons held in custody are terrorists? What gives the coalition forces the right to subjugate the prisoners to mean acts and sexual perversion, just because they are the occupying power? Then, what is the difference between the terror tactics used by Saddam Hussein and the coalition?
Personally, I support the war on terror and most people do. But the war in Iraq is not the same as the war on terror. It has no endorsement from the U.N. or the U.N. Security Council. People like me around the world support human values, freedom of the oppressed, and democratic systems. However, millions of them like me are convulsed upon looking at the pictures of prison abuses. Your attempt to isolate the incidents from the military chain of command, and protect the integrity of Donald Rumsfeld, smacks of shameful coverup and blatant misjudgement based just on assumptions and nothing else. How do you explain the fact that after Rumsfeld’s recent visit to Abu Ghraib, a number of prisoners were released?
I would expect a newspaper of your stature to take a position which is unbiased, based on facts and figures, and devoid of any emotions. But, you have failed in that expectation, in adhering to your blinding support of the current policies of the U.S. administration and in trying to justify the unjustifiable prison abuses by the coalition forces. In that sense, you have failed all freedom-loving people, including Americans. I am happy to note that other leading newspapers from America, such as the New York Times and the Washington Post, and many others, still maintain the American value systems in their reporting and editorials. And, I read their websites every day as well.
An article published in the New York Times last week has caused quite a stir. The Oil Crunch by Paul Krugman (reproduced below) makes reference to real reason for the Iraq war; viz. control over oil prices, and how things have backfired somewhat in that there is less security over the supply of oil than ever. The more important point he makes is that attempts to keep oil prices low would have only been temporary anyway because of the rapidly increasing demand for oil in the face of dwindling supplies. The Saudis might argue otherwise, but Krugman concludes that it's time to stop drilling and look for alternatives. (Access to the NYT is password controlled, but registration is free.)
May 7, 2004
OP-ED COLUMNIST
The Oil Crunch
By PAUL KRUGMAN
Before the start of the Iraq war his media empire did so much to promote, Rupert Murdoch explained the payoff: "The greatest thing to come out of this for the world economy, if you could put it that way, would be $20 a barrel for oil." Crude oil prices in New York rose to almost $40 a barrel yesterday, a 13-year high.
Those who expected big economic benefits from the war were, of course, utterly wrong about how things would go in Iraq. But the disastrous occupation is only part of the reason that oil is getting more expensive; the other, which will last even if we somehow find a way out of the quagmire, is the intensifying competition for a limited world oil supply.
Thanks to the mess in Iraq — including a continuing campaign of sabotage against oil pipelines — oil exports have yet to recover to their prewar level, let alone supply the millions of extra barrels each day the optimists imagined. And the fallout from the war has spooked the markets, which now fear terrorist attacks on oil installations in Saudi Arabia, and are starting to worry about radicalization throughout the Middle East. (It has been interesting to watch people who lauded George Bush's leadership in the war on terror come to the belated realization that Mr. Bush has given Osama bin Laden exactly what he wanted.)
Even if things had gone well, however, Iraq couldn't have given us cheap oil for more than a couple of years at most, because the United States and other advanced countries are now competing for oil with the surging economies of Asia.
Oil is a resource in finite supply; no major oil fields have been found since 1976, and experts suspect that there are no more to find. Some analysts argue that world production is already at or near its peak, although most say that technological progress, which allows the further exploitation of known sources like the Canadian tar sands, will allow output to rise for another decade or two. But the date of the physical peak in production isn't the really crucial question.
The question, instead, is when the trend in oil prices will turn decisively upward. That upward turn is inevitable as a growing world economy confronts a resource in limited supply. But when will it happen? Maybe it already has.
I know, of course, that such predictions have been made before, during the energy crisis of the 1970's. But the end of that crisis has been widely misunderstood: prices went down not because the world found new sources of oil, but because it found ways to make do with less.
During the 1980's, oil consumption dropped around the world as the delayed effects of the energy crisis led to the use of more fuel-efficient cars, better insulation in homes and so on. Although economic growth led to a gradual recovery, as late as 1993 world oil consumption was only slightly higher than it had been in 1979. In the United States, oil consumption didn't regain its 1979 level until 1997.
Since then, however, world demand has grown rapidly: the daily world consumption of oil is 12 million barrels higher than it was a decade ago, roughly equal to the combined production of Saudi Arabia and Iran. It turns out that America's love affair with gas guzzlers, shortsighted as it is, is not the main culprit: the big increases in demand have come from booming developing countries. China, in particular, still consumes only 8 percent of the world's oil — but it accounted for 37 percent of the growth in world oil consumption over the last four years.
The collision between rapidly growing world demand and a limited world supply is the reason why the oil market is so vulnerable to jitters. Maybe we'll get through this bad patch, and oil will fall back toward $30 a barrel. But if that happens, it will be only a temporary respite.
In a way it's ironic. Lately we've been hearing a lot about competition from Chinese manufacturing and Indian call centers. But a different kind of competition — the scramble for oil and other resources — poses a much bigger threat to our prosperity.
So what should we be doing? Here's a hint: We can neither drill nor conquer our way out of the problem. Whatever we do, oil prices are going up. What we have to do is adapt.
One of the great advantages of digital photography is that no longer do we need to stuff old photos in a plastic bag, store them in a bottom draw, and resolve to put them in albums some time soon.
Another advantage is that we can distribute these photos to family and friends so much more easily via websites and CDs. So, it seems, can the US militia in Iraq.
Having your photograph taken sitting astride a camel or outside a mosque is one thing. A photographic record of your breaches of the Geneva Convention is a different matter altogether. But let's not kid ourselves here. It is digital photography that is new, not war crimes. In the absence of electronic media, these particular obscenities would likely never have seen the light of day. Like so many similar atrocities that have occurred in war zones all over the world for eons, they would have been covered up and forgotten about.
What is novel about the treatment of the Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib though, is the apparent 'privatisation' of the torture process. I am happy to stand corrected, but this is the first time I can recall private contractors being used to interrogate prisoners or war. The Guardian reported last week, US military in torture scandal, that two US companies, CACI International Inc and the Titan Corporation, have been contracted by the US military, and their involvement in the functioning of Abu Ghraib is being touted as one of the reasons for the non-observance of the Geneva Convention. The question is: does outsourcing a 'business process' [sic] like this absolve the outsourcer of responsibility?
The pronouncements so far from that standard bearer of Western morality, Donald Rumsfeld, would seem to indicate it does. We have been advised that the culprits (the low ranking soldiers) will be punished. One might also surmise that if the two private contractors have been found wanting in terms of the 'quality of their service', they are in danger of not having their contracts renewed. The system itself, it would appear, is not at fault.