March 15, 2006
Remember those big headlines last week
about Abu Ghraib? According to the media splash, the US was
preparing to close those notorious chambers within three months.
That would mean by June 2006. Well, guess what? Those stories
were just another piece of disinformation. According to the
US Department of Defense news service DefenseLink, "News
reports that the U.S. military intends to close Abu Ghraib within
the next few months and to transfer its prisoners to other jails
are inaccurate."
Like everything else in Iraq,
the actual timetable for any closure of the prison will be based
on "the readiness of Iraq's security forces to assume control
of them" and some kind of infrastructure improvements at
other facilities. (DefenseLink 3/12/06) If previous reality
holds true in this instance, that means that the Abu Ghraib facility
will not be closing any time soon. Just like the reports of
soon-to-come troop withdrawals rumored every few months, the
stories of the closure of Abu Ghraib are just one more part of
the government's attempts to keep us hopefully confused. Whether
the media's intention is to deceive or clarify by reporting these
statements, the objective reality is the former.
Once again, it becomes clear
that the only way the troops will come home alive is by consistent
and loud popular demand. Polls showing that most Americans favor
such a withdrawal are obviously not enough. Neither are votes
for antiwar legislators. More is needed.
Of course, if one listens to
Alexander Haig and Henry Kissinger--two architects of the last
major US foreign disaster in Vietnam--they might think that the
only way to get out of Iraq is by blowing the country and its
inhabitants to hell. Indeed, Mr. Haig, who was a general, Secretary
of State under Reagan, and an advisor to Richard Nixon (even
serving as his Chief of Staff during the final months of Nixon's
presidency), told an audience of a conference on the Vietnam
War at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum, ``Every
asset of the nation must be applied to the conflict to bring
about a quick and successful outcome, or don't do it."
This is from a man, who helped engineer (among other things)
the Christmas bombings of 1972, the mining of Haiphong harbor
and the bombing of Hanoi and the dikes of northern Vietnam, and
the invasion of Cambodia. What does he suggest the US do in
Iraq? Break out some tactical nuclear weapons? The mindset
that Haig represents seriously believes that the US military
was restrained in Vietnam and that a similar situation exists
in Iraq. This is despite the fact that more ordnance has been
dropped on those two countries than on any other country in history.
His fellow panel member, Henry
Kissinger, would probably like that idea. After all, it was Mr.
Kissinger who considered the use of nuclear weapons against northern
Vietnam in 1969, but was convinced such an idea might be a bad
move after hundreds of thousands of US residents filled the streets
of DC and several other cities on November 15, 1969 in a national
mobilization to end the war in Vietnam.
Both of these men should be
in adjoining cells in the Hague. Instead, they are guests of
honor at the JFK Library. It's not that they were besmirching
Kennedy's legacy by being there. Indeed, Mr. Kissinger said
he admired the Kennedys--a statement that should not surprise
any serious student of US history given Kissinger's tenure as
a consultant on security matters to various U.S. agencies from
1955 to 1968. Indeed, Kissinger's treatise on nuclear weapons
and foreign policy was a major influence on the strategic policies
of the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Given that treatise's
emphasis on the use of tactical nuclear weapons together with
conventional forces and the current discussion of just such a
policy, one could say that Kissinger's influence continues to
steer US war policy.
According to a report on Boston
TV station Channel 4 of the conference attended by Haig and Kissinger,
he was met by antiwar protestors on his way to the meeting.
In addition, during the question and answer session Mr. Kissinger
was asked if he wanted to apologize for the hundreds of thousands
of deaths in Vietnam. His answer was typical Kissinger, arrogant
and dismissive: ``This is not the occasion,'' he said. ``We have
to start from the assumption that serious people were making
serious decisions. So that's the sort of question that's highly
inappropriate.'' (CBS4boston.com 3/12/06) When asked about the
possibility that the US bombing of Cambodia helped create the
Khmer Rouge and the ensuing killing that followed, Mr. Kissinger
dismissed the possibility. In fact, he minimized the extent
of the US bombing, telling the audience that it only took place
along a "five-mile strip" of that country. According
to Globalsecurity.org this is simply not true:
"Many of the bombs that
fell in Cambodia struck relatively uninhabited mountain or forest
regions; however, as declassified United States Air Force maps
show, others fell over some of the most densely inhabited areas
of the country, such as Siemreab Province, Kampong Chhnang Province,
and the countryside around Phnom Penh. Deaths from the bombing
are extremely difficult to estimate, and figures range from a
low of 30,000 to a high of 500,000. Whatever the real extent
of the casualties, the Arclight missions over Cambodia, which
were halted in August 15, 1973, by the United States Congress,
delivered shattering blows to the structure of life in many of
the country's villages."
It wasn't all warmongering
at the conference. Former aide to Lyndon Johnson, Jack Valenti
told the audience that Washington has forgotten the major lesson
of Vietnam. That lesson, said Valenti, who is retired from the
presidency of the Motion Picture Association of America, "No
president can win a war when public support for that war begins
to decline and evaporate." Of course, this fact didn't
stop Messrs. Haig and Kissinger from trying their damnedest and
it doesn't seem to be preventing their modern-day incarnations
from doing the same.
Back to Abu Ghraib.
It is public knowledge that
this prison has been the site of torture and murder of prisoners
by the US military and intelligence agencies. It is also public
knowledge that Abu Ghraib is but one of several such prisons
operated by the US government around the world, with the one
at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba being the most (in)famous. Back in
1970, the US public was told about similar prisons in Vietnam.
These were known as tiger cages and were used to hold and torture
so-called enemy no-combatants and political prisoners. Despite
the fact that the tiger cages were exposed and decried by human
rights organizations and some US congressmen, the cages were
not shut down until the United States military and its southern
Vietnamese cohorts were defeated in May 1975.
As I wrote this, a story appeared
on my computer's news ticker that U.S. State Department Deputy
Assistant Secretary Colleen Graffy told BBC that Washington wants
to close down Gitmo. Upon closer reading, however, such a closure
is just something under discussion and will hopefully happen
"over the years." (Reuters 3/12/06)
So, the question remains, how
long will it be before today's cages are closed?
Ron Jacobs is author of The
Way the Wind Blew: a history of the Weather Underground,
which is just republished by Verso. Jacobs' essay on Big Bill
Broonzy is featured in CounterPunch's new collection on music,
art and sex, Serpents
in the Garden. He can be reached at: rjacobs3625@charter.net