Abu Ghraib Means Triumphalism.
By Dr. Michael A. Weinstein, June 01, 2004.
As any psychiatrist or consumer of pornography will testify, the kinds of tortures (abasement rituals) documented in photographs at Abu Ghraib prison are familiar in sadistic fantasies and their representation in domination-and-bondage culture. They are deeply rooted in the psyche and readily accessible in the society, but they normally remain confined to imagination or bounded by consensual relations.
In order to have such scenarios be acted out with impunity on unwilling subjects, there must be a climate of permissiveness created by authority figures. Such permission can be granted through direct orders, condoning the behavior, or an attitude of dismissive negligence.
Whether or not the abasement rituals were a matter of explicit or suggestive policy, they occurred within an environment of dismissive negligence. Treatment of prisoners according to international standards was not a top priority of military leaders and bureaucratic defense intellectuals who conceived and have managed the occupation of Iraq. Regarding the consequences of their neglect of their own power and interests, the leaders were short-sighted.
The "scandal" of Abu Ghraib -- as it is now called most frequently in the press -- is one of the many failures of the occupation. Those failures -- most notably, the appearance of Sunni and Shi'a resistances, general insecurity and poor public services, and the lack of legitimacy of the governing authorities -- can be traced to a fundamental miscalculation of power.
During the Vietnam War, Senator J. William Fulbright famously said that the intervention was being conducted in the spirit of the "arrogance of power" -- the sense that because one believes that one has superior resources, one can override opposition and ignore criticism. Put in more neutral terms, the arrogance of power is based on an over-valuation of one's power -- an unrealistic expectation of what one can accomplish on one's own. Arrogance enters the picture as dismissiveness -- the leadership's will is indomitable, so all impediments and objections to it can be dismissed.
The sheer sense of triumphal power does not lead to attempts to exert that power unless there is a reason to do so -- it is possible to sit back and bask in the glories of one's potential supremacy and to act prudently to maintain it through deft interventions. In the case of the occupation of Iraq, the sense of triumphal power was converted into policy through a utopian ideology of American hegemony, explicitly and officially stated in the Bush administration's National Security Strategy in 2002.
The premise of that document is that the military advantage of the United States opens a window of opportunity for the country to eliminate all effective rivals to its power for several generations to come. That window will close unless the United States is willing to undertake pre-emptive wars against perceived threats to its dominance. America's high card is military might and it needs to be played. Might will insure that the rest of the world will have to acquiesce in whatever interventions are undertaken, and will guarantee their success. Iraq is the first test of the triumphalist doctrine and, perhaps, the last.
Along with the simple interest in state power, the triumphalist ideology proffers the utopian vision of a world of market democracies disciplined by American might -- a unilateralist version of globalization in which the United States plays the role of feudal lord, extracting tribute from the worldwide capitalist economy by performing the security function for it. Iraq is meant to be a made-to-order market democracy that will trigger movement toward the same paradigm throughout the Middle East.
Although the Iraq affair is primarily a test of a strategic doctrine rationalized by a utopian ideology, that doctrine could not have been applied in practice without the support of more immediate interests. The core of neo-conservative defense intellectuals who crafted the strategy and the war are a minority even in the security community. They have found allies in defense contractors, sectors of the Evangelical Christian community, segments of the petroleum industry and pro-Zionist interest groups. They have counted on generalized post-9/11 fear of terrorism -- a fear that has been persistently abetted by the administration -- to assure public acquiescence in their policies.
By dominating the policy process in the Bush administration, they have also gained support from Republican constituencies that are interested in preserving and expanding economic advantages that the administration has given them, and that they are afraid of losing under a Democratic president. The Iraq affair is a paradigm case of how a small minority can impose a policy by occupying the upper reaches of state bureaucracies and then gathering a broader coalition around it, even if that coalition is a distinct minority in the general public and that policy is unrealistic.
The over-valuation of power represented in the premise that the United States is a hegemon able to structure the world according to the perceived interests of its leaders without taking other powers into account leads to dismissiveness toward the political strength of opponents. If one believes oneself able to get what one wants on one's own, one is tempted to deceive, distort, break longstanding rules, reject compromise with potential allies, override opposition, create enemies, neglect consensus building, underestimate the unfavorable consequences of policies, and otherwise act with impunity. Dismissiveness passes over easily into demonization -- you're either with us or against us, and if you're against us, you're evil and unpatriotic. If, in addition, one believes that one has a monopoly on truth and goodness, one will listen only to oneself, and will ignore everyone else.
The problem for triumphalists is that interests affected adversely by their policies will not buy into the hegemonic scenario and will resist in whatever ways they can. Over-valuation of power inexorably causes backlashes that undermine visionary dreams and eventually results in loss of power in the world for the triumphalist state.
Along with triumphalism comes adventurism, in which ideological fantasy substitutes for policy based on a lucid assessment of the balance of power and the interests actuating it. The Iraq affair is a case of adventurist foreign policy -- ill-conceived, poorly planned, unsupported by world opinion, and, therefore, riddled with unpleasant surprises for its architects. When dream occludes reality, there is no way to adjust to adverse consequences but ad hoc tactical measures and abrupt reversals, such as bringing back the Ba'athists, bringing in the U.N., abandoning the Iraqi National Congress and leaving the Mehdi Army intact -- anything to patch up the leak and put out the fire temporarily, whatever the long-term consequences. Over-valuation of power breeds fantasy, which breeds adventurism, ending in ad hoc expedients that make the fantasy ever more distant from reality and generate more unpleasant surprises. That has been the story of the Iraq affair.
The abasement rituals at Abu Ghraib were most generally conditioned by the climate of impunity created by triumphalist strategy, ideology and rhetoric, which led, at least, to dismissive negligence and then cover-ups by authorities. The instigating cause of the practices appears to have been an ad hoc adjustment to policy failure -- importing the stress-and-duress regimen from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib in order to extract intelligence from prisoners in the wake of rising resistance to the occupation in the Sunni Triangle in the summer of 2003. As can be expected from ad hoc adjustments, the stopgap measure led to a new problem -- the "scandal" of the trophy photographs and the behavior that they document, and the consequent delegitimation of the occupation.
General dismissiveness engendered a response to adversity that violated international conventions and gave at least suggestive permission for impunity at the cell-block level. There is a direct line from the over-valuation of power inscribed in the National Security Strategy to the impunity at Abu Ghraib.
By Dr. Michael A. Weinstein, June 01, 2004.
As any psychiatrist or consumer of pornography will testify, the kinds of tortures (abasement rituals) documented in photographs at Abu Ghraib prison are familiar in sadistic fantasies and their representation in domination-and-bondage culture. They are deeply rooted in the psyche and readily accessible in the society, but they normally remain confined to imagination or bounded by consensual relations.
In order to have such scenarios be acted out with impunity on unwilling subjects, there must be a climate of permissiveness created by authority figures. Such permission can be granted through direct orders, condoning the behavior, or an attitude of dismissive negligence.
Whether or not the abasement rituals were a matter of explicit or suggestive policy, they occurred within an environment of dismissive negligence. Treatment of prisoners according to international standards was not a top priority of military leaders and bureaucratic defense intellectuals who conceived and have managed the occupation of Iraq. Regarding the consequences of their neglect of their own power and interests, the leaders were short-sighted.
The "scandal" of Abu Ghraib -- as it is now called most frequently in the press -- is one of the many failures of the occupation. Those failures -- most notably, the appearance of Sunni and Shi'a resistances, general insecurity and poor public services, and the lack of legitimacy of the governing authorities -- can be traced to a fundamental miscalculation of power.
During the Vietnam War, Senator J. William Fulbright famously said that the intervention was being conducted in the spirit of the "arrogance of power" -- the sense that because one believes that one has superior resources, one can override opposition and ignore criticism. Put in more neutral terms, the arrogance of power is based on an over-valuation of one's power -- an unrealistic expectation of what one can accomplish on one's own. Arrogance enters the picture as dismissiveness -- the leadership's will is indomitable, so all impediments and objections to it can be dismissed.
The sheer sense of triumphal power does not lead to attempts to exert that power unless there is a reason to do so -- it is possible to sit back and bask in the glories of one's potential supremacy and to act prudently to maintain it through deft interventions. In the case of the occupation of Iraq, the sense of triumphal power was converted into policy through a utopian ideology of American hegemony, explicitly and officially stated in the Bush administration's National Security Strategy in 2002.
The premise of that document is that the military advantage of the United States opens a window of opportunity for the country to eliminate all effective rivals to its power for several generations to come. That window will close unless the United States is willing to undertake pre-emptive wars against perceived threats to its dominance. America's high card is military might and it needs to be played. Might will insure that the rest of the world will have to acquiesce in whatever interventions are undertaken, and will guarantee their success. Iraq is the first test of the triumphalist doctrine and, perhaps, the last.
Along with the simple interest in state power, the triumphalist ideology proffers the utopian vision of a world of market democracies disciplined by American might -- a unilateralist version of globalization in which the United States plays the role of feudal lord, extracting tribute from the worldwide capitalist economy by performing the security function for it. Iraq is meant to be a made-to-order market democracy that will trigger movement toward the same paradigm throughout the Middle East.
Although the Iraq affair is primarily a test of a strategic doctrine rationalized by a utopian ideology, that doctrine could not have been applied in practice without the support of more immediate interests. The core of neo-conservative defense intellectuals who crafted the strategy and the war are a minority even in the security community. They have found allies in defense contractors, sectors of the Evangelical Christian community, segments of the petroleum industry and pro-Zionist interest groups. They have counted on generalized post-9/11 fear of terrorism -- a fear that has been persistently abetted by the administration -- to assure public acquiescence in their policies.
By dominating the policy process in the Bush administration, they have also gained support from Republican constituencies that are interested in preserving and expanding economic advantages that the administration has given them, and that they are afraid of losing under a Democratic president. The Iraq affair is a paradigm case of how a small minority can impose a policy by occupying the upper reaches of state bureaucracies and then gathering a broader coalition around it, even if that coalition is a distinct minority in the general public and that policy is unrealistic.
The over-valuation of power represented in the premise that the United States is a hegemon able to structure the world according to the perceived interests of its leaders without taking other powers into account leads to dismissiveness toward the political strength of opponents. If one believes oneself able to get what one wants on one's own, one is tempted to deceive, distort, break longstanding rules, reject compromise with potential allies, override opposition, create enemies, neglect consensus building, underestimate the unfavorable consequences of policies, and otherwise act with impunity. Dismissiveness passes over easily into demonization -- you're either with us or against us, and if you're against us, you're evil and unpatriotic. If, in addition, one believes that one has a monopoly on truth and goodness, one will listen only to oneself, and will ignore everyone else.
The problem for triumphalists is that interests affected adversely by their policies will not buy into the hegemonic scenario and will resist in whatever ways they can. Over-valuation of power inexorably causes backlashes that undermine visionary dreams and eventually results in loss of power in the world for the triumphalist state.
Along with triumphalism comes adventurism, in which ideological fantasy substitutes for policy based on a lucid assessment of the balance of power and the interests actuating it. The Iraq affair is a case of adventurist foreign policy -- ill-conceived, poorly planned, unsupported by world opinion, and, therefore, riddled with unpleasant surprises for its architects. When dream occludes reality, there is no way to adjust to adverse consequences but ad hoc tactical measures and abrupt reversals, such as bringing back the Ba'athists, bringing in the U.N., abandoning the Iraqi National Congress and leaving the Mehdi Army intact -- anything to patch up the leak and put out the fire temporarily, whatever the long-term consequences. Over-valuation of power breeds fantasy, which breeds adventurism, ending in ad hoc expedients that make the fantasy ever more distant from reality and generate more unpleasant surprises. That has been the story of the Iraq affair.
The abasement rituals at Abu Ghraib were most generally conditioned by the climate of impunity created by triumphalist strategy, ideology and rhetoric, which led, at least, to dismissive negligence and then cover-ups by authorities. The instigating cause of the practices appears to have been an ad hoc adjustment to policy failure -- importing the stress-and-duress regimen from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib in order to extract intelligence from prisoners in the wake of rising resistance to the occupation in the Sunni Triangle in the summer of 2003. As can be expected from ad hoc adjustments, the stopgap measure led to a new problem -- the "scandal" of the trophy photographs and the behavior that they document, and the consequent delegitimation of the occupation.
General dismissiveness engendered a response to adversity that violated international conventions and gave at least suggestive permission for impunity at the cell-block level. There is a direct line from the over-valuation of power inscribed in the National Security Strategy to the impunity at Abu Ghraib.
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