Monday, May 03, 2004
What Captain America Means to Me
For a long time, I read comic books. One of my favorite characters was Captain America, who in word and deed exemplified everything that was right and good with America. He protected the innocent, stood for liberty, and had a clear-cut definition of what is right and what is wrong. Unlike Superman, he had no super powers, only the strength of his faith and conviction that what he did was just and right. I liked to think that he represented what deep down every American felt and believed. Over time, I realized that that belief was unwarranted, and that all people have a dark side, and often times people work to their own self-interests and not to a greater good. But in the end, Captain America exemplified a goal that we should all try to achieve.
Today I saw that goal be pulled farther from our reach. By now everyone has heard the stories of prisoner abuse in Iraq, and seen the photos of smiling troops posing with cowering naked and hooded prisoners. We have heard the tales of brutal beatings by British officers and the purported torturing of prisoners at the hands of American troops. I feel utter disgust at these reprehensible acts I have seen and that I have heard of. Although I hold firm to the belief that this type of treatment of prisoners is not universal, that is occurred at all in a dark blot on our post-war record, and one that cannot be easily remedied.
Even more disgusting is the reaction I heard here to these events. Rather than standing solidly in condemnation of these acts, instead I hear people making excuses for these actions. This morning, I heard two radio callers on the issue. The first caller said she believed that what our troops did was no where near as bad as what Saddam's torturers had done, and so did not warrant discussion Our troops have a right to do whatever is necessary to locate our prisoners of war and stop the terrorists. As Iraqis have dragged our dead through the streets, what our troops did is not justified, but is 'excusable'.
The second caller firmly believed that the photos we have seen are the result of photographic trickery and meant to create anti-war sentiment. She believes the victims are people posing as prisoners, as evidenced by the fact that they hid their identities with hoods.
How naive and obtuse can people be? Is the first caller's justification that since Iraqis killed our troops, it is okay to treat totally different individuals of the same nationality as less than human. That the 'eye-for-an-eye' mentality is the best way? That mental torture is less morally reprehensible than physical torture? Did these prisoners actually even know information regarding the recent hostages? For the second caller, she neglects that soldiers have admitted to taking these pictures and committing these acts. It is not as if these photos appeared from 'anonymous sources'; in some cases, the film was brought into question after being developed by the soldier's own cameras.
I understand their need to deny and to disbelieve. What we have seen is not the way America works. I know that my view might seem naive, but I believe the Geneva Convention means something, and that we should uphold the letter of this treaty as an example to other nations that they should do the same. I know that a prison creates a situation in which one sees their charges as something less than an equal, indeed something less than human. This is precisely the reason why the Treaty exists, to act as a bulwark against this type of degradation and humiliation.
I am not so naive to know that prisoner's rights are abrogated on occasion, and that in the world of intelligence, torture in interrogation. But when it does occur, it should happen in the shadows, committed by those who have elected to live their lives in those shadows, and not be an American serviceman. A soldier should hold himself or herself to a higher ideal. They need to be able to raise themselves to a level higher than that of an average man. They need to see themselves as a Captain America, and that the ideal of America is expressed in each and every one of them. The world sees us through them.
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