The Priest of Abu Ghraib
smithsonianmag.comThis was hauntingly beautiful. A story of conscience and reconciliation with the paradoxes of war and personal spirituality/religion.
His decision to join the war as an interrogator, believing his presence and oversight would ensure the humane treatment of prisoners is admirable. I often wonder what is the right thing to do: non-participation, or conscientious participation to ensure abuses are minimized.
In this telling he tried to effect change from within, but was overwhelmed, both spiritually and physically, by what he found there. If there is a positive to draw from it it lies in his ability to talk about the experience afterwards through drama and indirectly through this piece. I don't think that level of success often accrues to people trying to effect positive change from within.
Which one's more likely to be noticed (by the masses) and affect change? This article, years after, or the fact they have to increase wages 200+% because no one with a mirror will do the job?
> A story of conscience
I'm surprised you see this. I see it differently. Excuse my language, but I see a horse-shit sandwich. Have you read any Noam Chomsky? This is a great example of 'Manufacturing Consent' - through these feel good propaganda manufactured stories. Yes, I do think he believed his struggle was holy and justified. Yes, I am aware that this sounds harsh.
For an honest confrontation with our very real Global North shadow watch this: https://vimeo.com/242569435
Wow I did not read the whole article. But's it's actually pretty moving... Ok fuck it. I'm going to do a pluralist 'both/and'. It's both a horse-shit sandwich and a story of conscience.
>I often wonder what is the right thing to do: non-participation, or conscientious participation
And I often hear people talk about how they would punch nazis. Yet when being in the reality of present day prevailing groupthink which justifies such abuses, expecting people to "conscientiously take part" is already getting hopeful.
The notion that its better to have "good" people doing bad things than "bad" people is such a trash take, but it shows up in nearly every conversation of moral consequence these days.
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
Our collective unconscious, our collective shadow: https://vimeo.com/242569435
After reading Solzhenitsyn, I was surprised to learn that these famous words are actually taken out of context.
The full idea is something like this: There are no "purely good" people, the best we can see is part-good-part-evil, and thus improving the world requires an internal battle, but... people can actually become "purely evil", and the usual path is through ideology, when you simply decide that anything you do serves a goal that justifies the means, and then you feel free to become a cartoonish villain as long as you follow the ideology.
Funny that you would quote Solzhenitsyn, who in the last years of his life went hard-core Russian nationalist extremist and indeed called for separating certain people from the rest of us and destroying them (only this time it would be a “Christian state” doing the destroying, and not the godless USSR, so it would all be OK).
This is exactly what I think he is trying to say - and of course he is no exception to this rule. Are you equating his behavior with him being a failure, discrediting his work? This angle is a bit too black and white / dualistic for me.
Yeah, bad is who does bad, not much more to it than that when it comes to torture and wars of convenience.
This person was an interrogator. Should armies not interrogate prisoners and not have interrogators? Is trying to obtain intelligence information from the enemy an inherently evil activity?
If it is not, then yes it's better to have good people do this job than bad ones, as with any job.
I'd say worry first about whether you should take part in an unjust war, the specifics of your actual role in the inevitable atrocities seem more like a secondary concern.
I mean, clearly his individual crimes aren't as bad as say those of soldiers raping a 14-year old. But he does willingly and knowingly take part in, and help perform, the the larger crime that is the poorly justified invasion and occupation of Iraq.
In this case, yes, it was clearly evil. The videos speak volumes.
There is not such thing as "good" people raping, torturing, humiliating, terrorizing and doing evil things to other helpless and disarmed people.
> There is not such thing as "good" people raping, torturing, humiliating, terrorizing and doing evil things to other helpless and disarmed people.
There's no indication that he directly participated in any of that, and quite a bit to indicate he didn't. After all, he was heading towards pacifism before he was deployed, and became so disillusions that he was honorably discharged as a conscientious objector. I wouldn't be surprised if the people doing those evil things were careful to hide those activities from him. He seems like the kind of person who'd have caused problems for them, and they probably understood that.
> Is trying to obtain intelligence information from the enemy an inherently evil activity?
In a war of aggression it very much is.
It would seem that in the case of interrogation, it would be best for a 'good' person to do the job to reduce the number of false-positives?
Or for that matter the idea that a "good" person will do less harm in a "bad" situation than someone that's outright malicious.
Such a great godlike compassionate gentle guy ... working in Abu Ghraib without noting abuses and reporting them or even figuring out why that damm prisoner cries.
I don't think I would have courage to report in such situation. Socialization that makes it all normal and very real consequences whistleblowers get would stop me.
The issue is not dude. That issue is article writer trying to frame that work as something gentle glossing over the actual reality of the situation.
> writer trying to frame that work as something gentle glossing over the actual reality of the situation.
100%. https://vimeo.com/242569435 shows this.
“If only it were all so simple! If only there were evil people somewhere insidiously committing evil deeds, and it were necessary only to separate them from the rest of us and destroy them. But the line dividing good and evil cuts through the heart of every human being. And who is willing to destroy a piece of his own heart?” ― Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn
That he was able to get such good results from his interrogation using kindness and dialog instead of violence is interesting. This is apparently a known effect. Was a very interesting article posted here some time ago describing similar techniques that I found fascinating: https://psmag.com/social-justice/nazi-interrogator-revealed-...
What a fascinating story. Thank you for sharing. I cried towards the end as I was learning about Casteel's death. I was hoping for a plot twist, because all along Casteel was described in the past tense, so I knew from the beginning that he might not be still alive but deep inside I was hoping that he is still alive. I was hoping for paragraph that says "and now Casteel is..."
It sucks to lose someone with such integrity, values and good character. I feel like I have known him personally. May he rest in peace.
> It sucks to lose someone with such integrity, values and good character.
Sorry? Who with 'integrity, values and good character' joins an interrogation squad?
>Sorry? Who with 'integrity, values and good character' joins an interrogation squad?
Holy Christian soldiers who have the support/aligned-groupthink of their entire nation? Morals are relative - to an American growing up in the cess-pit of ethics that is modern USA, its immoral to not support the troops, and if its Gods Will™ that we defeat Evil Satan by dropping depleted uranium on innocent children then so be it, because God, like America, is Great™.
I mean, Who with 'integrity, values and good character' ignores the daily innocent life lost at the hands of America's out of control military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex? Americans do, that's who.
While I can understand your sentiment, it might also well be possible that such a person might be convinced of the righteousness of their cause. The article even gives some quotes along those lines. To paraphrase: "it's better if someone like me does the interrogation than someone who does not care about the Geneva convention".
I think it is very hard to judge the motivations of people from the outside. The whole point of the article was to illustrate how torn you can be between your convictions, what you want to do, and what you actually do.
Most of us are very lucky insofar as we do not have to face such tough choices.
I really don't care if they are convinced of the righteousness of their cause. History is rife with examples of people who were convinced of the righteousness, that does not excuse them even a little bit.
> Most of us are very lucky insofar as we do not have to face such tough choices.
That's why we talk about the ones who did. Since conscription in the US ended quite a while ago all of this is free choice.
Fair enough; you have given me a lot to think about---thank you!
One more thing, though: I am not sure it is always that much of a free choice (even given the fact that no conscription exists). There might be economic reasons for joining the military, for example. However, since I am not a U.S. citizen, I am not sure how much of an issue this actually is.
We had conscription here back in the 80's when my number came up I refused to join the army. There was a considerable price to pay including a possible jail term but there is nothing that would cause me to go and kill/harm others without a good enough reason.
Interesting! I admire the strength of your moral conviction! Having grown up in a generation without conscription (I did not even have a normal military service, thankfully).
Mine was one of the last years that it was still active.
> Sorry? Who with 'integrity, values and good character' joins an interrogation squad?
Best question on this thread.
Some food for thought:
This was a very moving piece, beautifully written. The story itself reminds me of a parable. Thank you for posting.
War is hell. Such a beautiful story of being true to your self and finding your war through the anger and confusion of everything that influences us. Such a loss we lost this man, and many others like him, to environmental and chemical exposure issues in Iraq and Afghanistan.
What a fucking whitewash. Anybody joining an interrogation squad knows what's ahead and those joining the group in Abu Ghraib, especially after the torture revelations really had no excuse. I feel about as much sympathy as I would towards a Nazi camp guard (sorry for the Godwin, but it seems applicable).
Yup. For anyone who can't see this, or is offended by the above comment, please check this out: https://vimeo.com/242569435
incredible piece. If you are thinking of reading this, and have a spare 20 minutes, commit.
I wouldn't waste your time. Watch this instead, it's only 13 minutes long: https://vimeo.com/242569435