The "F" Word
Andrew Sullivan has two posts today that it seems to me are interrelated, although I don't think he meant them to be.
First he highlights a web-site that encourages soldiers fighting in Iraq to post sickening pictures of dead and wounded Iraqis in exchange for free (sexual) pornography. He writes:
If you send in pics of dead insurgents or Iraqis, you get free access to the porn part of the site. The pics that are appended have names such as "What every Iraqi should look like," "DIE, HAJI, DIE," and "Cooked Iraqi." I would think this violates the Geneva Conventions, not that the U.S. under this president cares about those very much any more. But it's also beyond depraved. Eric Muller sounded the alarm. Like the pictures from Abu Ghraib, these images are also a propaganda coup for Zarqawi and his monsters - a consequence of war in the Internet age. Have we really sunk to this?
I think Abu Ghraib pretty well settled that question. This psycho-sexual sickness has been officially sanctioned, at least when it comes to "interrogations," and such behavior has been giddily celebrated by the likes of Rush Limbaugh, who is beamed to the military all over the world on Armed Forces Radio. This is not an aberration; it is an ongoing feature of the war on terrorism.
Sullivan also links to an interesting critique that draws some very compelling comparisons between the Bush administration's governance and fascism. Sullivan doesn't use the "F" word himself, of course, but the article does:
Describing the President’s panicked political response to his falling poll numbers as “compassionate conservatism”, (as New York Times columnist David Brooks did last Sunday, “A Bushian Laboratory”, September 18, 2005), borders on the ludicrous. Mr Bush has now overseen the fastest increase in domestic spending of any president in recent history. Furthermore, he has never resolved the inherent contradiction between his so-called “compassionate” spending policy and his small-government tax policy (which was ostensibly designed to “kill the beast” of Big Government once and for all, according to the President’s conservative apologists). And his casual dismissal of the remnants of civilian authority in the Gulf basin – “It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces -- the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment's notice” – evokes something more along the lines of Mussolini-style fascism than any coherent, mainstream conservative, philosophy.
[...]
The reconstruction of Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama provides a fascinating picture of how the Bush administration actually works. His government represents an odd melding of corporatism and cronyism, more in tune with the workings of 1930s Italy or Spain. In fact, if one looks at fascist regimes of the 20th century, it is appears that the Bush administration draws more from these sources than traditional conservatism. Dr. Lawrence Britt has examined the fascist regimes of Hitler (Germany), Mussolini (Italy), Franco (Spain), Suharto (Indonesia) and several Latin American regimes. Britt found 14 defining characteristics common to each:
1. Powerful and Continuing Nationalism - Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays.
2. Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights - Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc.
3. Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause - The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial, ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc.
4. Supremacy of the Military - Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized.
5. Rampant Sexism - The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Divorce, abortion and homosexuality are suppressed and the state is represented as the ultimate guardian of the family institution.
6. Controlled Mass Media - Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common.
7. Obsession with National Security - Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses.
8. Religion and Government are intertwined - Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions.
9. Corporate Power is protected - The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite.
10. Labor Power is suppressed - Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed.
11. Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts - Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts and letters is openly attacked.
12. Obsession with Crime and Punishment - Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations.
13. Rampant Cronyism and Corruption - Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders.
14. Fraudulent Elections - Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
(Source: The Fourteen Defining Characteristics of Fascism, Dr. Lawrence Britt, Spring 2003, Free Inquiry)
Perhaps it is unfair to characterise the Bush Presidency in these terms, because it would imply the existence of a coherent governing philosophy.
Haha.
You cannot help but be struck by the similarities between our current political culture and that description of fascism. It should not be blithely dismissed. If it walks like a duck ...
I realize that soldiers have been taking battlefield pictures since the dawn of photography. But I really don't think we've seen the sick combination of sadistic battlefield gore, sexual humiliation and pornography since some very, very bad things happened in Europe in the middle of the last century. That was not mentioned in the list of fascist characteristics, but it was certainly present in the worst fascist governments. (Read about the sexual torture that was done in the Dirty War, for instance.) This melding of sex and violence is not unique, of course, in human psychology. But it is a rare society that officially sanctions its use by the military and an even rarer one that openly celebrates it.
I think the reaction to the stupid torture is an example of the feminization of this country.
[...]
The thing though that continually amazes -- here we have these pictures of homoeroticism that look like standard good old American pornography
[...]
And these American prisoners of war -- have you people noticed who the torturers are? Women! The babes! The babes are meting out the torture.
[...]
This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You ever heard of need to blow some steam off?
Update: Great minds and all that. I just noticed that Kevin Drum wrote about this too --- and we even used the same headline.
.