chuck
04-24-2008, 02:44 PM
I really enjoyed Fog of War (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0317910/), and after reading this interview I'm very much looking forward to Errol Morris' take on Abu Ghraib.
Full interview here (http://www.avclub.com/content/interview/errol_morris).
Errol Morris site. (http://www.errolmorris.com/)
Some choice excerpts:
AVC: The location is a violation of Geneva, for one. You're not supposed to have prisoners of war in the middle of a war zone.
EM: That's correct. You're also not supposed to kidnap people's children in order to make them talk. You're not supposed to engage in all kinds of humiliation, sexual and otherwise. You know, it's a long, long, long, long list. I would sit and I would read The New York Times, not so many months ago, people rallying against the destruction of these two CIA tapes, involving the interrogation of [Guantanamo detainee Abu] Zubaydah. And I would ask myself, "Do people not know that they destroyed all the evidence in a prison of 10,000 people?" It's strange. We have more information—a glut of information—than ever before, and perhaps less knowledge. That's what's peculiar. And the only way you can deal with it, I suppose, is to make fun of it. I would rather watch Comedy Central for the news than I'd like to watch any other program on television. Maybe that shows you the state of affairs.
You could say that Jon Stewart or The Colbert Report are cynical, but I think in a way, they're the least cynical news shows on television, because they actually have standards. They are willing to speak up, in their own unmistakable way, about stuff that they think is just unbearably stupid and criminal. Not cynical. I think quite the contrary.
EM: "... I wish they'd just get it over with and make [Iraq] the 51st state, because I think it's the perfect red state: religious fundamentalists, lots of weaponry. How could you go wrong? We're already spending a significant fraction of our gross national product on the infrastructure; such as it is, on Iraq. Make it the 51st state and get it over with. [Laughs.]"
AVC: How do you do that, though? It seems like there's been plenty of instances in which big guys could have and should have been held accountable. Yet it's not as if they've slipped a noose. It's as if they deny that there's even a noose to be slipped.
EM: That's what's so bizarre. You know, there are smoking guns everywhere, and people are being constantly hit over the head with smoking guns, and people simply don't act on them. I tried to wade through the most recent "torture memo" [written by former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo] that was released through the ACLU. Unreadable. Eighty pages of legalese gobbledygook. Fourth Amendment this, Fifth Amendment that, Sixth Amendment something else. Treaties, conventions. You get to the very end, and the last paragraph tells you, "The President can do whatever he wants to do." The last paragraph tells you that you didn't have to read the 80-plus pages that proceeded it. Just read this last paragraph, the last couple of lines, which says the President can do what he damn well pleases. That's the memo. It's not about torture. Torture is the least of it. It's about how we fought a war 200-plus years ago to avoid having a king. We were supposed to be a constitutional democracy, and we've become, 200-plus years after this war, an absolute monarchy. How in hell did that happen, and where are the American people in all of this? I don't get it. It's weird. Everybody has heard the word "impeachment." Let's get on with it! I don't know what people are waiting for.
Full interview here (http://www.avclub.com/content/interview/errol_morris).
Errol Morris site. (http://www.errolmorris.com/)
Some choice excerpts:
AVC: The location is a violation of Geneva, for one. You're not supposed to have prisoners of war in the middle of a war zone.
EM: That's correct. You're also not supposed to kidnap people's children in order to make them talk. You're not supposed to engage in all kinds of humiliation, sexual and otherwise. You know, it's a long, long, long, long list. I would sit and I would read The New York Times, not so many months ago, people rallying against the destruction of these two CIA tapes, involving the interrogation of [Guantanamo detainee Abu] Zubaydah. And I would ask myself, "Do people not know that they destroyed all the evidence in a prison of 10,000 people?" It's strange. We have more information—a glut of information—than ever before, and perhaps less knowledge. That's what's peculiar. And the only way you can deal with it, I suppose, is to make fun of it. I would rather watch Comedy Central for the news than I'd like to watch any other program on television. Maybe that shows you the state of affairs.
You could say that Jon Stewart or The Colbert Report are cynical, but I think in a way, they're the least cynical news shows on television, because they actually have standards. They are willing to speak up, in their own unmistakable way, about stuff that they think is just unbearably stupid and criminal. Not cynical. I think quite the contrary.
EM: "... I wish they'd just get it over with and make [Iraq] the 51st state, because I think it's the perfect red state: religious fundamentalists, lots of weaponry. How could you go wrong? We're already spending a significant fraction of our gross national product on the infrastructure; such as it is, on Iraq. Make it the 51st state and get it over with. [Laughs.]"
AVC: How do you do that, though? It seems like there's been plenty of instances in which big guys could have and should have been held accountable. Yet it's not as if they've slipped a noose. It's as if they deny that there's even a noose to be slipped.
EM: That's what's so bizarre. You know, there are smoking guns everywhere, and people are being constantly hit over the head with smoking guns, and people simply don't act on them. I tried to wade through the most recent "torture memo" [written by former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo] that was released through the ACLU. Unreadable. Eighty pages of legalese gobbledygook. Fourth Amendment this, Fifth Amendment that, Sixth Amendment something else. Treaties, conventions. You get to the very end, and the last paragraph tells you, "The President can do whatever he wants to do." The last paragraph tells you that you didn't have to read the 80-plus pages that proceeded it. Just read this last paragraph, the last couple of lines, which says the President can do what he damn well pleases. That's the memo. It's not about torture. Torture is the least of it. It's about how we fought a war 200-plus years ago to avoid having a king. We were supposed to be a constitutional democracy, and we've become, 200-plus years after this war, an absolute monarchy. How in hell did that happen, and where are the American people in all of this? I don't get it. It's weird. Everybody has heard the word "impeachment." Let's get on with it! I don't know what people are waiting for.