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Next Left Notes Is A News Magazine Devoted To Direct Action

By Thomas Good
(thanks to Brian Kelly and Jay Jurie for their feedback)

George W. Bush and Adolf Eichmann: War Criminals With Free Speech Impediments?

Bush and Eichmann have both been rumoured to suffer from aphasia but the similarities do not end there - both have exhibited a pathological myopia when it comes to matters of morality. Also of interest is the shared fondness for euphemism, particularly when it is used to sanitize acts of brutality.

"I believe this was not an act of desperation, but an act of warfare waged against us". - Rear Admiral Harry Harris, Commandant of Guantanamo responding to three suicides that occurred on June 11, 2006.

"Free nations do not develop weapons of mass destruction." - George W. Bush, quoted by the Chicago Sun-Times Oct. 13, 2003

"At the heart of this imperialism is our silence." - Chloe Watlington, New School SDS

I - Adolf Eichmann: The Subordinate As Sociopath

The role of euphemism in Bush's self described "culture of responsibility" (his humble description of his administration) is illuminating. It is eerily similar to the euphemisms used in Nazi Germany with such devastating effect. SS Colonel Adolf Eichmann, chief organizer of the Holocaust, couched everything in bureaucratic terms: he "resettled units" rather than murdered humans. He occasionally had difficulty procuring "rolling stock" - the trains that transported victims to "concentration camps". When Eichmann was interogated in Israel he apologized for his poor German saying he only spoke "Amtssprache" (bureaucratese). Having worked tirelessly for the Nazi cause that Himmler termed "the final solution" (Endlosung), Eichmann repeatedly complained to his Israeli captors that he had never advanced beyond Lieutenant Colonel, while less diligent functionaries attained higher ranks. {1}

Eichmann was the prototypical sociopathic subordinate but he did not, indeed could not, act alone. One of the sadder aspects of the very sad period in German history known as the Third Reich was the use of medical doctors for "selection" - the sorting of incoming "human ballast" done by physicians at the death camps. Doctors would decide who lived and who died - sparing those deemed fit for work in the camps. This was a grotesque mockery of the physician's purpose in civilian life. Yet the Nazi doctors carried out their duties. They did this by convincing themselves that they were engaged in a process of "euthanasia": ridding their country of "vermin", of disease. They were destroying "life unworthy of life" (Lebensunwertes Leben), a term originally applied to the mentally ill and mentally retarded who were "euthanized" at the Hadamar Institute and elsewhere - a precursor to the final solution. {2}

II - Non-Transparent Regimes

The Nazis ran what Bush would call a "non-transparent regime". The United States, in Bush's worldview, operates in a transparent manner. We do not build weapons of mass destruction. We do not practice aggression towards our neighbors. We do not abuse human rights. We do not torture. Or do we?

It would appear that we do behave in the manner of a "non-transparent regime" all too often. To prevent the discomfort this realization might cause we employ euphemism. The invasion of other countries is a "preemptive strike". When an invasion is done under false pretenses, lying to the US public and the world is simply a case of our leaders having relied on "flawed intelligence". Unpleasant realities are made safe when they are cloaked in clever catchphrases. An undeclared war is often termed a "conflict", which is a polite way of saying a US CIA and/or military intervention, more often than not - naked aggression. During the period of the American War on Viet Nam we were engaged in a "police action". In El Salvador - where we backed death squads - we pursued a "low intensity conflict". And in Iraq we are bringing "enduring freedom" and democracy to the Iraqi people. An act of altruistic perversion if the results of this gift are examined. The cost is staggering - financially and in every other way. Of course, someone is making huge profits or this would not be occurring. Halliburton, Bechtel, Blackwater, Dyncorp, Computer Science Corporation and all of the other war profiteers - whom the War Resisters League call the Merchants of Death. For those who find this label uncomfortable the government and their corporate masters offer kinder, gentler descriptions: for example, Blackwater and other suppliers of mercenaries - soldiers who are not required to respect the "Universal Code of Military Justice" - are "risk management" companies.

III - Shock And Awe: Waging Total War

In our strategy of "shock and awe" (a phrase that suggests our 21st century version of Josef Goebbel's "total war" has entertainment value) we vigorously pursue "full spectrum dominance". The "New American Century" demands of the sole superpower the indiscriminate use of overwhelming military firepower - and while it is unfortunate that this invariably means innocent civilians die some "collateral damage" is an acceptable aspect of fighting the "War On Terror". Similarly, it is an unavoidable but heroic tragedy that some of our own personnel are killed by "friendly fire". In our eagerness to launch Operation Enduring Freedom we had to fudge a few facts at the United Nations. Colin Powell was deserving of an Oscar(tm) for his role in proclaiming the veracity of what was later termed "flawed intelligence" - our pretext for the invasion. It brings to mind the Nazi assertion that Poland had violated Germany's borders in 1939 or, more recently, the Gulf of Tonkin affair that precipitated our intervention in Viet Nam. With so many of the world's citizens skeptical of the need for an immediate invasion of Iraq, we had to hastily construct a, largely fictional, "coalition force" composed of the US, the UK and Poland with walk ons for other nations who declined leading roles. The inventive use of language continued when we went looking for "Weapons of Mass Destruction" (WMDs) which we were certain were squirreled away by the ruthless dictator (and former CIA asset) Saddam Hussein - a main exporter of "state sponsored terrorism" or so the Bush administration asserted. (The US of course is the main exporter of Democracy which in no way resembles Hussein's alleged export).

More quickly than you can say "Mission Accomplished" we discovered there had been no "WMDs" and, worse yet, we had destroyed a secular state and unleashed a civil war. Of course, it's not really a civil war - it is only "sectarian violence", at least according to the media. It seems the corporate media was a bit squeamish about calling Iraq a civil war, probably because their reporters on assignment in Iraq had been "embedded" with our military personnel. This reluctance to speak frankly about Iraq explains in part the spotty corporate media coverage of the seemingly endless series of Bush administration scandals. When you're in bed with someone it is rude to point out their failings...One can't seriously expect the corporate media to speak plainly in a sea of comforting euphemism and outright fabrications when their corporate masters are making a killing in Iraq...soon to be a paradise of McDonalds, Pizza Huts and Exxon stations. Democracy in action. And to maintain that democracy we are hastily constructing permanent military bases in Iraq.

IV - Unlawful Combatants - And Torture

Unfortunately for the Bush administration the post war insurgency has proved to be alot more difficult to manage than the battle weary troops of Iraq's shocked and awed army. The body count on the evening news, particularly Jim Lehrer's Newshour, is a constant reminder of this. Naturally, Jim Lehrer does not talk much about protests against the war nor does he mention Traumatic Brain Injury or "Depleted" Uranium with the same frequency with which he broadcasts the "nightly honor roll" of (US only) war dead. Depleted Uranium is, in many ways - including the Veteran's Administration's non-response, the Agent Orange of the Iraq War. And medical science has improved to the point that Traumatic Brain and other injuries (missing limbs, etc) are now effectively treated - sparing many from the fate of being numbers in a body count. Unfortunately adjustment to civilian life is very difficult and Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome (PTSD) is a major problem for the military. In These Times writer Terry Allen reports that soldiers suffering from PTSD are being medicated and returned to battle while continuing to take anti-depressants (not a recommended course of treatment) and that military psychiatrists are being pressured not to diagnose PTSD - so that many military are being diagnosed euphemistically: there is an apparent epidemic of "stress". {3} One has to wonder if the massacres at Haditha and Ishaqi were stress related? One must also wonder if the army docs perpetrating this fraud find the use of euphemism helps them overcome the fact that they have violated the hippocratic oath - because it was "career enhancing"? This is an uncomfortable moment for those of us working in healthcare - the Nazi doctors now appear as spectres warning us to proceed very carefully. The road to hell is paved with euphemism that facilitates a depraved indifference to the suffering of others. It is all too easy for subordinates to function as sociopaths simply by being "good Germans".

With the "insurgency" raging in Iraq, our intelligence agencies - normally busy violating the civil rights of anti-war activists - are focused on kidnapping and torturing those whom they describe as "enemy combatants". As the US public might find kidnapping a difficult idea to embrace the government has provided a catchphrase to make this activity palatable. Kidnapping done to facilitate the torture of "unlawful combatants" is termed "extraordinary rendition". These "unlawful combatants" are usually "insurgents" who regard themselves as resistance or freedom fighters. As they are not agents of "state sponsored terrorism" and therefore lack access to "weapons of mass destruction" they are reduced to using "improvised explosive devices". Apparently unexploded ordnance is all over Iraq - much of it stamped "Made in the USA". Many unlawful combatants who have found themselves recipients of US hospitality in places like Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo or the "Black Sites" - secret CIA prisons located in Eastern Europe - have never been charged with ANYTHING. These unlawful and uncharged ingrates often inconvenience their hosts when their despair becomes too great. In Gitmo, hunger strikers brought attention to their mistreatment by refusing to ingest solid food. In response, Donald Rumsfeld said, "There are a number of people who go on a diet where they don't eat for a period and then go off of it at some point. And then they rotate and other people do that." {4} This benign explanation has not played well in the court of world opinion. Similarly, Cheney's referring to the forcefeeding of hunger strikers as "humane treatment" has not impressed the critics of US foreign policy. In an attempt to explain away all the fuss Cheney quipped: "The important thing here to understand is that the people that are at Guantanamo are bad people." {5}

In the wake of the clamor surrounding the suicides at Gitmo the US Government publicly denied the inmates were driven to despair by indefinite confinement (without being charged or seen by a judge), degrading and dangerous treatment and CIA "enhanced interrogation techniques," (which violate US law) such as "waterboarding" (mock drowning) and use of the "stress position," in which a prisoner is suspended from the ceiling or wall by his wrists, which are handcuffed behind his back. Iraqi Manadel Jamadi was murdered in this manner, expiring while in CIA custody at Abu Ghraib (November 2003). {6}

V - Asymmetric Warfare: The Assault On Free Speech

Rather than acknowledge that we have behaved in a manner that will stain our honor for years to come, the government has stepped up its assault on plain English. Suicide attempts are reinvented as "manipulative self-injurious behaviour" or "SIBs", "a good PR move" or an "act of asymmetric warfare". {7} Colleen Graffy, who described the suicides as a "good PR move", has been shunned by other administration spin artists who may feel her comments were over the top. I think she was right on target - in describing how our corporate state views every act: as good or bad public relations. The act is perpetrated and then spun. Collective punishment and torture are redefined as "humane treatment". The avarice and greed of the profiteers who launched the war on Iraq (including our political leaders and their corporate owned media), is clearly perverse. But it is an altruistic perversion: a "War On Terror"...a prophylactic keeping us safe from the Other - a faceless mass of terrorists who "resent our freedom" (as W so eloquently phrased it). In an effort to destroy the will to resist in the citizens whose countries we have "liberated" and occupied, our CIA and military intelligence agencies continue to engage in what is euphemistically known as "psyops" - Psychological Operations. In Afghanistan, US military personnel admitted desecrating dead bodies and heaping humiliation upon the subjugated populace as a provocation designed to lure alleged insurgents into the open where they could be massacred. In plain English our troops defiled the bodies of the dead (a deliberate affront to Muslims) in full view of local residents - while yelling insults from loudspeakers. The net result was a PR fiasco. {8}

Here at home, anti-war protesters are often insultingly labeled "anti-American" by the government and are shoved into "free speech zones" (pens far away from the object of the legal protest) by police where their views can be safely contained and ignored - having gone largely unheard. But often even this assault on free speech is insufficient for our fearless leaders. During the 2004 Republican National Convention in New York City, Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that "the anarchists" were coming to disrupt the city. This paved the way for massive police sweeps that netted 1800, including this writer. Naturally many of those arrested were not protestors let alone part of an anarchist insurrection.

Asymmetric Warfare has been defined by the United States Military as: "Leveraging inferior tactical or operational strength against American vulnerabilities to achieve disproportionate effect with the aim of undermining American will in order to achieve the asymmetric actor's strategic objectives." {9} In an attempt to deny the underdog aspect of the resistance to US military might the term "asymmetric warfare" is used by our government as a perjorative: it is used to imply the "insurgent" is not fighting fair. The "unlawful" combatant is sneakily - or "brutally" - trying to undermine "American will". As is often the case, US officials have ascribed to the Enemy their own worst failings. Call it denial, Freudian projection, "psyops", what have you - it is a tactic used with good effect time and again.

If one accepts that majority of the US public does not support the Bush administration's war on Iraq then it follows that Bush et al. are using euphemism (and outright fabrications) to "leverage inferior tactical or operational strength against American vulnerabilities" - the desire to believe in one's government and to have a positive self image - "with the aim of undermining American will in order to achieve the actor's objectives". In effect our being lied to, herded into "free speech zones", etc. is a conscious attempt to silence any opposition to the invasion and occupation of Iraq and other manifestations of the Permanent War "on Terror".

VI - We Will Not Be Silent

In Nazi parlance those inmates who died before they could be gassed died of "natural diminution". {10} The doctors who watched them die from starvation, beatings, disease and being worked to death exhibited a depraved indifference. An almost incomprehensible lack of empathy. The Germans who lived near some of the camps - e.g. KZ Dachau - looked away from what was happening only 20 miles outside Munich. Career minded bureaucrats like Eichmann were doubtless evil but in an incredibly banal way. Much of this was facilitated by the clever and comforting use of euphemism. An argument could be made that it is time for some plain speaking in the United States of America. One hates to be impolite of course but it appears to this observer that the descent into performing sociopathic acts begins in a society when free speech is deprecated and euphemism is unblinkingly accepted.

Resistance to the Nazis did occur, even inside of Germany. The most famous of the resisters were Hans and Sophie Scholl who called their student group the White Rose. In their fourth leaflet they warned the Nazis and their fellow travelers: "Wir schweigen nicht" (We will not be silent). An artists collective in New York City launched a campaign recently: they give away t-shirts that state "We Will Not Be Silent" in various languages, including Arabic. The Granny Peace Brigade has adopted this slogan and are now to be seen wearing the shirts. Students for a Democratic Society members have been spotted wearing buttons with this slogan. And these, and other groups, are speaking out. These and other activists are declining to be caged in free speech zones. These and other activists are in the streets, joining the struggle for a democratic society. I urge you to join them.

"What we are seeing is not a liberal democracy gone wrong. It is an emergent fascism" - Robert Alan Haber, speaking at the 2006 SDS Regional Conference (April 23, Brown University)

Notes

{1} Eichmann In Jerusalem By Hannah Arendt (ISBN: 0140187650)
Arendt's groundbreaking work introduced the concept of the "banality of evil". Part of this "banality" was Eichmann's narrow focus (careerist impulse):
...when the Madagascar Project [to deport Jews] was shelved...the only thing he had to console him was his promotion to Obersturmbannführer [Lt. Colonel], which came in October, 1941. (p. 79)

It was precisely this lack of imagination which enabled him to sit for months on end facing a German Jew who was conducting the police interrogation, pouring out his heart to the man and explaining again and again how it was he reached only the rank of lieutenant colonel in the SS and that it had not been his fault that he had not been promoted. (p. 287)
She also writes at length about the fact that Eichmann spoke (like his modern day bureaucratic equivalents in the US government) only in catch phrases (Redensarten) or slogans (Schlagworte):
Dimly aware of a defect that must have plagued him even in school - it amounted to a mild case of aphasia - he apologized, saying, "Officialese [Amtssprache] is my only language," But the point here is that officialese became his language because he was genuinely incapable of uttering a single sentence that was not a cliche. (p. 48)
See also page 84:
Eichmann's great susceptibility to catch words and stock phrases, combined with his incapacity for ordinary speech made him, of course, an ideal subject for [SS] "language rules".
(Language rules were an SS expedient meant to conceal what was happening in Auschwitz, etc.)

An interesting observation came from SDS organizer Jay Jurie who offered feedback on this piece: Eichmann had remarkable authority and autonomy for a mere lieutenant colonel, not unlike the power wielded by alleged Iran Contra conspirator Lieutenant Colonel Oliver North.

{2} The Nazi Doctors By Robert Jay Lifton (ISBN 0-465-09094)

Regarding "Life Unworthy of Life" (lebensunwertes Leben) Lifton notes that the death camps were at the end of process started much earlier:
The Nazis based their justification for direct medical killing on the simple concept of "Life unworthy of life" (lebensunwertes Leben). While the Nazis did not originate this concept, they carried it to its ultimate biological, racial, and "therapeutic" extreme.

Of the five identifiable steps by which the Nazis carried out the principle of "life unworthy of life," coercive sterilization was the first. There followed the killing of "impaired" children in hospitals; and then the killing of "impaired" adults, mostly collected from mental hospitals, in centers especially equipped with carbon monoxide gas. This project was extended (in the same killing centers) to "impaired" inmates of concentration and extermination camps and, finally, to mass killings, mostly of Jews, in the extermination camps themselves."

(Introduction to Part One)

Chapter 2: "Euthanasia": Direct Medical Killing discusses the Nazi "euthanasia" program in great detail. Chapter 6: Socialization To Killing discusses the mechanisms by which medical doctors became medical(ized) murderers.

In Chapter 6 a Nazi doctor (more reflective than most) spoke of the feeling that Auschwitz was "extraterritorial":

Doctors were further enabled to do selections by the shared sense that Auschwitz was morally separate from the rest of the world, that it was, as Dr. B. put it, "extraterritorial."* He referred not to Auschwitz's geographical isolation, but to its existence as a special enclave of bizarre evil, which rendered it exempt from ordinary rules of behavior.

* The word means outside territorial boundaries and, in a modern historical sense, has special reference to areas in which citizens of a dominant Western country were exempt from the legal jurisdiction of a weaker country (either colonized or in some way threatened or controlled) where they resided.

(p. 200)
It could be argued that Bush et al. are seeking this sort of extraterritorial legal and physical space - a place exempt from the rule of law where torture can be redefined as humane treatment.

Lifton's entire book is available online for researchers:
http://www.holocaust-history.org/lifton/

{3} The Iraq War - On Drugs By Terry J. Allen
http://www.inthesetimes.com/site/main/article/2670/

In this impressive piece Allen notes how US military personnel are self medicating (using ambien and valium) in addition to being medicated by army doctors who issue antidepressants to deal with "stress". This is not unlike the doctors (and other personnel) at Auschwitz who drank heavily (sometimes while on "ramp duty", i.e., doing selections) as a way of detaching themselves from the horrors they were a part of.

{4} U.S. denies U.N. group access to detainees
By The Associated Press and Reuters
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002598566_gitmo02.html

{5} Cheney says no plans to close Guantanamo prison ... for now By AP
http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-06-12-cheney-guantanamo-no-close_x.htm

{6} The President and His Vice: Torturers' Puppetmasters By Marjorie Cohn (t r u t h o u t)
http://www.worldproutassembly.org/archives/2005/11/the_president_a.html

{7} George Bush's War on Language By Mat Whitecross (ABC News)
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=2071642&page=1
(Asymmetic warfare sounds so unhygienic and chaotic. Thank goodness we have smart bombs that offer us the potential for surgical strikes...)

{8} See wikipedia: Psychological operations - (from the section labeled US Psychological Operations In Afghanistan):

The decision by a tactical PSYOP team with the 173rd Airborne to burn the bodies [ of Taliban fighters ] in public to try and lure enemy fighters to attack has become a public relations nightmare for the U.S. Army. ...

During the War on Terror U.S. PSYOP teams often use the broadcasting of inflammatory messages over loudspeakers to try tempting enemy fighters into a direct confrontation where the Americans have the upper hand. In the Afghanistan incident, a PSYOP sergeant read out the following message to the Taliban:
Attention, Taliban, you are all cowardly dogs. You allowed your fighters to be laid down facing west and burned. You are too scared to retrieve their bodies. This just proves you are the lady boys we always believed you to be.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_Operations

{9}Lt Col Kenneth F. McKenzie, Jr., USMC National Defense University:
http://www.iwar.org.uk/military/resources/aspc/text/aa/def.htm

{10} Eichmann Interrogated: Transcripts from the Archives of the Israeli Police
Edited By Jochen Von Lang with Claus Sibyll
ISBN: 0306809168

Less (Israeli interrogator): What is meant by "natural diminution"?

Eichmann: That's perfectly normal dying. Of a heart attack or pneumonia, for instance. If I were to drop dead right now, that would be natural diminution.

Less: If a man is forced to perform heavy physical labor and not given enough to eat - he grows weaker, he gets so weak that he has a heart attack...

Eichmann: That would have undoubtedly been reported as natural diminution.
(p. 91)

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