Get A Grip
The Washington Post, which can’t tell a Pentagon IG report from Carl Levin’s political smear job, knows a good Bush bash when it sees one. This one is an unassailable heartstrings-tugger:
Eric Fair’s work as an interrogator disorienting an Iraqi insurgent suspect apparently backfired, and now he’s having trouble maintaining perspective. Fair informs us he is haunted by nightmares of what he did, which from what he’s admitting involved waking some guy up once an hour and making him strip. Other people roughed suspects up.
His guilt has convinced him the violence there today is evidence his tactics didn’t work. It’s all about Abu Ghraib, and apparently so was Napoleon’s ravaging of Europe, Hitler’s ravaging of Europe, Ho Chi Minh’s ravaging of Southeast Asia, and al-Qaeda’s murder of 3,000 Americans and counting. His theory of harsh imprisonment creating history’s murderous monsters … a variant of the popular “Why Do They Hate Us” apologist theme … doesn’t explain why John McCain is such a nice guy. Fair is upset that, after repeated investigations, prosecutions, policy changes, national self-flagellation and the departure of Donald Rumsfeld, we are moving on with the business at hand.
I feel bad that this guy is having nightmares, and I hope he is getting the PTSD counseling he needs. A lot of people can’t forget what they saw and did in Iraq. I could describe for you in detail the faces of the middle-aged Iraqi soldiers on whom I directed 50. cal fire, and exactly what they looked like when they died 30 feet away, as I directed the gunner’s fire from one to another until they were all dead. For a long time, I saw them every day. I examined their faces for clues about who they were, and to divine the exact moment and exact manner in which life exits the body. I also wept once, and asked forgiveness, because no matter what else they were, they were also human. I was a reporter. Some people didn’t think I was supposed to be doing what I did, and called me a murderer. Screw them. They were people who weren’t remotely familiar with the truth they were lecturing me about. Guess what: War is hell.
I feel bad for Eric Fair, and I hope he finds his way out of his own personal hell. But Abu Ghraib … sorry, but we’ve already dealt with that, at length, and we’ve got work to do that does not give us the luxury of prolonged national navel gazing and self-flagellation. We can do more of that later if you like. But for the moment, we have business to tend to. More hell.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 10:46 am on Saturday, February 10, 2007
8 Responses to “Get A Grip”
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February 10th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Send him to SERE. I bet those guys can realign his perspective in a matter of days.
February 10th, 2007 at 1:51 pm
Get A Grip
Get A Grip Jules Crittenden The Washington Post, which can’t tell a Pentagon IG report from Carl Levin’s political smear job, knows a good Bush bash when it sees one. This one is an unassailable heartstrings-tugger: Eric Fair’s work as
February 10th, 2007 at 1:59 pm
Bill’s Nibbles– 2007.02.10
Some Bill’s Bites posts, some things I excerpted and linked but I’m sending you to the original post. I may rearrange the order of the items within this post as I add new things that I think belong above the
February 10th, 2007 at 2:09 pm
[...] 2. Jules Crittenden on that other Post idiocy: The Correction from Hell. 3. You could have cut the suspense with a knife before The Announcement. [...]
February 10th, 2007 at 4:10 pm
It is also worth noting that Mr Fair is directly named as a defendant in a class action lawsuit that some alleged torture victims have brought against individuals and the contracting firms that employed them. I thought it was kinda cool that his conscience kicked in, not while he was getting paid by the firms to do what he did but rather when a Court allowed the suit to proceed last summer.
February 10th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
Was his so-called victim an innocent shopkeeper or pedestrian randomly snatched off the street? Or was the man caught in a house filled with weapons, bomb-making material, and enemy documents? The answer would decide the depth of my sympathy for Mr. Fair’s misgivings.
February 11th, 2007 at 6:53 am
Oh, boo hoo. I’ll match my nightmares from Viet Nam with his any day. And my dad–who spent WWII in the Pacific, and the Korean War in, well, Korea, could outmatch both. My grandfather, who was gassed in the trenches in WWI, had his nightmares. Surprise. War is hell. It leaves you with nightmares if you have any humanity.
God but I’m getting sick of the whining and hand-wringing.
August 31st, 2007 at 12:20 am
[...] damage being done to civilians on both sides of the conflict. Unless of course, you’re not bothered by things like that, I feel bad that this guy is having nightmares, and I hope he is getting the [...]