CBC - The Fifth Estate: A Few Bad Apples (John Yoo)

CBC - The Fifth Estate: A Few Bad Apples (2005) (A John Yoo variety-hour special!)

Originally Aired November 16, 2005 on CBC-TV

I thought I would upload this program that I had sitting on my hard-drive from a couple of years back to celebrate the appearance of unrepentant American war-criminal John Yoo on last night's The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. For those who just can't get enough of the magnificent smugness, arrogance, shamelessness, and smarminess that is John Yoo, be assured his appearance on this program is quite something. It must be seen in all its smarmy, smug glory:



Truly that quote and his appearance on this program captures that ineffable charm, that special something, that je ne sais quoi that is the personality of John Yoo.

Please enjoy this John Yoo variety-hour special, starring your host and man of the hour, John Yoo, complete with musical numbers and choreographed dances of naked Iraqis stacked upon each other in pyramid formations like animals by American soldiers. Sadly, everyone's favourite Iraq-genital-pointing Abu Ghraib superstar, Lynndie England, who bequethed to the grateful world the "Doing a Lynndie" craze that took the whole world by storm, does not make an appearance, although her one time beau, Charles Grainer, does appear briefly in some of photos where he poses, beaming with wide, broad smiles and with enthusiastic thumbs-up over the bloody and brutally beaten faces and bodies of Iraqis.

And most importantly, if you take one thing away from this heart-warming John Yoo variety hour special, it should be that America is that bastion of democracy and moral-values where war-criminals like John Yoo can brazenly boast about his complicity in war-crimes and torture, and yet walk free, and actually be treated "respectfully" on talk shows. Yes, this great democratic nation where the thugs and war-criminals in corridors of power and in the American military establishment like Capt. Carolyn A. Wood, Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, and Rick Sanchez, all complicit in or active enablers in creating the American torture program and in committing war-crimes, are actually rewarded with medals and then promoted instead of being punished and tried in an International criminal court of law. Yes, the same system and racist Western imperial state that nurtures, rewards, and shelters these thugs, war-criminals and mass-murderers. and the likes of Henry Kissinger, Dick Cheney, George Bush, Richard Perle, etc, is also the same Western imperial state that can be counted on for "humanitarian intervention" and to have the "noble intentions" to impart the values of "freedom and democracy" to the benighted, uncivilized brown savages who live in geo-politically and strategically important regions of the world, whose welfare they truly have primarily in mind as they send missiles and smart-bombs to them out of the magnanimousness of their hearts.

Yes, Western liberals and liberal "humanitarian interventionists": Let the American imperial state "Save Darfur" now ! Because it was only "incompetence" and poor execution of "noble intentions" that led to the war-crime that is Iraq, and to things like the American torture program at Abu Ghraib and not because the inherent characteristics and motivations of a racist, Western imperial state that is motivated by economic and strategic interests first and foremost to the exclusion of everything else, including basic morality and human rights, will inevitably lead to that outcome, regardless of how "competent" the execution.

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In April of 2004, a series of photos depicting events at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq were made public and shocked the world. The photos showed Iraqi detainees being abused and humiliated by their American military captors.

ONE NIGHT OF ABUSE
The fifth estate's story, "A Few Bad Apples", unravels the events of one night—October 25, 2003—events captured in one of those famous photographs. Three Iraqis, detained by American soldiers at the prison, are dragged from their cells, made to crawl naked along the floor and chained together on the ground and forced to mimic sex. (see large photo above) More soldiers gather. Some participate in the humiliation of the detainees, others stand by and watch.

"A Few Bad Apples" tells the story of the soldiers in that photograph—some of the "bad apples" that the White House argued were, alone, responsible for the abuses in Abu Ghraib—as well as another, bigger, story about politics and the war in Iraq.

A NEW INTERROGATION POLICY
The quick victory predicted by many Pentagon officials did not materialize after the invasion of Iraq. The country became ever more violent and dangerous. Caught unprepared, American forces scrambled to gather intelligence against a new, shadowy enemy.

Aggressive interrogation policies that contravened the Geneva Conventions were condoned and, in many instances, encouraged by the highest levels of the American government. High-level commanders insisted detainees be "broken". Soldiers in the field now understood that the "gloves [were] coming off."

Young, inexperienced reserve soldiers like Israel Rivera were ordered to help break the detainees. Rivera told the fifth estate's Gillian Findlay: "I mean, prior to being an [intelligence] analyst I worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken, so it was quite a big jump from being a 19-year-old wage worker to, you know, people coming toward you and saying well, what do you think."

In Washington DC, Guantanamo Bay and Afghanistan, plans were drawn up that would change the nature of interrogation policy at Abu Ghraib, allowing for new methods that were previously considered off-limits. John Yoo is a legal scholar who helped re-define the term "torture" for the Bush White House.

He explained the rational for doing so to Gillian Findlay: "I don't see why we ought to follow a policy that was created for wars between nation states that follow the laws of war when we're fighting an opponent that violates all the laws of war."

"A Few Bad Apples" provides the context for understanding how rules were muddled, chains of authority confused and "forward leaning" interrogation methods authorized by the highest levels through the stories of the soldiers caught in the resulting chaos.


For more information on this program, including information on the guests and various other resources and links, visit the program webpage:

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/badapples/

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Watch this story online:

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/badapples/multimedia.html

WEB EXCLUSIVE
John Yoo was a member of the legal team that developed a new policy for the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay and in Iraq.

Read more of his interview with the fifth estate:

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/badapples/interviews_yoo.html

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