Breakthrough

Via BuzzFlash I learned of an editorial in today's Washington Post about the documents recently pried loose from the Shrub gang via a lawsuit by the ACLU and other civil rights groups.

[T]housands of pages of government documents released this month have confirmed some of the painful truths about the abuse of foreign detainees by the U.S. military and the CIA - truths the Bush administration implacably has refused to acknowledge. ...

Though they represent only part of the record that lies in government files, the documents show that the abuse of prisoners was already occurring at Guantanamo in 2002 and continued in Iraq even after the outcry over the Abu Ghraib photographs.

Declaring the documents "establish beyond any doubt" that "every part" of the administration's cover story to excuse abuses "is false," the editorial concludes by saying that

[p]erhaps intervention by the courts will eventually stem the violations of human rights that appear to be ongoing in Guantanamo, Iraq and Afghanistan. For now the appalling truth is that there has been no remedy for the documented torture and killing of foreign prisoners by this American government.

What's even more significant than the appropriately harsh words of the editorial itself, however, is its title: War Crimes.

War Crimes.

A major, mainstream, indeed generally moderately conservative, media outlet has applied the term "war crimes" to US policies, to US behavior. That is a breakthrough.

There are always certain walls to be breached in coming to face truths. Certain things that we avoid saying because of the meaning the words carry. We sugar-coat, we euphemize (yes, I think I just made that form up; so sue me), we tell white lies to others and to ourselves. We all do it. Most of the time it has nothing to do with public policy, with anything that affects anyone beyond the immediate circle or any events beyond the immediate circumstances.

But sometimes it does matter. Consider, for one obvious example, how the media avoided (and still avoids) the word "lie" in regard to public pronouncements by officials - and not just by Shrub. They will refer to "exaggerations," to "misstatements," they'll say something is "inaccurate" or perhaps "potentially misleading." But they won't say it's a "lie" - because that crosses a line they don't want to cross. And I don't mean one of taste or journalism, I mean a line of awareness. Once you say "they lied," it changes how you view everything that comes after.

In the same way, saying the Iraqi war is "wrong" - not "a mistake," not "a distraction from the real enemy," not "a waste of resources," but just flat out wrong, ethically, morally, humanly, built on lies and drowned in carnage in pursuit of power - changes how it's viewed. Suppose it was done with full awareness of and planning for the the hazards of occupation. Suppose it didn't draw attention away from actual threats of terrorism. Suppose it was carried out very efficiently. It would still be wrong. "Wrong" breaks through the walls of tactical considerations and arguments about practicality to reach the truth.

Here, now, there is possibly of that kind of breakthrough. A wall has been breached. The term "war crimes" has been used openly not even just in, but by a mass media outlet. A space has opened up that hopefully will grow and grow quickly. It's said that "calling things by their right name is the beginning of wisdom." May that wisdom flourish.