Okay so I guess I’m late but I got confused by 12:01 on the 12th because apparently I can’t tell time so, since you explicitly deemed the deadline arbitrary…

During our reading of Eichmann and the contemporary articles, I was constantly reminded of Errol Morris’ film “Standard Operating Procedure,” which we’ve been viewing and discussing in my Aesthetics course as it relates to Walter Benjamin’s philosophy on the work of art in the age of technological reproducibility. The documentary deals with the controversies which occurred when U.S. Troops were put in charge of Abu Grab prison in Iraq. The issues made national headlines for weeks when photographs were leaked showing Sabrina Harmon, 20 years old at the time, posing with a thumbs up next to the body of an Iraqi prisoner who’d been beaten to death as well as several images of prisoner “torture,” including a now famous one of a hooded man standing atop a box in a shower with electrical wires attached to each of his hands. He was apparently told that if he fell from the box, he’d be electrocuted. In interviews with the troops involved, a few things became clear. First, the only way in which their actions differed from those of their superiors—often times the ones who ordered these activities—was in the photography of the events. Many of these individuals claim that the photographs were meant to be evidence of the conditions which existed, proof that things should be changed. Whether or not these were crocodile tears, the question remains: is there any way to stop military injustice like that here, during World War II, and with prisoners at Guantanamo Bay? I’m in no way justifying the actions of these individuals, it simply seems to me that those who claim to have made a conscious effort to change the injustice by allowing it to be publicly known are the only ones punished. I think it’s inarguable that these people within the military have a higher capacity to change things within the military, thus there’s a certain amount of compliance necessary to hold any sort of power to create capacity for change. So are these individual troops existentially responsible for these acts by choosing to participate in the military and, should they be punished for involvement if, in fact, it centered on a desire to change things? It also strikes me that their superiors have never been held legally responsible for their role in such a thing. Sabrina Harmon underwent trial for the photograph of her posing with the dead man, though she also carefully documented evidence that he had not, as she was told, died of a heart attack but rather accidentally at the hands of higher ups during a round of “interrogation” when she was somewhere else entirely. Are we blaming the right people for the injustices that we see? If we allow people to become scapegoats, we consciously sweep the issues under the rug, allowing, and even condoning them being continued. Therefore, are we, as a public, more, less, or equally responsible for these atrocities by allowing them to continue while patting ourselves on the back for our misplaced feelings of horror?