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c h a p t e r e l e v e n ASBH and Moral Tolerance m a r y f a i t h m a r s h a l l , ph.d. The purpose of action is to allow philosophy to continue, for if men are reduced to the material alone they become no more than beasts. Sophia, The Dream of Scipio (Pears 2002) I just got o¤ the phone with my colleague Steve Miles. He’s helping me with a poetry compilation on the downside of war. We’re designing the cover. He said, “I’ve got a good picture of a guy with a severed ear I could send you.” And I thought, Hmm . . . Do I want to use the photo of the guy sans ear? Or, instead, the one of a pile of severed ears? I think I’ll go with the pile. Maybe juxtapose it with a picture of a woman filing her nails. Play up the indi¤erence angle. Play o¤ the Carolyn Fourché poem, “The Colonel.” Re: the Salvadoran colonel who emptied a bag of ears on the dining room table while his daughter sat by and plied her emery board. He said to Fourché, “Something for your poetry, no? As for the rights of anyone, tell your people they can go f—— themselves” (Fourché 1981). All of this is prefatory to Steve’s upcoming Abu Ghraib talk on campus (Miles 2004). Not that they severed any ears at Abu Ghraib. They favored interrogatories like smothering, electric prods, rape, beatings, attack dogs, pretzeling, sexual humiliation, bodily suspensions, and feces smearing—some of which resulted in death. Not, of course, that we didn’t sever ears in Iraq. And Vietnam. That’s part of war’s basic horror show. Standard issue psycho-warrior stu¤. Consider this Milesean thought exercise: Place yourself in a room. It is cold. A naked man is there. He is a prisoner. His back is arched at an awkward angle in a stress position. His wrists are cu¤ed, crucifixion-style, to the top bunk. His feet brush the floor. A pair of underwear covers his head and face. He has been suspended like this for a long time. Place yourself in a room. A man lies on the floor. He is a prisoner. He has not slept or eaten for several days. His wrists are tightly bound behind him with flexicu ¤s. His jailer beats him with a chemical light wand, then smashes it and pours the phosphoric liquid over his naked body. Place yourself in a room. A man lies on the floor, his hands chained to the door. He is a prisoner. He wears a hood. It obstructs his vision and breathing. He is beaten with a chair and a broomstick. Then sodomized with a light wand. And with the broomstick. Place yourself in a hallway. A man inches toward his cell. He is a prisoner. He has just been released from the hospital where his gunshot wounds and broken leg have been treated. He cannot walk, so he crawls. His captors beat his injured leg. Place yourself in a room. A man is placed head first into a sleeping bag, his hands cu¤ed behind him. He is a prisoner. One of his captors sits on his chest. The prisoner dies. He has been asphyxiated. By his captors. Who subsequently lie and report that he has su¤ered a heart attack. Place yourself in a hallway. A medic is there, attending to a wounded prisoner. The man has been severely beaten. He has collapsed on the floor; his nose is broken and lacerated. The medic begins suturing the prisoner’s nose. The chief interrogator , the man who administered the beating, asks to learn how to suture. The medic shows him, and the interrogator finishes the procedure (Strasser 2004; Danner 2004). Place yourself in these rooms. You are a nurse, or a physician. You are a witness . You do nothing. You are complicit. Or you aren’t in the room, but you know of these things. The dead bodies bear the evidence. The wounded prisoners bear the evidence. You do not report these abuses up the chain of command. You might even falsify death certificates. Either way, you are an accessory to torture. You are an accessory to murder. Or, you write the truth. You record the cause of death, “Asphyxia due to smothering and chest compression.” A Pentagon spokesperson maintains that...

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