The Wikileaks Tape and the Invisible Double Standard

Here we see the the gunsight video of an Apache helicopter's attack on a group of Iraqi men in Baghdad in 2007. About twelve people were killed, including two Reuters photojournalists. Two children were severely injured during the attack, and their father, the mini-cab driver, was killed. 

It was published by the online secret-document clearinghouse wikileaks. The video has caused a furor online, not least in Germany. Despite the somewhat heavy-handed title and narrative framing, the video speaks for itself.

A Tiny Revolution's prediction (with some exaggeration for comic effect) strikes me as pretty much on-point:

Here's my prediction for the final outcome of the Wikileaks video: the U.S. military will continue to claim some of the people killed were armed insurgents. This will satisfy all U.S. conservatives and most U.S. "liberals." Meanwhile, everyone else on this planet will continue to gape at us in slack-jawed horror.

Why the sharp difference between us and the rest of humanity?

1. I have no idea whether any of the people shot were armed, or insurgents, or armed insurgents. There will inevitably be long dreary arguments about this between U.S. liberals and conservatives, complete with 5,000-word blog posts analyzing the video frame by frame.

But here's the thing: even if everyone but the journalist and children were armed insurgents, no one else on earth cares. That's because, when another country invades yours, you're allowed to fight back. And if you invade another country and start slaughtering people, you don't somehow make yourself the good guy by proving that they were trying to fight back.

2. The technological mismatch between the U.S. and everyone else is so gigantic that it violates normal humans' sense of justice. This is something almost no Americans give a second thought to, but it's widely appreciated in those countries (ie, all of them) that don't have noiseless death-machine drones flown by joystick from 10,000 miles away.

What's unsettling about the video (aside from the fact that there are probably hundreds more like it that we don't know about) is that the soldiers in the Apache attack helicopter are hovering a mile away from the action, with imperfect and inaccurate information about the people whom they are so expertly killing. The people on the ground, who clearly have no idea about what is about to happen to them, pose no threat to the men in the helicopter. (And, of course, the entire military mission the men in the helicopter are fulfilling is illegitimate, although that is, perhaps, another debate.) However, as Jon Schwartz points out above, the public debate in the United States will probably revolve around technicalities: whether the soldiers were properly following the rules of engagement, or how many of the dead people might have been carrying weapons.

Nobody in the mainstream of public discourse will ask themselves, for example, how the U.S. would have reacted had it been Americans in that helicopter's gunsights. Nor will they ask themselves what the American soldiers in the Apache helicopter would be doing if their country had been invaded and occupied by a foreign nation (not to say a Muslim nation). The answer, of course, is that the Americans would be the ones firing off the RPGs at the hated occupier, and would be celebrated as heroes for doing precisely that.

This is an example of what I call the 'invisible double standard' -- the unspoken, unquestioned assumption on the part of most Americans that the standards other countries use to judge each others' conduct should not, or do not, apply to the United States. Of course, this double standard is only invisible to Americans. Other nationalities -- and some Americans -- perceive it all too clearly. But most don't. As Schwartz observes, the invisible double standard crosses party lines, although liberals are likely to be somewhat more aware of it. Just last week, I went to a speech by Robert Reich at Harvard on corruption in American politics (you can watch the speech here, or click on 'more' below for the embed) in which someone asked him why American policymakers so rarely paid attention to other countries' approaches to issues such as infrastructure spending, health care, or political corruption. Reich said (in paraphrase): "You know, I've spend decades in Washington D.C. in a variety of roles, and I've learned one thing well. If you want to completely bore your audience, just begin a sentence with, 'You know, in country X, they do it this way...' Everyone will stop paying attention immediately. I don't know why this is, but it's extremely arrogant and conceited."

I also had a few debates with Americans and some pro-American foreign students about the Iraq war. Generally intelligent, well-informed people, political moderates by American standards. We chatted, as people will, about politics. Just to see what might happen, I voiced my opinion that the invasion of Iraq was an unprovoked war of aggression, and therefore a war crime. This is not a particularly controversial point in Europe. Of course, I was not so naive to believe Americans would endorse this view, and anticipated having to defend my point. Which I did, by pointing to the fact that the first count of the indictment that served as the basis for the Nuremberg Tribunal accused the defendants of waging "wars of aggression, which were also wars in violation of international treaties, agreements, or assurances." Five defendants who were found guilty of this count were executed. Concentrating on just this one issue, how could one deny that George W. Bush committed a war crime?

After a little back-and-forth, my conversation partners usually realized their position was untenable, and reluctantly admitted that under current international law -- including law that the U.S. has sought to enforce against other nations -- the Iraq invasion probably was a war crime. So far, so uncontroversial. What's particularly telling is what comes next. I ask them what they think should be done about that fact. The answer is universally: "Well, uh, nothing, I guess. Maybe there should be some Congressional inquiry." I suggest another response: What about putting George W. Bush on trial before an international tribunal? The mere suggestion elicits a nervous chuckle, or an accusation that I'm 'crazy' or 'way out of line'. But how? I ask, with mock naivete. You've already admitted that there is such a thing as international law, that waging wars of aggression violates it, that George W. Bush waged a war of aggression, and that generally, the proper response to war crimes is to give their perpetrators a fair trial. How can you make all of those concessions -- yet still avoid the conclusion that George W. Bush and some of his advisers should be held accountable?

The answer, of course, is that this outcome is just unthinkable. I then ask: but why is it unthinkable? Should it be unthinkable? From their responses, it's clear they've never asked themselves these questions. That's why the double standard is invisible: it's such a basic component of how many Americans think about the world that they don't even notice it. For me, the first few years of living in Germany helped me unmask just how much of my worldview was tainted by the invisible double standard. I haven't rooted it out completely, but I'm now much more aware of it, and I think it's helped me see the world more clearly. 

Comments

[Norbert]

A good example for (quite visible) double standards is also the US position vis-à-vis the International Criminal Court (ICC): one the one hand, participating actively in setting up the ICC and continuing to provide necessary support in the ICC’s prosecutions against war criminals, one the other hand always ensuring that US nationals could not be held to justice by the ICC. In essence, the message being that US nationals are first rate citizens while all others are second rate. There are signals that Obama/Hillary are trying to change this position and signing up to the ICC Treaty but what are the real chances?

[Anonymous]

Cohu, Germans (and Americans and anyone else) are undoubtedly right to hold the U.S. to the high standards it acclaims and especially when it acts in contradiction of them.

I do not subscribe to the "You're-either-with-us-or-against-us" thinking made famous by G.W. Here, my dear Cohu, esse non est percipi.

[Gerrit K]

"What about putting George W. Bush on trial before an international tribunal? The mere suggestion elicits a nervous chuckle, or an accusation that I'm 'crazy' or 'way out of line'."

Your discussants have come to understand that there is such a thing as the "normative Kraft des Faktischen" (Jellinek) which I guess is part and parcel of any legal system and most likely one of the reasons for double standards.

The "nervous chuckle" must be an expression of the cognitive dissonance due to the simultaneous acceptance of your point and the sheer impossibility of putting GWB on trial.

BTW, cognitive dissonance might also be the reason for starting a discussion about European anti-Americanism although it's completely off-topic.

[cohu]

"I have also noticed again and again in conversations with German friends that they keep hammering away at the U.S. while passing over the real abuses of some very disreputable governments."

We're holding you to your own high standards. That's what friends are for. We know that America can do better, and often does do better. Many Americans (and not only liberals!) seem to share this view, AFAIK.
There is a strong anti-american bias in the German media, like Spiegel or Süddeutsche, but not all Germans share this anti-americanism. I know I don't. Please try to distinguish between well-intentioned, objective, constructive criticism and Anti-Americanism. Not everyone who's not with you is against you...

[Anonymous]

Andrew, your comment reminds me of something a German woman once told me when I asked her (this was before the fall of the Wall) why the U.S. government, deservedly or not, was getting pilloried at peace demonstrations while nothing was said about the former USSR. She explained that nothing needs to be said about the USSR "because we already how bad it is." So the demonstrations were, in effect, an angry protest at a misbehaving father figure, and what was going on came more from ambivalence than hatred.

There may be something to that, but it doesn't do much to bring about more balance and objectivity on the whole.

There were articles in both "Spiegel" and "Stern" about the perfidy of the Hussein regime, but during the Iraq War (which, by the way, I opposed) reporting about U.S. abuses and excesses was predominant. I'm quite sure that a statistical survey of media coverage would prove this handily.

I note that since Obama's election the tide of anti-American sentiment has turned and America may still be mistrusted but seems to be liked or even admired on the whole by Germans, even though the Iraq War rages on. So our discussion is something of a museum piece.

"Davids Medienkritik," whose authors are on quite a different page than I am politically, chronicled, at times convincingly, at other times not so much, anti-American distortions primarily of the German MSM. It is interesting that the authors have more or less closed up their shop, while yours is still in business. More power to you, even though we may disagree here and there.

[Alex]

@ Andre: I wouldnt call it a blind spot, more like a kind of hypersensivity. And it is even fading in the last years.

@Andrew:
Simply by feeling i strongly agree with you. But sometimes I doubt if we are not even a bit hypercritical toward the states.

It is quite simple: A powerful country should weight its words and actions more careful.
Simply because the other nations weight every word and action of this big country with much more sensibility and concerns and are much more willingly to bash it.
Silly actions from small countries are more easily ignored (as intelligent actions are too).
A small country talks about war - and the world laughs. America talks about war - and the world shivers. Simply the can and do realize it, with global impacts.

A little bit its the same in Europe with Germany as its biggest state: If a swiss minister swears about germany, we do not really care. But if the german finance minister makes a joke regarding cavallery and indians, the swiss people shudder and rant for months and years.
And by reason of a potato joke by a small german newspaper an polish president canceled a state wisit.

It is easy to regularly rant about the US. But is it always fair or dont we rant sometimes to easily?

PS: In contrary of all above: I still do not at all have the smallest clue how they could ever RE-ELECT such a paranoid guy as W.Bush.

[Andrew]

I'm with cohu here. I often hear this complaint about European press coverage of the Iraq war, but it is never accompanied by specific, relevant examples. Meanwhile, I can adduce hundreds of examples of European press coverage of the horrors of the Hussein regime, including, for instance, this Spiegel report entited "The Dictator's Reign of Terror."

The European press doesn't see a need to "qualify" reports of American misconduct by constant references to how nasty Saddam was because (1) they assume their readers know how nasty he was; and (2) they accurately perceive that the fact that he was a brutal dictator has nothing to do with American killings/torture/misdeeds committed years after he was deposed.

[Anonymous]

Cohu, "willfully ignored" may apply more to the left or far left side of the spectrum, politicians like Hans-Christian Ströbele, for example, and so that may be an exaggeration on my part.

However, German media coverage of the second Iraq War concentrated on U.S. "crimes" while downplaying abuses of the Hussein regime. I am referring in particular to "Stern" and "Spiegel."

I have also noticed again and again in conversations with German friends that they keep hammering away at the U.S. while passing over the real abuses of some very disreputable governments. The first few times this happened I could forgive it, but it is getting rather wearisome.

I refer you to Andrei S. Markovits, who has written about this extensively.

[cohu]

"The tendency in Europe is to castigate the U.S. one-sidedly while passing over or trivializing atrocities committed by Hussein and others like him."

Honestly, I've never met anyone in Germany who trivialized or wilfully ignored Hussein's atrocities. People here just think problems like that cannot be solved by military means, but that doesn't mean they're defending or ignoring tyranny.

[Anonymous]

It is true, Andrew, that the U.S. did exhibit a double standard in its foreign policy by playing down the chemical attack. As the Wikipedia article cited below states:

"The international response at the time was muted and the United States even suggested Iran was responsible.[12] The United States, who, at the time, were allies of Iraq in their war with Iran, said the images could not be verified to be the responsibility of Iraq."

The CIA, who had agents on the ground, most certainly knew who was responsible.

We know where this kind of "pragmatic" foreign policy got us. Deride a moral foreign policy as ineffectual and naive if you will, but in the end it nearly always results in more political and strategic gains than neo-conservative "realism."

Yet I would not go so far as to call Bush a war criminal. The murderous nature of the Hussein regime and the real threat it posed should be kept in mind, if only in the interest of an objective and balanced criticism.

The tendency in Europe is to castigate the U.S. one-sidedly while passing over or trivializing atrocities committed by Hussein and others like him.

[Andrew]

@Ralph: The poison gas attack would more likely fit the definition of a crime against humanity (to the extent that this term has a stable definition). But, of course, that hardly detracts from my point. It might have some relevance if the United States had elected to go to war against Iraq to prevent another imminent crime against humanity such as the Halabja attack. But that's not the case: the Halabja attack occurred in 1988, and the United States' foreign policy at that time dictated an extremely muted response. The fact that Saddam Hussein was an indisputably vile and vicious dictator does not distinguish him from many other world leaders, and does not furnish a legitimate ground for invasion.

@alex: no doubt all nations have their blind spots; and I take delight in pointing to some of Germany's when the occasion arises. But the United States' blind spots are a thousand times more important, because the United States has the power and will to project military force around the world. We're no longer talking about cultural misunderstandings or diplomatic spats. When the nation which has the blind spots also possessed the power to kill large numbers of people anywhere it wants, the rest of the world will rightly sit up and take notice.

[Andre]

@Alex: One of those German double standards I guess would be the widely spread acceptance of patriotism and national pride other people have towards their nations, while normally you tend to be rather sceptical to any German who shows the same sentiments. At least that's how I feel and I know a lot of people feeling the same way. But also it's not as invisible, I guess...

[Alex]

> invisible double standard
This was a very interesting article with a very interesting fazit!
Thank you for displaying it so fine on this example.
I am quite shure most or even all nations do have their blind spots where they use such an "invisible double standard" - and while we see easily this of other nations we tend not to see our owns.
I would be very interested if there exists collections and comparisons of these blind spots at different nations. As a german of course I would especially like to know about the typically german invisible double standards, just to get more sensitive to it.
If you dont see them you cannot counter them and improve yourself.

[Michael]

@Till, @Andre: Bringing democracy to Iraq was one of the factors used to justify a war in the "Iraq War Resolution". Also Bush and several of his advisors were neoconservatives and using economic and military force to bring democracy and human rights to other nations is what defines them.

@Andrew: Launching an illegal war is not a war crime but a "crime against peace". War crimes are committed while at war, for example using chemical weapons (for a definition see the Charter of the Nürnberg Trials).

I also want to remind, that the Kosovo war too was a war against an UN-member in absence of an attack and without a authorization of the UN Security Council - a war of aggression that is. So Bill Clinton has committed crimes against peace too.

I am aware that the decision to wage war against Iraq was very problematic, risky and probably naive. But it is important to see the bigger picture. The importance of bringing democracy to the middle east can not be overestimated - but of course we will not know the final consequences of this war for many decades. Clearly Americans have all right to decry Bush because of the Iraq war, because the American soldiers are dying and the money could spent somewhere else. But what angers me are a lot of the European critics of the Iraq war who are very easy in describing Saddam Hussein in power as peace and declaring that its not possible to "bomb a land to democracy". And a European should now that this is not true.

[Anonymous]

With all due respect, Mr. Hammel, this is what I would call a war crime and the man who did it a war criminal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halabja_poison_gas_attack

[Till]

Actually, if I remember correctly, the goal of the 2003 invasion was explicitly not turning Iraq into a democratic country governed by the rule of law, but only to find the - now somewhat clichéd - WMDs. I think Rumsfeld stated that at one point of time.

[tim]

I think this double standard is exactly why the reputation of the US is so bad everywhere else in the world.

[Andre]

@ 1/Micheal) I seriously doubt that Georg W.'s prime goal was to democratize (is that a verb?) Iraq. What does he care about them? He did care about America maybe, and thus his goals are found elsewhere.
@Andrew: From my german point of view I of course endorse your now 'unmasked' view since I share it and would hope for more people to have it. On the other hand (admittedly trying to hold back on my slight feeling of superiority towards this restricted view you so aptly described) I can imagine that it is way easier and much more ... guiding / stabilizing / comforting to be as restricted (know what I mean?). I would think it tempting to go back to having those double standards. Of course if everyone shared that 'unmasked' view, there would be no need for that kinda comfort, but since there are a lot who do not, and those represent a good part of the upper 20 % of power on this planet, it should seem rather tempting. What do you think?

[Andrew]

As to your second point, Michael, that's why I limited the comparison to "just this one issue." Obviously, what the U.S. did after invading Iraq and what Nazi Germany did after occupying Poland were very different, which is why I excluded that issue from consideration.

George W. Bush launching an aggressive war without adequate provocation. This act alone is a war crime. The motive is irrelevant.

[Michael]

1. Not to observe how other nations solve problems or ignoring the (unintended) consequences of certain policy measures in other nations is definitive a European problem too. For example Austria has a problem with its education system. But all discussions about reform takes place as if there were no other countries with education systems (perfect example would be the Netherlands which solved a bunch of the same problems Austria has).

2. When Germany invaded Poland and the Soviet Union the goal was to exterminate the population (or use the population as slaves) and take the "Lebensraum". The goal of the Bush administration was the democratization of Iraq. I really can't understand how you can compare this.

[Anonymous]

"For me, the first few years of living in Germany helped me unmask just how much of my worldview was tainted by the invisible double standard."

I doubt this. You would have had the same opinion even if you had never left the U.S.