Ivan the Not-So-Good

When does the damage equal catastrophe?

by Alan Bisbort

Source: Hartford Advocate, June 16, 2005.

Years ago, an old man in Cleveland was arrested and extradited to Israel where he stood trial for war crimes committed during the World War II. His name was John Demjanjuk, but he was allegedly better known to inmates at the Treblinka death camp in Poland as Ivan the Terrible, for his vicious delight in torture and killing. Ivan the Terrible ran the gas chambers at Treblinka, where between 1942 and 1943, 850,000 Jews were exterminated.

At the time, a few pundits stepped forward and said, more or less, that it would be cruel and unusual to torment this old man — now a retired autoworker and respectable member of American society — and the process of extradition took years as a result of the meticulous attention to Mr. Demjanjuk's legal rights. So much time had passed and so few witnesses were available (most eyewitnesses having conveniently baked in Treblinka's ovens) that there was lingering doubt as to whether Demjanjuk was actually Ivan the Terrible. There was, however, no doubt that Demjanjuk had been a Nazi death camp guard, entered the U.S. illegally and obtained American citizenship fraudulently. He may or may not have been Ivan the Terrible. But, as my friend Robbie reminded me this week, a writer for The New Republic — back before Stephen Glass pitched it fake stories and its editors weren't neo-conservative apologists — suggested that Demjanjuk should still be brought to trial, arguing that maybe he's not Ivan the Terrible … perhaps he's just Ivan the Not-So-Good, but that doesn't excuse his crimes.

Demjanjuk was eventually convicted in Israel and sentenced to be hanged. But, in 1993, the Israeli Supreme Court overturned the conviction after evidence was produced that cast further doubt on Demjanjuk's nom de guerre, Ivan the Terrible. Again, he may or may not have been Ivan the Terrible; he may have just been Ivan the Not-So-Good. But Israel was not willing to take any chances. He returned to Cleveland where he, age 85, still lives.

Such niceties accorded a Nazi guard!

The parsing of words by pundits in the past week since Amnesty International released a damning report about Bush's "war on terror detentions" reminded me of those distant Demjanjuk apologists. On C-SPAN, several Republican callers expressed outrage that AI director, William Schulz, had compared American detention camps to "Soviet gulags." They, without irony, made the point that thousands had died in the Soviet gulags compared to a few hundred in our camps.

This made my friend Robbie wonder, "At what point is it appropriate to compare our detention camps to Soviet gulags? What is the critical number of people who have to die for the comparison to be meaningful and truthful? 1,000 dead prisoners? 5,000 illegally detained non-terrorists who can't get lawyers?"

The report in question, "Guantanamo and Beyond," is available for your perusal (www.amnesty.org); it's documented with 541 footnotes and appendices that detail the deaths, torture and starvation done in Cuba, Iraq, Afghanistan and other secret locations in such enlightened bastions as Saudi Arabia and Pakistan. The report should come with this disclaimer: "Reading This May Cause Nausea in Those Americans Who Don't Want Things Like This Done in Their Names."

Then again, it may not sicken most Americans, who've proven to have fairly strong stomachs during the first five years of the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld's iron-fisted, ham-handed and tin-eared rule. It sure didn't upset the punditocracy, which parroted the talking points of Bush (who dismissed the report as "absurd"), Cheney ("irresponsible") and Rumsfeld ("reprehensible"). White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who has mastered the art of talking through his ass, said, "We always are looking at all alternatives when it comes to dealing with these detainees."

Even if you might be tempted to dismiss the AI report — and you can't dismiss it until you've at least scanned its contents — you have to admit that Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld should have their truth-telling privileges revoked after five years of their monumental lying has led to a nightmarish war in Iraq, the largest budget deficit in American history, the galling and indisputable evidence that those who underwrote their political careers are engaged in war profiteering and have been allowed to set our nation's energy policy (just this week, for example, we learned that Exxon prepared Bush's official position on global warming), etc.

My mother's rule of thumb for determining the veracity of something is appropriate here: Consider the source.

Absurd, irresponsible, reprehensible indeed.

© 1995-2005 New Mass Media
reprinted from The Hartford Advocate