Urban Thought Collective

A REVIEW OF STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE (R)

“It’s a man’s world. You have to either be equal to a man or overpower a man.” - Lynndie England.

Nope, filmmaker Errol Morris isn’t asking you to shed any crocodile tears for Lynndie England, the eye of the Abu Ghraib hurricane who stumbled into Iraq’s central prison as a highly impressionable, love struck private and left as the scapegoat/poster child for American depravity.

She’s not alone in her matter-of-fact testimony (lacking visible remorse but also lacking visible joy or pride, either). You’ll meet… Her boss and lover Sgt. Graner, the true ringleader of this insanity. Specialist Sabrina Harman, who documents it all by taking pictures out of her own amused horror and sense of duty before eventually descending to partake herself. Sgt. Javal Davis, one of the more innocent bystanders in it all, nevertheless guilty by association. All appear on camera (save a still imprisoned if not ashamed Graner), among others to explain their involvement and the level of atrocities committed at the now three syllable euphemism for torture.

Facing a growing prison population with no release procedure in place despite the continual rounding up and incarceration of fighting age Iraqis akin to the Japanese internment camps of the ’40s, these soldiers live in a constant state of fear and boredom (and a bored soldier is a dangerous soldier). Repeated use of nudity for interrogation? Aural abuse via musical repetition? Sleep deprivation? By any objective measure, the tactics employed at Abu Ghraib can only be classified as torture. With so many barbarities piling upon each other, set to an excellent, haunting Danny Elfman (Batman) score and Morris’ slickly professional editing, “S.O.P.” is overkill, if not a one-sided U.S. military account of what happened.

Not that he ever feigns to desire balance, but what of the families of the detainees? Americans always hear about the 4,000 soldiers we’ve lost, but never about the nearly 100,000 documented Iraqis that have been lost and the impact on the lives of their loved ones. Will another well shot, nicely directed and incendiary Errol Morris documentary spur any kind of change in our foreign policy or public opinion? No need - government’s arrogant isolationism has done all the work for him. If anything burns it may be your skin, as you bubble with nausea from the real life photographs of the real life people suffering real life torture because of a make-believe war on terror we created. For real.

@@@ REELS
(THREE REELS)

It’s pretty hot - go give it a shot.

Edwardo Jackson is the author of the novels EVER AFTER and NEVA HAFTA, (Villard/Random House), a writer for The 213 Magazine, and an LA-based screenwriter. Visit his website at www.edwardojackson.com where his new novel I DO? is available NOW.