|
Standard Operating Procedure | 
 enlarge | Authors: Philip Gourevitch, Errol Morris
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book
List Price: $25.95
Buy Used: $9.49
You Save: $16.46 (63%)
New (45) Used (16) Collectible (6) from $9.49
Rating:  9 reviews
Sales Rank: 38800
Media: Hardcover
Edition: 1
Pages: 304
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.2
Dimensions (in): 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.3
ISBN: 1594201323
Dewey Decimal Number: 956.704437
EAN: 9781594201325
ASIN: 1594201323
Publication Date: April 3, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
Condition: Hardcover with dust jacket: new unread copy with minimal shelf wear, remainder mark
| |
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
An utterly original literary and intellectual collaboration by two of our keenest moral and political observers has produced a nonfiction Heart of Darkness for our time: the first full reckoning of what actually happened at Abu Ghraib prison, based on hundreds of hours of exclusive interviews with the Americans involved.
Standard Operating Procedure reveals the stories of the American soldiers who took and appeared in the iconic photographs of the Iraq war-the haunting digital snapshots from Abu Ghraib prison that shocked the world-and simultaneously illuminates and alters forever our understanding of those images and the events they depict. Drawing on more than two hundred hours of Errol Morris's startlingly frank and intimate interviews with Americans who served at Abu Ghraib and with some of their Iraqi prisoners, as well as on his own research, Philip Gourevitch has written a relentlessly surprising account of Iraq's occupation from the inside out-rendering vivid portraits of guards and prisoners ensnared in an appalling breakdown of command authority and moral order.
What did we think we saw in the infamous photographs, and what were we, in fact, looking at? What did the people in the photographs think they were doing, and why did they take them? What was "standard operating procedure" and what was "being creative" when it came to making prisoners uncomfortable? Who was giving orders, and who was following them? Where does the line lie between humiliation and torture, and why and how does that matter? Was the true Abu Ghraib "scandal" a result of an expos or a cover-up?
In exploring these questions, Gourevitch and Morris have crafted a nonfiction morality play that stands to endure as essential reading long after the current war in Iraq passes from the headlines. By taking us deep into the voices and characters of the men and women who lived the horror of Abu Ghraib, the authors force us, whatever our politics, to reexamine the pat explanations in which we have been offered-or sought-refuge, and to see afresh this watershed episode. Instead of a "few bad apples," we are confronted with disturbingly ordinary young American men and women who have been dropped into something out of Dante's Inferno.
Standard Operating Procedure is a book that makes you think and makes you see-an essential contribution from two of our finest nonfiction artists working at the peak of their powers.
|
| Customer Reviews: Read 4 more reviews...
 An Important Book To Read and Digest September 22, 2008
Grady Harp (Los Angeles, CA United States)
141 out of 142 found this review helpful
While the general public in this country is somewhat knowledgeable of the prolonged agonies of the ongoing Iraq War, few of us are as acutely aware of the dark cloud of atrocities accompanying that war. Information about the 'progress' and purpose of that war are parceled out by the somewhat restricted media, the more serious and sad aspects of what is actually happening are scrutinized before the media releases that information, leaving us with a generalized anxiety about conditions and prognostications of the conflict that has so little support from the public at present. Too often this 'protective shield' from the facts allows a certain degree of near complacency, and it takes the intermittent release of data such as the unveiling of the atrocities and prisoner abuse at the hands of American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison that surfaced through blogs and magazines and newspapers to startle the public and remind us of the grim aspects that war can drive countries and individuals to perform. Yes, similar startle reaction accompanied the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War and the books and films that followed that event alerted the public of the realities that can happen in wartime. But it takes an important book such as STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE written by Philip Gourevitch with invaluable insights and interviews from co-author Errol Morris who created the film STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE to bring to our careful scrutiny just what is happening and what is possible under the guise of 'protection' in time of war.
Gourevitch wisely divides this book into three sections - 'Before', 'During' and 'After; - which allows the reader to absorb the events leading up to the creation of the Abu Ghraib prison, introducing the people involved in transforming this dank and pungent edifice housing Saddam Hussein's own grim prison and execution house into a 'redesigned' American prison. We meet the contractors, the military personnel from the officers down to the soldiers assigned to guard the detainee prisoners, to the prisoners themselves, and it is this thorough approach to reportage that engenders confidence in the writing and makes every riveting page of this immensely important and terrifying account sear the reader's eye. Photographs, such as those that flooded the blogsites and media for a brief moment a few years ago, can create a visceral impression, but Gourevitch's choice to exclude the visuals from his evaluation of Abu Ghraib and the inhumane atrocities perpetrated by our own soldiers on the prisoners makes his book even more disturbing.
The use of letters home by the soldiers witnessing and taking part in the torture and 'interrogation techniques', letters and interviews supplied by Errol Morris from his research for his documentary film, allow us to hear about the situation first hand. Gourevitch is careful not to press his thumb on the scales that weigh the balance of 'indicated' and 'not indicated' actions and his doing so makes the reading all the more vivid. He allows us to observe how the situation arose, what actually happened there, and the repercussions and cover-up of the full story once the activities within the walls of that now infamous prison leaked out. This is a book that should be read by all citizens of this country (and of all countries who engage in war) to remind us all just how distorted and tested the state of humanity can become when the umbrella of 'war' alters human behavior that at times only retrospection (such as this book supplies) unveils. STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE is an important document and a fascinating, if grim, read. Highly Recommended. Grady Harp, September 08
STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE = Standard reading June 26, 2008
R. M. Peterson (Santa Fe, NM)
7 out of 7 found this review helpful
For an American, this is an extremely upsetting book. Actually, for a human being, it is very upsetting, but we Americans have prided ourselves (or at least I was so raised) on being especially civilized, especially humane, and especially respectful of human rights and dignity. Once again, however, we are confronted with our baseness, our inhumanity, our hubris, and our hypocrisy.
I had not followed closely the news as it broke of the atrocities at Abu Ghraib, indelibly and graphically documented via photographs. So STANDARD OPERATING PROCUEDURE is essentially my introduction to yet another disgrace, yet another blot on America's honor. (To cite just one example, which does not figure prominently in the book: how on earth can a decent society condone, much less actually practice on a regular basis, incarcerating ten-year-old children in a vile prison, based not on any suspicion that they were criminals or terrorists, but simply as pawns in the military's effort to capture or break their fathers?)
STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE is reasonably well-written and, from everything I can tell from internal evidence, the product of a scrupulous effort to be objective. And it certainly is sensitive to all aspects -- whether good, bad, or indifferent -- of the personality and character of the central actors.
What the book does not tell us -- something that may well be impossible to ascertain -- is who really is to blame for these atrocities. I am not referring to the everyday political "blame game"; whether or not the war in Iraq was ill-advised and launched with faulty or fictitious intelligence or with unworthy motives, Abu Ghraib cannot be placed solely at the feet of George W. Bush and the rest of his administration. More directly it is the result of staggering and distressing failures somewhere in the Department of Defense and the Army and, broadly speaking, the war organization. And it certainly is a travesty of justice that a few lowly, untrained, ill-equipped, and poorly supervised soldiers have been incarcerated for these incidents (which, given the circumstances and the absence of proper training, facilities, and supervision, were virtually inevitable) while anonymous higher-ups, who are much more responsible, apparently escape both censure and punishment.
The lesson to me is: As long as the United States is one of the military and economic powers in the world, there will be political debates -- legitimate debates -- about whether or not it should undertake military action or intervention. I can only hope that in the future those debates are conducted and the decisions are made honestly and based on information that is as accurate as possible and shared with the American people. (I would think it a bedrock principle of this nation -- so fundamental that it need not even be expressed in our founding documents -- that our elected leaders do not and will not lie to, deceive, or manipulate "we the people".) But if and when we do make the decision to take military action, we need to ensure we do so with a proper organization and properly trained personnel, so that whatever we do in the name of and for the sake of our ideals is in fact done consistent with our ideals. That clearly has been lacking in Iraq and that lack clearly was reflected in the incidents at Abu Ghraib -- to the everlasting shame of this country.
In an ideal (but, I recognize, utopian) world, there would be required reading for all Americans that would include such landmarks as the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution, Lincoln's Gettysburg Address, and King's "I Have a Dream" speech. But it would also include such things as "Without Sanctuary" (a photographic documentary of our shameful history of lynching), something on our treatment of Native Americans and blacks, something on My Lai, and, now, something on Abu Ghraib. To me it seems constructive that as a precondition for voting, people should spend some time pondering how it is that representatives of a democracy with such noble ideals can engage in such ignoble conduct -- supposedly in the name of law and order, democracy, and freedom. STANDARD OPERATING PROCEDURE would fulfill my hypothetical required reading with regard to Abu Ghraib.
stunning read July 2, 2008
teacher (nyc)
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
It is a credit to the prose that a subject so upsetting could become a compelling work of literature, which is what this is. A harrowing descent into hell, a meditation on moral complexity, and a sad indictment of what's become of us. The book manages the genuine trick of compassion, to be astutely objective and subjective simultaneously. This is not only a story of Abu Ghraib, of American hubris, but also of human aspiration and folly. Truly a great war book. Stunning read.
 Book omits all graphics! June 27, 2008
Little Teacher on the Prarie (Iowa)
4 out of 11 found this review helpful
This book is very peculiar in omitting all graphics. Let me repeat that: NO GRAPHICS AT ALL. No maps of Iraq. No diagram of the layout of Abu Ghraib. No diagram of the chain of command involved. No time line. And most importantly, not a single one of the photographs discussed or that exists, is shown.
So you ask why? At the very end of the book on p. 283, under "Notes and Acknowledgments" (not in a Preface or Introduction, of which there is neither), there is acknowledgment that no-photos was a deliberate decision, but a decision that is not really explained, except to say you can go elsewhere for them and that they are not the story ("The photographs have a place in the story, but they are not the story")?
I have two reactions to that. (1) Yes, I've seen Errol Morris's blogs on the NYTimes Web site, photos printed in The New Yorker, etc., etc., but it would still be very useful to have some included in print in the book. (2) How can the photographs not be a vital part of the story -- there would be no story without them because none of this would be widely believed without the visual evidence?
YMMV, but to me it needlessly weakens an otherwise valuable book and I don't understand how Errol Morris could put his name on the book with these omissions.
Required reading for this century July 13, 2008
George Borrow (Chicago, IL USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
This is literally a thought provoking work. The authors carefully refrain from judgment and share a dozen carefully interwoven stories: the slapdash way the occupation of Iraq was handled; the deliberately vague guidance given the almost completely untrained national guard platoon; the tragedy that ensues when a group of near-civilians get puffed up with the self-importance that comes from seeing themselves as part of the greatest military machine in the history of the world; the subtlety, beauty and necessity of due process. There are moments -- and I won't spoil them for you, because you will be a better person if you read this book and experience them for youself -- where your jaw will drop as the authors encapsulate all the complexity and moral ambiguity of our current historical conjuncture in a way that is neither superficial nor clicheed. With Roshomonian multiple perspectives, you end up reliving a few very strange hours in the Abu Ghraib prison, but mostly you will have a experience a psychological broadening, as your understanding of the world is widened to encompass the bizarre set of circumstances that produced those photographs. The other reviewer complained because Gourevich and Morris chose not to reprint the photographs; reading this book made me realize that I was carrying eidetic copies of the photographs in my brain, and that those photographs were a unresolved part of my understanding of the last few years. If you were puzzled, appalled or shocked by those photographs, this book is balm for that psychological itch, with the added benefit that it will help you understand our century.
|
|
|
|
| |
