SALON

Friday, Feb 9, 2007 3:56 PM UTC

Anti-escalation resolutions? “24″ is the real problem

Are the troops taking their cues from TV?

By

Topics: Iraq war, Torture, War Room, 24,

Members of the Bush administration can’t seem to decide whether debate about the Iraq war in Congress hurts the troops and helps the enemy — the White House seems to disagree with the military on the matter, and Robert Gates seems to disagree with himself — but we can all agree on this: That TV show “24″ is the real problem.

We’ve never seen it ourselves, mind you. But the military is apparently having a tough time convincing soldiers that the scenes in the show aren’t some kind of lesson plan for how to treat detainees. According to a report from the New Yorker’s Jane Mayer, the dean of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point and several top military and FBI investigators met with some of the creative minds behind “24″ in November to complain that the show’s central premise — “that the letter of American law must be sacrificed for the country’s security” — was hurting America’s image in the world and encouraging real-life U.S. soldiers to think that torture is acceptable.

Gary Solis, who has taught a course on the law of war at West Point, tells Mayer that he once struggled to persuade his students that there was anything inappropriate about a scene in “24″ in which Jack Bauer shoots one suspect and threatens to shoot another in order to extract information from them. “I tried to impress on them that this technique would open the wrong doors,” Solis tells Mayer, “but it was like trying to stomp out an anthill.”

One of the interrogators who participated in the “24″ meeting was Tony Lagouranis, who served in the Army in Iraq. Mayer says he told the “24″ crew that videos of the show circulate among the troops and that they sometimes take their lessons from it. “People watch the shows,” Lagouranis says, “and then walk into the interrogation booths and do the same things they’ve just seen.”

Tim Grieve is a senior writer and the author of Salon's War Room blog. More Tim Grieve.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
    Credit: AP/LM Otero

  • Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center in Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
    Credit: AP/Matt Rourke

  • A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
    Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher

  • Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
    Credit: AP/Molly Riley

  • Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
    Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite

  • Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
    Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster

  • O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
    Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid

  • Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
    Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield

  • When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
    Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin

  • A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
    Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 31 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Journalists file suit against Manning's trial secrecy: Plaintiffs including Glenn Greenwald and Julian Assange demand press, public access to trial and documents
160 points161 points | comment
vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
142 points143 points | 95 comments
vote
Report: Nearly a quarter of Americans struggle to afford food
142 points143 points | 12 comments
vote
Kaitlyn Hunt refuses plea offer, will go to court over high school relationship - The 18-year-old rejected a deal that would have labeled her a sex offender and placed her under house arrest
136 points137 points | 53 comments
vote
Ted Cruz against the world - How the Junior Senator is igniting the GOP civil war
78 points79 points | 21 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: Chekhov's story mirrors Russia's own

Recommendations