There’s a good argument to be made that Stalag 17, the Billy Wilder WWII POW classic, is the greatest US war movie ever. If you haven’t seen it you should, it is fantastic from start to finish. Detailing the day to day stress of life as American NonComs in a German POW camp, it delivers on multiple levels. William Holden won an Oscar for his portrayal of Septin, the cynical scrounger suspected of being a Nazi collaborator, but fully vindicated in the end after he uncovers who the rat really is.
I first saw this masterpiece with my father when I was no more than 10. It was one of his all time favorites, and I believe he actually suggested I watch it with him one snowy weekend afternoon, which was highly unusual. One particular scene enrapt me then and in reviewings ever since. A Lieutenant Dunbar was stopping over as the Krauts were taking him to an officers camp. Assuming no traitors were present, his friend tells the barracks Dunbar is responsible for blowing up a Nazi ammo train. When the rat clues in the camp’s commandant, a superb Otto Preminger, Dunbar is hauled in for interrogation, which consists of being kept awake and on his feet for hours on end. At one point a Red Cross representative – the “Geneva Man” – at the camp to assess whether it is abiding international law, interrupts the questioning and demands Dunbar be given quarter as a POW. The commandant coolly rejects him, explaining Dunbar is a spy and not entitled to lenience. Before the inspector leaves he warns that after the war those who violate human rights will be held to account, fully implying how nefarious Preminger is.
I remember how much the scene horrified me. As a big fan of warm covers and a good night’s rest, the idea of being denied sack time for hours on end was… well, torture. God knows how much sleep I would have lost if Wilder had depicted Dunbar being brutally waterboarded. Point is, I simply took it as a given, not worthy of a second thought, that my America would never do such an awful thing; that was what made Nazis, Nazis! Had anybody told me the US did it, too, I wouldn’t have believed them. There could hardly be a more basic differentiator between us and them than the treatment of Lt. Dunbar.
After 9/11 and into the Iraq War, Stalag 17 was vivid in my mind listening to Bill O’Reilly lustily defend US interrogation of Guantanamo inmates, who were given the same Dunbar treatment. “It’s just load music, for God’s sake,” O’Reilly bellowed when a guest suggested that refusing to allow men to sleep for days on end violated international law. Sean Hannity, not to be outdone in the tough guy patriot department, boasted he’d allow himself to be waterboarded for charity.
When the horrors of Abu Ghraib came to light, Fox/AM spun the scandal by shrugging that “things happen in war,” and besides, most of the inmates were surely guilty of worse.
That the Bush Administration, led by Darth Cheney, codified “enhanced interrogation” into US law, and actually promoted it in the field was, of course, despicable. That we now have a POTUS who has regularly vomited he’d do “a hell of a lot worse than waterboarding” is unthinkable. But the fact that we are about to confirm as CIA Director a real life supervisor of torture on the ground, and readily overlook that fact because, within the pool of this President’s applicants, she is the best we can hope for….by a lot – think Tom Cotton – clarifies more than a perilous lack of options. That we no longer even have the luxury to debate the ethical and moral records of appointees, conceding that baseline experience and competence is now to be coveted and secured wherever available, confirms our national identity has been lost. Now we stand for exactly what Trump and his wretched core are all about…nothing. Resist for your country! BC