There has been considerable media coverage since the release of the photos of torture and abusive interrogations at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Rumsfeld tells us there are far more heinous photos and videos.
Such torture, of course, puts our own troops and Americans
all over the world in greater peril should they be
captured or kidnapped. Retaliation is almost certain since those who hate the U.S. will increase their resolve,
though clearly they hadn't lost much resolve to date. Instead of torturing prisoners, we'd all prefer to hear
stories like Thomas Hamill's, the man who escaped from his Iraqi abductors, but at least told of being well treated.
Normally, we'd expect to hear of such news coming under the reign of Saddam Hussein, but it appears that Americans can be just as nasty. Secrecy and violence breed more secrecy and violence. Of course, many American blacks and youth will tell you that U.S. law hasn't yet protected them from the assumption of guilt or excessive force. We may no longer enslave or lynch blacks like Americans of the past, but fair treatment and equal protection still aren't here.
Did anybody else note that subtle shift in terminology in Rumsfeld's testimony? He described U.S. sponsored torture as commited by wrongdoers. Remember, Saddam and the Taliban were called evildoers. The Christian Zionist movement sees them as evil, but we've just done something wrong. Same crime, different spin.
Rumsfeld likes to pretend that he hadn't kept the news from Americans, including the President and Congress. Secrecy runs so deep in his veins that he can't even keep lies straight. You'd think somehow the public just didn't care before, but now it's a crisis and that we're being fickle. That's just not so. Had those pictures not been leaked, such abuses would not have seen the light of day. This is why secrecy in government is bad. Secrecy is what drove Saddam's regime, and it's a shame that it's driving the Bush regime in our good name.
Rumsfeld assures us that the wrongdoers will be punished. But this punishment has only come after the story was broken. Months of inaction had gone by since Rumsfeld first received detailed reports, and he just admitted that he hadn't even looked at all the photos yet. He even said that it's amazing how photos bring clarity to the words of "abuse" and "torture" he had read. Just so long as they aren't photos of the death and destruction wrought by his aggression against Iraqis.
But Rumsfeld proclaims that this is American and we're happy to prosecute such criminals, and open our kimonos in a public hearing. Heck, even the Taliban had no problem publicly punishing those it felt were criminals. But letting these nasty soldier-criminals slide until the story broke tells you the true concern over such abuses in this administration.
The shear volume of photos, the smiling faces of the abusers and the casual attitude of others in the photos show that nobody there thought they were doing wrong. They were acting with bravado and secrecy just like they learned from their commander in chief. The military wrongdoers can be tried in military courts, and sure enough, a woman soldier was among the first charged. Perhaps the CIA operatives, er, contractors, will be tried under Iraqi law? After all, civilians are held accountable to the laws of the land they are in. Will they be turned over? Unlikely, but sacrificial wolves are sacrificed from time to time -- when it benefits those in power.
The irony of the outrage over the photos, of course, is that had we instead dropped a bomb on these prisoners and blown them into many bloody pieces, or had we killed them with their wives and children using gun ships, there would have been no outrage by the media or powerful elite. They'd just be uncounted dead Iraqis. By not killing or maiming them with bullets, bombs and missiles, we're abusive.
War creates a very strange set of morals.
It is time we recognize that we're not morally superior, that our tastes don't have to be forcefully imposed on others, that we've accomplished our mission to remove Saddam, and it's time to leave Iraq immediately.
Since I first wrote this, American Nicholas Berg was supposedly beheaded in response to the abuses at Abu Ghraib. This seems unlikely and was motivated by the rebels' existing hatred of Americans and because they saw the media opportunity. It is interesting to note, however, that there was tremendous outrage that they'd kill and videotape it. Yet during "Shock and Awe," we were given the more abstract, less personal view of killing on a larger scale and having it recorded live. But for many Americans, that was just good television and ratings soared.
Furthermore, Newsweek reported on abuse of Muslim prisoners in Brooklyn now. I guess there's no need to visit Iraq, Afghanistan or Cuba anymore, it's here in the U.S. too. Even though 1,200 foreign nationals were rounded up after 9/11 on minor immigration violations, none were ever charged with terror-related crimes. But the videotapes show various forms of prisoner abuse. The only solution they can come up with is to stop videotaping. I'm sure that's also going to be the "solution" at Abu Ghraib, too: make it against the rules to take photos, but little is done about what the photos show being done.