One of the talking points for dethroning Saddam prior to invading Iraq was the fact that Saddam was a cruel and abusive dictator who was infamous for toruring people. Reports circulated in the media about the infamous Abu Ghraib prison in which enemies to the throne were tortured, intimidated and interograted, and abused.
It is a terribly sick and disgusting irony then that US troops of the 800th Military Police Brigade, under the command of Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski, are now being charged and I do believe 6 are being scheduled for trials to be court marshalled for their heinous acts. News today mentioned that contract mercenaries are involved and may have been the ones pressuring the troops to do the dirty work.
Consider the details of their crimes, many of them photographed, as reported by James Risen of The New York Times:
...naked Iraq prisoners are stacked in a human pyramid, one with a slur written on his skin in English. In another, a prisoner stands on a box, his head covered, wires attached to his body. The program said that according to the United States Army, he had been told that if he fell off the box, he would be electrocuted. Other photographs show male prisoners positioned to simulate sex with each other.
"The pictures show Americans, men and women, in military uniforms, posing with naked Iraqi prisoners," states a transcript of the program's script, made available Wednesday night. "And in most of the pictures, the Americans are laughing, posing, pointing or giving the camera a thumbs-up."
The CBS News program said the Army also had photographs showing a detainee with wires attached to his genitals and another showing a dog attacking an Iraqi prisoner. The program also reported that the Army's investigation of the case included a statement from an Iraqi detainee who charges that a translator hired to work at the prison raped a male juvenile prisoner.
At the Abu Ghraib prison, where the photographs were taken, American forces have been holding hundreds of Iraqis since the American-led invasion of Iraq.
....dogs had been used to intimidate prisoners.
Today, Bush tried to quell news of this morally bankrupt treatment of Iraqis by condmening the acts and stating that he was, indeed, disgusted by them (per the AP report). "Their treatment does not reflect the nature of the American people," Bush said in the Rose garden at the White House. "That's not the way we do things in America. I didn't like it one bit."
But with the photographs appearing at the beginning of news reports today around the world, especially on Arab television stations, will Bush's statement be enough to incite a devastating backlash. Iraqi's have grown weary of our occupation there, according to the latest polls out this week. If Bush is disgusted, he needs to do more than just talk fluff about how we Americans treat other people. If these contract mercenaries are involved, he needs to bring them to justice, even though reports today explain that they are not subject to the law.
In the Joel Schumaker's film Tigerland, the character Boz, (played by Colin Ferrell) is trying to survive boot camp. In one scene, Boz and his fellow trainees are being trained on how to interrogate a "gook." Boz gets up and walks away when the officer begins explaining how you can electrocute "gooks" by placing the positive and negative charges on their balls. The officer runs after Boz and aggressively confronts Boz about running out. Boz cries out in reply "Why would you want to do that to another human being?"
Bush's reaction today tried to paint Americans as human beings. This incident, however, paints a completly different story.
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