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Up to the minute notes on the current state of free thinking and free living: Kentucky moonshine - original analysis and reporting from MoreThings, and all round pop culture museum of sight and sound - photo galleries, mp3 and video downloads.
Al Barger and MoreThings - getting people's goats since 1998.
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May 06, 2004
What torture?
Big grief over some pictures coming to light of American soldiers "torturing" Iraqi prisoners.
Look at those pictures, though: There's no "torture" going on there. These pictures amount to variations on simply making them get naked and taking their pictures. This may be humiliating, but it is not torture- it doesn't involve the infliction of pain or really even the threat of it.
I would presume that such behavior is unwarranted and unacceptable, though there could be mitigating circumstances. One story has it that these things were done under orders for the purpose of "softening them up" for interrogation. If these were nasty Republican Guard members merely being humiliated and not physically molested but mentally broken down in advance of important questioning, that would mitigate if not excuse the US soldiers.
Still, people responsible for these pictures need to be removed from their positions, and possibly otherwise punished. As far as I'm concerned, though, it's punishment for STUPIDITY and bad judgment rather than faked up outrage over the non-injuries they did not inflict.
Doing stuff like this has obvious and predictable negative consequences, and no one not smart enough to have seen them has any business being in charge of anything. Humiliation games with prisoners are a bad idea even just practically. Allowing PICTURES of it to be taken is just inexcusable.
What? Al Jazeera is running these pictures 24/7? Duh! Who could have seen that coming? Of course, al Ja-frickin'-zeera will run these pictures ENDLESSLY, and they will be used in recruiting posters for al Qaeda and so on. Of course, the Arab media will talk crap about the US no matter what, but why give them ammo?
This will obviously cause US some diplomatic problems- though perhaps not that many. A lot of people are going to pontificate and shake their fingers, but mostly only because they are already hostile. This doesn't seem to change much, but it does give them an at least halfway legitimate excuse for complaining.
I'm not that concerned with a bit of embarassment being brought to some Iraqi prisoners, who've done Allah knows what. Frankly, I wouldn't feel too bad if a few of the uglier customers got actually roughed up considerably worse than anything in these embarassing but non-violent pictures- particularly if it were for the purpose of gaining intelligence that might save the lives of US soldiers. But no cameras, please.
However, they've brought embarassment to the US government, and that's different. The people who created these pictures have done what should have been obviously predictable and serious damage to US efforts to make that hellhole of a country livable.
The soldiers and commanders who made those images are guilty of war crime misdemeanors at WORST, but they made a big stupid international stink out of pure dumb stupidity. I don't feel that much urge for moral censure, but they need to take the rap for this situation. It's their doing, and they should have goddam known better.
posted by Al at 5/06/2004 02:32:00 PM
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