When our troops start acting like the thugs we threw out, it's a sign we've been there too long. No, we're not indulging in summary executions, as Saddam's secret police did routinely, or feeding prisoners to his son's menagerie of half-starved wild animals.
However, reports of mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners by U.S. troops and contractors have been dribbling out for months. The issue has now come to a head with the publication of a number of photos from Baghdad's notorious Abu Ghraib prison showing clear, and disgusting, mistreatment of prisoners by Americans who seem to be having far too much fun doing it.
Before you click on the links below, a word of warning: these images are disturbing and they aren't appropriate for most workplaces.
One, for example, shows an Iraqi prisoner attached to electrical wires (including to his genitals) balanced on a small box with a mask over his head. He was told that if he stepped off the box he would be electrocuted. Others show nude Iraqis being forced into simulated sex acts (or maybe they're real; I can't be sure). But either way, they constitute personal humiliation, which is forbidden by the much-ignored Geneva Conventions on the treatment of prisoners of war.
The prison photos follow bloody fighting with Iraqi rebels in the Fallujah area, which has left an unknown number of civilians dead and has outraged much of Iraqi public opinion.
"This is the straw that broke the camel's back for America," said Abdel-Bari Atwan, editor of the Arab newspaper Al Quds Al Arabi. "The liberators are worse than the dictators."
"They have not just lost the hearts and minds of Iraqis but all the Third World and the Arab countries," he told Reuters.
John Cole, a blogger who is a strong supporter of the war, is outraged, and expresses it better than I could today:
"This is torture, and the people who did this are no better than Saddam and his fascists or their Nazi rolemodels from a half century ago.
"Several commenters have noted in previous posts that at least it appears the military is taking this seriously and reacting appropriately. That is scant solace.
"Do these soldiers understand how many of their brothers-in-arms they have just executed?
"Do they understand how many Improved Explosive Devices they just built?
"Do the recognize how many random grenade attacks they have just inititated?
"And on a simply human level --Have they no sense of fundamental decency?
"I am so ashamed. That is my uniform they are wearing."
When he says that the military is taking the issue seriously, Cole alludes to reports that six soldiers may be court martialed for abusing and sexually humiliating prisoners and that a general is under investigation.
The Guardian (London) also reports another wrinkle in this story that is particularly disturbing:
"A military report into the Abu Ghraib case -- parts of which were made available to the Guardian --makes it clear that private contractors were supervising interrogations in the prison …
"One civilian contractor was accused of raping a young male prisoner but has not been charged because military law has no jurisdiction over him."
And if the U.S. military has no jurisdiction over these freelance cowboys, you can be sure no one else in Iraq does. So I guess they can do anything they like. This is a prescription for further trouble.
"Col. Jill Morgenthaler, speaking for central command, told the Guardian: 'One contractor was originally included with six soldiers, accused for his treatment of the prisoners, but we had no jurisdiction over him. It was left up to the contractor on how to deal with him.'
"She did not specify the accusation facing the contractor, but according to several sources with detailed knowledge of the case, he raped an Iraqi inmate in his mid-teens.
"Col. Morgenthaler said the charges against the six soldiers included 'indecent acts, for ordering detainees to publicly masturbate; maltreatment, for non-physical abuse, piling inmates into nude pyramids and taking pictures of them nude; battery, for shoving and stepping on detainees; dereliction of duty; and conspiracy to maltreat detainees.' "
This is a disgraceful episode. The longer we overstay our welcome in Iraq, the more we court similar abuses and the more likely that Iraqis will retaliate in kind against our troops.
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