“It is a common thing to abuse prisoners. I saw beatings all the time. . . . It was not just these six people.”
--U.S. military policeman Sgt. Mike Sindar on activities in Baghdad’s Abu Ghraib prison
“They also will answer, 'Lord, when did we see you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or needing clothes or sick or in prison, and did not help you?' He will reply, 'I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.”
--Matthew 25: 44-45
The buzzards are finally coming home to roost. Those who fancy themselves invincible and omnipotent ultimately receive their comeuppance. While many in our nation may continue to believe in American “exceptionalism,” that we are the chosen few called to transform the rest of the world in our image, reality has been ignored once too often. And now the mother of all scandals has loosed an uproar of outrage around the globe and revealed that the self-anointed emperor has no clothes.
Just in case you’ve been on Mars for the past few weeks, let me catalog just a few of the incidents of abuse and torture that have been perpetrated in Iraq by our armed forces, military intelligence, the CIA and private contractors. The report submitted on February 26 by Army Major General Antonio Taguba states that “Several US Army Soldiers have committed egregious acts and grave breaches of international law at Abu Ghraib/BCCF and Camp Bucca, Iraq.” A few of the acts listed in the report include:
Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing;
Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time;
Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate while being photographed and videotaped;
Positioning a naked detainee on a box, with a sandbag on his head, and attaching wires to his fingers, toes, and penis to simulate electric torture;
Placing a dog chain around a naked detainee’s neck and having a female soldier pose for a picture;
A male guard having sex with a female detainee;
Using military working dogs (without muzzles) to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case dogs bit and severely injured a detainee;
Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees;
Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broomstick.
But, wait, there’s more. The International Committee of the Red Cross issued a report in February 2004 that details systematic, widespread abuse of detainees throughout Iraqi prisons including serious violations of the Geneva Conventions. On May 7, director of operations for the International Committee of the Red Cross, Pierre Kraehenbuehl stated, "The elements we found were tantamount to torture. There were clearly incidents of degrading and inhuman treatment."
The Red Cross first raised its concerns about the treatment of Iraqi prisoners over a year ago. And then there were the warnings in late 2003 from Abdel Bassat Turki, Iraqi human rights minister, who resigned in disgust when his complaints to America’s chief administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer, went unheeded.
Now we hear the worst is yet to come. According to NBC News, U.S. military officials have said that there are photos of U.S. soldiers behaving improperly with a dead body, a soldier having sex with a female Iraqi prisoner and soldiers brutally mauling an Iraqi detainee. There’s also an American video revealing Iraqi guards raping young boys in Abu Ghraib. In addition, at least two Iraqi prisoners have been murdered by Americans, while 23 deaths of other detainees are being investigated in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Of course, President Bush, Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and General Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, are shocked, shocked, I tell you. But how could the famous micromanager Rumsfeld not know about these problems? And why did the military strive to keep this entire matter under wraps for months, including asking 60 Minutes II to delay broadcasting the initial group of photos showing Iraqi prisoners being tortured? Was Bush out of the loop (again), or was he aware of the impending catastrophe prior to his acknowledgment of it? We may never know the answers to these questions. But for the release of the photos and a few brave U.S. soldiers who stepped forward to tell their superiors the truth, the horror of our wartime prisons would still likely be a closely guarded secret.
There are those who will contend that all of the anguish and concern being expressed in this nation about the outrages and humiliation imposed on the Iraqi prisoners impedes the war on terrorism, gives aid and comfort to the enemy and endangers our troops in Iraq. But the ones who really endanger our troops and Iraqis alike are the blustering Bushies who hoodwinked us into this unwinnable war. It’s our timid Congress who fearfully relinquished their responsibility to the xenophobia of the time. It’s the corporate media who unabashedly joined in the jingoistic march to battle. It’s all of us who are not doing everything in our power to bring an end to this national psychosis.
Getting rid of Rumsfeld will make no difference to our nation’s standing and relationship with the rest of the world. Nor will displays of contrition, dismissals or courts martial. Getting rid of the Bush-who-would-be-emperor and all the men and women surrounding him just might. The Bush administration created a fertile environment for the humiliation and torture of Iraqi prisoners by undertaking an immoral and illegal war against a weak nation that no longer had the ability to harm us or its neighbors. And now it’s time for Bush to pay the price for his shameful and irresponsible transgressions.
Readers can contact Bruce Mulkey via email at comments@brucemulkey.com. Visit his website at www.brucemulkey.com.
