Recently I was in a rural section of Illinois and heard about an email circulating that made fun of the Iraqi prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib prison by degrading the abused prisoners and their countrymen. While I never saw the email, it apparently combined the idea of “how would you like them in your home” with cultural slanders like “they never wash”, and the idea that they were simply out to kill Americans (westerners?).
My first reaction was one of real horror that someone could even come up with the concept that the prisoners were to blame for their own abuse. It is an incredible act of dehumanization.
Now that some days have passed I still think it indefensible, but I think I understand it more. The New York Times article today, “Rules on Prisoners Seen as Sending Mixed Messages to G.I.’s” doesn’t deliver on the title as well as it should have, but it’s the right issue. In a foreign war climate deliberately filled with ambiguous rules and disorder, a lot of working class people (among others) are probably realizing that the fall guy is going to be the underpaid, under-prepared, lower-rank soldiers from their hometown that they know and care about. The area I was in hosts a military company whose soldiers were given a last minute extension of their tours. I’m sure the stress on military families and those around them is unbearable. Being told that some of our soldiers, many of whom just want to go home, are the bad guys is likely too much for them. It is clear that American soldiers and contractors should never have abused prisoners. It is also clear that these soldiers should never have been put in the situation they found themselves. That is the other side of the story, and it’s a side that needs better telling. But don’t expect it from the Bush Administration.
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