Saturday, May 01, 2004
American soldiers abuse Iraqi prisoners
America and the world -- and especially the Arab world -- were shocked this week by pictures of American guards abusing Iraqi prisoners in a Baghdad jail. This is not the first such incident. American soldiers were discharged or otherwise disciplined in January for similar offenses. This time, there was an internal Army report that described the soldiers' behavior as "sadistic, blatant and [wantonly] criminal."
There is no way to defend or excuse this behavior. It is also inevitable, at least to some degree, when violent people are detained en masse. Thankfully, President Bush swiftly condemned the soldiers involved. There are charges pending against six of them, including a brigadier general. Justice must be swift and effective, and its results should be made public.
What to make of this? Obviously, it is of tremendous propaganda value to America's enemies, and it is extraordinarily sensational for the world's media, which is substantially anti-American in its sentiment. In Iraq, there is at least one writer who is both appalled, and philosophical. Omar of Iraq the Model wrote:
Every time I see these pictures that show some American soldiers and officers abusing and humiliating Iraqi prisoners I feel very upset and disgusted. Many of you wanted to know how we feel about those crimes and the people responsible for them and my opinion is simply this: those soldiers must be brought to justice and punished...
What happened was awful, that’s true but I feel comfortable with the good intentions of the coalition leaders and people who rejected the crimes against the detainees.
Let me tell you this, under the past regime Iraqis were the victims of worse atrocities (by the hands of Iraqis) everyday but no one could say a word about that, now, nothing can be hidden from the people and no one can get away with his crimes. For the first time, law is starting to govern our country and this will force anyone to think twice before he plans to harm someone or break the law in any way.
The crime was a step backwards but the way it’s being dealt with is-in my opinion-a step forwards on the way to strengthen the trust between the coalition and the Iraqis because this will help putting an end to many of the (conspiracy theory) supported ideas that many Iraqis have in their minds and this will tell Iraqis that the Americans are not hiding facts about their soldiers behavior here and once they feel that something wrong is happening they will move to correct it.
I agree. As painful as it will be for the military, we must be very open about this investigation, and we must be very tough on the perpetrators. We should discuss the process with the press, and if it is permissible to open the court martial to the public, as is the American tradition with civilian criminal trials, we should do so. The world will be watching how we handle this, and we should use it to demonstrate the fundamental justice of the rule of law.
UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan's essay in the Times of London on Pat Tillman's heroism contains the following aside discussing the media's treatment of the abuse in Abu Ghraib prison:
Yes, we should deal with Abu Ghraib. Those responsible should be hounded out of military service and prosecuted under military justice. But those images must also be placed next to those of the murderers of Danny Pearl, whose crime was being a Jew and whose throat was slit open in a video still not shown. Or the video of a murdered Italian hostage who fought back on videotape against his captors, tried to remove his hood, and told them that this was "the Italian way to die." No images of him yet shown. And next to them all, Pat Tillman, who is now an ineradicable assault upon the cliches that some wish to bestow on America and the West as a whole.
Well said.
There is no way to defend or excuse this behavior. It is also inevitable, at least to some degree, when violent people are detained en masse. Thankfully, President Bush swiftly condemned the soldiers involved. There are charges pending against six of them, including a brigadier general. Justice must be swift and effective, and its results should be made public.
What to make of this? Obviously, it is of tremendous propaganda value to America's enemies, and it is extraordinarily sensational for the world's media, which is substantially anti-American in its sentiment. In Iraq, there is at least one writer who is both appalled, and philosophical. Omar of Iraq the Model wrote:
Every time I see these pictures that show some American soldiers and officers abusing and humiliating Iraqi prisoners I feel very upset and disgusted. Many of you wanted to know how we feel about those crimes and the people responsible for them and my opinion is simply this: those soldiers must be brought to justice and punished...
What happened was awful, that’s true but I feel comfortable with the good intentions of the coalition leaders and people who rejected the crimes against the detainees.
Let me tell you this, under the past regime Iraqis were the victims of worse atrocities (by the hands of Iraqis) everyday but no one could say a word about that, now, nothing can be hidden from the people and no one can get away with his crimes. For the first time, law is starting to govern our country and this will force anyone to think twice before he plans to harm someone or break the law in any way.
The crime was a step backwards but the way it’s being dealt with is-in my opinion-a step forwards on the way to strengthen the trust between the coalition and the Iraqis because this will help putting an end to many of the (conspiracy theory) supported ideas that many Iraqis have in their minds and this will tell Iraqis that the Americans are not hiding facts about their soldiers behavior here and once they feel that something wrong is happening they will move to correct it.
I agree. As painful as it will be for the military, we must be very open about this investigation, and we must be very tough on the perpetrators. We should discuss the process with the press, and if it is permissible to open the court martial to the public, as is the American tradition with civilian criminal trials, we should do so. The world will be watching how we handle this, and we should use it to demonstrate the fundamental justice of the rule of law.
UPDATE: Andrew Sullivan's essay in the Times of London on Pat Tillman's heroism contains the following aside discussing the media's treatment of the abuse in Abu Ghraib prison:
Yes, we should deal with Abu Ghraib. Those responsible should be hounded out of military service and prosecuted under military justice. But those images must also be placed next to those of the murderers of Danny Pearl, whose crime was being a Jew and whose throat was slit open in a video still not shown. Or the video of a murdered Italian hostage who fought back on videotape against his captors, tried to remove his hood, and told them that this was "the Italian way to die." No images of him yet shown. And next to them all, Pat Tillman, who is now an ineradicable assault upon the cliches that some wish to bestow on America and the West as a whole.
Well said.
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