Iraqi Prisoners Abused by American Soldiers

I was pretty disturbed yesterday by the pictures of American Soldiers torturing, abusing and humiliating Iraqi prisoners at a prison outside Baghdad. Be warned, this is not tame stuff. This involves forcing naked Iraqis to simulate sex acts, attaching electrodes to their genetils and nasty stuff like that. In all 17 soldiers have been suspended and presumably are going to be Court Martialed. The suspended soldiers are both male and female and include both enlisted and officers.

CNN is not running this story on their web page! I found out about it from the Websites of various European news sources I check. BBC (see link on this blog) has a good story on the subject.

I am also disturbed to hear that CBS news had the pictures for weeks but delayed airing them because the pentagon has been pressuring them not to. CBS has now decided to run the story anyway because other news agencies got the pictures and aired them. CBS news ran a very brief story about this last night on the evening news. From what I've read from the overseas press, CBS will either run the full story on the next 60 Minutes or 60 Minutes II. So check your local listings. I looked at the 60 Minutes website last night and could't find any reference to the story though. In the brief CBS news story last night, a sergeant accused of engaging in the abuse tried to explain his actions by saying he and other guards at the prison had been given no training or guidance by their superiors. One wonders what other crimes he hasn't specifically been ordered not to do.

That said, I do agree with some of what this soldier is implying. I believe this is yet another symptom of the Bush Administration's "war on the cheap" strategy. There are not enough fully trained military police over there. While these 17 individuals bear the responsibility for their own actions, their transgressions are more likely in an atmosphere of burned out soldiers who may be reservists and guardsmen who are not fully trained.

Let me conclude by saying that it would be terribly wrong to take this story as an excuse to start treating all American military people as badly as the anti-war protestors treated them back during Vietnam. We should not take this as a signal to launch immature and mean spirited attacks like that guy from U Mass Amherst. This is Bush's war....these guys are stuck with it far worse than we are.