|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Holy shit
2004.05.02 — Government | War | Satire | by BB Rodriguez
|
Female American soldier posing with Iraqi prisoners. [source] |
Of all the crazy shit going on in the war on terror and the war in Iraq (which, despite the White House's song and dance, are not the same thing), humiliation and mental torture—and apparent physical torture—of Iraqi prisoners wasn't one I expected.
If you don't think it's torture; ask yourself what you'd call it if it were happening to Americans. Camp postcard photos aside, some prisoners were beaten to death.
I imagined prisoners being treated the way we saw in the early days of the war in Afghanistan: rounded up and interned in camps, watched over by wary soldiers, administrated by careful officers. But this... this is fucked up, man.
This story underscores the general problem of what to do with POWs captured in Iraq and Afghanistan. There's no one to negotiate their release, no government to sign a peace treaty with. It has created a constitutional crisis in America and a practical dilemma on the ground. There are too many prisoners, too few troops, and—we now find—too little oversight.
|
[I]t's too easy to imagine Donald Rumsfeld... saying, "Well, if you want to make an omelet, you've got to break a few eggs." |
What bothers me most about this story is that it's too easy to imagine Donald Rumsfeld squinting a bit, pushing his glasses up on his nose, shrugging his shoulders, and saying, "Well, if you want to make an omelet, you've got to break a few eggs." The Bush administration seems to think that, since they are absolutely convinced that they are right, then the end justifies the means.
The dumb-asses in charge of the prisoners in question claimed they didn't know the Geneva Convention rules on treatment of prisoners. Besides the fact that the Nazis never piled up naked prisoners in a human pyramid and posed for pictures with them on Hogan's Heroes, it should have been pretty obvious that what they were doing was wrong. And how could American military police not be schooled in the rules according to the Geneva Convention? What else would they learn in military police school? How to use a radar gun?
Their claims would seem to be suspect, since the US military police website includes a test on the Geneva Convention. Even if they weren't formally trained on it, they could have looked it up on the Internet. Duh.
|
At first... there were bizarrely premature reports of the war turning into a "quagmire." ... [I]t seems almost needlessly cruel to apply it now. |
At first, in the days immediately after the invasion of Iraq, there were bizarrely premature reports of the war turning into a "quagmire." That was just plain stupid then, but it seems almost needlessly cruel to apply it now. A year after the invasion, we're still struggling just to maintain order, let alone rebuild the infrastructure and pave the way for free democratic elections, and we're fumbling for tactics to accomplish it.
|
[T]he Boy Scouts will go in next, then the British Girl Guides, followed—if necessary—by the Salvation Army. |
The ham-fisted army was replaced in Falluja by the kinder, gentler Marines... who immediately found they needed to get ham-fisted. Now they're pulling out too, replaced by former Iraqi army troops. If that doesn't work, the Boy Scouts will go in next, then the British Girl Guides, followed—if necessary—by the Salvation Army.
The White House is playing down the need for more troops, more equipment, and more money. They'd like to delay it until after the election, when they can take care of it at their leisure... or wash their hands and walk away from the whole mess to write their memoirs.
f e e d b a c k
Respond to this page by your e-mail client. Please be sure to mention the title of the article.
