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May 20, 2004
the toothpaste commerical
This man died under custody in Abu Ghraib " during intensive questioning in the shower" where he was "shackled to the wall." The claim is that he came to Abu Ghraib with a sandbag over his head and the guards were told not to remove the hood. They "questioned him" for about an hour and when he collapsed, they removed the sandbag and saw severe head wounds that were not treated.
Is that a defense? We don't even look at the faces of people we torture or kill?
Lynndie England says the "The pictures were shown to anyone who wanted to see them. Cpl. [Charles] Graner told me he showed them to his platoon sergeant and platoon leader."
The article is at Los Angeles Times:
England told investigators that guards forced detainees to crawl on their hands and knees on broken glass, threw a Nerf football at handcuffed prisoners and forced male detainees to wear women's "maxi pads."...
England, interviewed May 5 at Ft. Bragg, N.C., said that she did not believe the guards went too far in punishing detainees and that much of what happened in the prison's notorious cellblock 1A was done in sport.
"We thought it looked funny, so pictures were taken," she said. It was "basically us fooling around."
Done in sport? Fooling around?
Many of the identified torturers have made statements to the effect they "weren't given proper training." Is that not more scary? How does a human being do this to another human being without intensive training and brainwashing? What is it in us, our society and our culture that allows this? How can Sabrina Harmon flash the smile she would for a toothpaste commercial with such ease?
"These soldiers were ordered to do this" would be less damming, less scary than this just us kids "fooling around" talk.
Posted by zeynep at May 20, 2004 02:40 PM
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Comments
It might have something to do with the idea that they'd bagged a terrorist, a killer, a devil, an animal, a threat, the enemy, the other, etc...
I think if you read over Bush's comments during the last couple years, you'll see how he has rhetorically dehumanized an entire population in the minds of his followers.
When playing "Us vs. Them" every degradation is a victory, no?
Posted by: Damon at May 20, 2004 04:21 PM
Frat Boys versus Savage Arabs
...our boys are having fun and "blowing off steam" while the Arabs are just CRAZY!!!
Posted by: Kap at May 20, 2004 11:52 PM
Presumably Kap meant to include 'Sor girls' as well as 'frat boys'?
Posted by: Colin at May 21, 2004 04:09 AM
Just a thought on the social background of the routine brutality these Americans display. This "just fooling around/just kidding" stuff brought back memories of my Texas high school. There was a group of football players there who were known to go out at night and on weekends to beat up people "for fun". The people attacked were often those perceived to be gay or otherwise different and thus vulnerable. The jocks' "fun" resulted in several hospitalizations for their victims. Most students and even a few teachers were aware of this, yet nothing was ever done. In fact, these thugs were considered "popular": well-built, conventionally good-looking white guys from the suburbs with bubbly girlfriends and corporate ambitions. I've heard from a few other Americans that similar "popular" thugs existed at their high schools. There are thousands of high schools in the US. You get the picture.
Posted by: Dean at May 22, 2004 03:41 PM
Kap, Colin, & Dean have got the line that so many "ordinary Americans" have come up with. A woman (sounded middle-aged) called in to a talk show (a station I listen to here in Texas) and kept calling the prisoner abuse "pranks." She repeated the word "prank" over & over. Like the fraternity/sorority hazing that has hurt & killed some kids, and occasionally (though not often enough) landed the the perps in jail on felony charges. Like the bully who intimidated my sons on the school bus long ago said, "I was just funnin'"
Another theme of some callers/letter-to-the-editor writers has been that the Iraqi men are over-reacting because their attitudes on sex come from religious prudism & oppression of women--unlike us enlightened westerners.
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