Reports are that there are over 1,000 pictures taken of the abuses that took place at the Abu Ghraib prison since American forces took over the place. Hazing, harassing or even humiliating prisoners of war is nothing, compared to, say, slaughtering them, as the Hussein regime used to do. But that doesn't make it defensible.
I understand, somewhat, the rage and, in some instances, the moral numbness of a soldier who has been shot at by hostile forces that are now under his control. But I cannot fathom what would possess someone to take or pose for pictures during the beat down. Our claim of moral superiority has been seriously undermined. "Good versus evil" is starting to look more like "Strong versus weak." Suddenly, their rhetoric looks much better than our rhetoric.
Now that the cat is out of the bag, God only knows what we can expect from the millions of uneducated Middle Eastern men whose only knowledge of the world is what they read in the Koran and what they see on Aljazeera. They look at these pictures, especially the electrocuted Heaven's Gate guy on the box, and they think Americans are worse than Uday and Qusay Hussein. Uday, you may have noticed, is pig latin for doo. Dog doo, pig doo, camel doo, flinging monkey doo, I'm not sure which. But it's what our own military is being compared to.
The next time a busfull or more of innocent Americans are killed by angry Muslims who claim to be retaliating against the US for its war atrocities in Iraq, Army Pfc. Lynndie England and her stupid buddies should take responsibility. Maybe they could stand on a box and plug themselves into an outlet or something.
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