(from Dwayne Monroe, fwd):
``...There simply is no logical or ethical comparison between the killings and desecrations ... at Fallujah by a mixture of guerrillas and mobs, and the systematic torture of Prisoners of War by a democratic country....'' Juan Cole
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I don't mean to put a fine point on it, but even Cole doesn't quite seem to grasp what's going on here. These are not prisoners of war. There is no enemy army, there is no enemy government. This isn't about punishment since there are no crimes. There isn't even a public list of names. What would names mean anyway?
Behind all that are a couple of other looming realities. Abu Ghraib isn't an aberrant and isolated situation. It is part of a whole system that has no purpose except intelligence gathering. It is an example of what and how the US is conducting its war on terror. The reason there are only guards and interrogators is because guards and interrogators are all the personnel needed. What would be the purpose of having lawyers, prosecutors or judges? They have no purpose because this isn't a system of justice. It is a system of information gathering. For that you only need guards and interrogators.
The best disguise is to put the thing in plain view and call it something it isn't. Abu Ghraib is called a prison. It looks like a prison and it used to be a prison. But it isn't a prison.
How can I explain this?
People who are in prison are not interrogated. Whatever crime a prisoner has done is already known and theoretically proved and they are sent to prison as punishment. But that is not what's going on at Abu Ghraib. There are no crimes. There was no trial, there were no charges. It isn't a jail. It is an interrogation center. In other words it is a torture center.
We have invaded two countries and in both, similiar legal conditions prevail. There is no authoritative civilian government in either case. Both countries are under armed occupation, and the military and intelligence agencies run a detention system that rounds up anybody from anywhere and interrogates them until the interrogators are satisfied with whatever information they can extract.
Think about that for a minute. What does it take to satisfy an interrogator? I suspect in the inside-out world of evil, the grand Inquisitor works on you until you start sincerely lying.
The transfer of Major General Geoffrey Miller from Guantanamo to Abu Ghraib is a demonstration that the US has no intention of shutting this place down. The only motive is to more effectively hide US activities while those in political office try to spin doctor their way out of it.
We know Miller has done a wonderful job with Camp X-Ray because... Well, because we have Donald Rumsfeld's word? For a man who wants to parse language and substitute `abuse' for `torture', how good are his words of assurance?
The idea that somehow training and supervision is the problem is almost laughable. But I think I am beginning to understand the irony of the military mind. Training and supervision is definitely the problem alright.
The real question is where is that training coming from? Since it was noted that the particulars of the Abu Ghraib photos seem to be tailor made for Muslim consumption who does that suggest as the primary source on `culturally sensitive' issues?
Anyway, (for Joanna) I did figure out what the bag over the head was all about. You can beat a bag until it bleeds a lot easier than you can beat a man's face. And then too, the bag has a dual use. It keeps the person from seeing their surroundings, but it also keeps others from seeing their condition.
This is such dark shit.
I hope the stuffed majesties in the Supreme Court think long and hard on what they delivered to us as a Leader four years ago. I don't suppose they will grasp the Patriot Act as the domestic font of Abu Ghraib---or that the whole ediface and history of law and justice was erected to prevent exactly what we now see.
I tried to watch tonight's Congressional Democrats share their outrage... Tell it to the Hague assholes.
``...Extraordinary how iconic these pictures are turning out to be -- how they perfectly represent every element of this obscenity...'' Joanna Bujes
I think I figured that out too. It is almost a collective memory thing. The iconography is Goya's Disasters of War, and the Cappriccios.
CG