Deep Blade Journal

Yesterday the US Senate Armed Services Committee held another hearing on the treatment of Iraqi prisoners. The imbecilic senator from Oklahoma, James Inhofe, served up red meat for wingnut radio with these remarks:

INHOFE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. First of all, I regret I wasn’t here on Friday. I was unable to be here but maybe it’s better that I wasn’t because as I watch this outrage — this outrage everyone seems to have about the treatment of these prisoners — I have to say, and I’m probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment.

The idea that these prisoners — you know, they’re not there for traffic violations. If they’re in cell block 1A or 1B, these prisoners — they’re murderers, they’re terrorists, they’re insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands. And here we’re so concerned about the treatment of those individuals.

And I hasten to say, yes, there are seven bad guys and gals that didn’t do what they should have done. They were misguided. I think maybe even perverted. And the things they did have to be punished, and they’re being punished. They’re being tried right now and that’s all taking place.

But I’m also outraged by the press and the politicians and the political agendas that are being served by this, and I say political agendas because that’s actually what is happening.

No Senator Inhofe, they’re not there for “traffic violations”. Not even traffic violations! Reports made public this week by the International Committee of the Red Cross state that 70% to 90% of detainees were rounded up randomly for no apparent reason during tactics where

–Arresting authorities entered houses usually after dark, breaking down doors, waking up residents roughly, yelling orders, forcing family members into one room under military guard while searching the rest of the house and further breaking doors, cabinets and other property.

–Sometimes they arrested all adult males present in a house, including elderly, handicapped or sick people.

–Treatment often included pushing people around, insulting, taking aim with rifles, punching and kicking and striking with rifles.

But Inhofe and his ilk, like ultra-reactionary radio host Lars Larson, see all of these means justified. The dirty secret is that the people who live in the lands occupied by America are viewed with widespread contempt by the occupiers and these supporters.

It matters not that, contrary to Inhofe’s ejaculations, almost 100% of those caught in America’s rage are innocent. Here is how Cliff Kindy, member of the Christian Peacemaker Team, describes a day’s work for the Americans:

We were involved in the incidents in Al-Jazeera village where four US Soldiers were killed by friendly fire. In their frustration, they executed three of their prisoners and then opened fire on people leaving a mosque after prayer and five neighbors were killed by tank fire. That report didn’t hit the press. We visited a village, a razor wire community about 50 kilometers north of Baghdad. A commander from a nearby base said they had instituted collective punishment. They razor wired the city and instituted a curfew from 7:00 p.m. until 8:00 in the morning. That was in place five months ago and may still be. Now, those are detainees in one sense. We were in another village, a village along the Tigris River. One person was wanted. He was on officer in the Ba’ath party. 83 men and boys were swept up in that village. There were two males left in that village after the sweep. It seems practices are much broader than just inside Abu Ghraib prison.

False 911 linkage underlies the contempt. Billmon has posted quotes reflecting typical attitudes displayed toward Iraqis by US personnel:

There’s a picture of the World Trade Center hanging up by my bed and I keep one in my Kevlar [flak jacket]. Every time I feel sorry for these people I look at that. I think, ‘They hit us at home and, now, it’s our turn.’ I don’t want to say payback but, you know, it’s pretty much payback.

Billmon’s analysis I think is right on:

Leaving aside the fact that no connection between Saddam Hussein, Al Qaeda and the 9/11 attacks has ever been found - and isn’t seriously claimed even by the neocons these days — blaming the population of an entire country for the actions of a small band of hardcore terrorists (who weren’t even from the same country) is an idiotic fallacy. It’s the same crude logic that led some American morons to mutter that the prisoners at Abu Ghraib had it coming because of what “they” did to those four contractors in Fallujah. And it probably contributed to the willingness of the MPs and interrogators at Abu Ghraib to commit war crimes — even if the system that permitted those crimes was designed at a higher level.

Now the beheading in Iraq of an American, Rick Berg, throws at least for a day, a volley of barbarism to America from its al Qaeda opponents. As Billmon puts it,

…Berg’s death is also a much-needed break for the apostles of total war here in America. The photos from Abu Ghraib temporarily put them on the defensive, but now they can return to their customary cries for blood: an eye for an eye, an atrocity for an atrocity. And so it goes….

Atrocities and atrocities followed by atrocities. The truth is that the American presence in Iraq is a magnet for atrocities. Our troops need to come home now and be with their families. It is time for the dehumanization to end.