More on US torture of Iraqi prisoners
Steve Gilliard has some pithy comments that I think are right on the mark. (UPDATE: Please see also Juan Cole’s item on the subject.)
The conditions that have allowed this Saddam-like abuse to go on in America’s Iraq are endemic to US attitudes towards Iraqis and Islamic people in general. Some in the wingnut crowd do not want to admit this (see the comments for the previous posting), even though diatribes calling for the righteous tutors of the world to “crush the vermin” regularly appear in their blogs.
Gilliard writes in “A little humiliation and torture” posted on April 30:
“The thing about the pictures of Iraqi prisoners being humiliated is that it is the result of brain-dead management and racism.
“The whole culture of Abu Gharib was designed to control and humiliate Iraqi detainees. The photos come from a fairly wide culture of contempt. These are not the first prisoners to be abused by Americans or the first court martial to happen over this kind of treatment….
“God help any Americans captured by the resistance now”.