Saturday, October 01, 2005

Thoughts on Abu Ghraib

Ray McGovern discusses Abu Ghraib.

I think that Andrew Sullivan has had the best take on this (I can't find the specific post immediately). Namely, that too many pro-war people have been either glossing over the abuse of prisoners ("Oh, it's no worse than a fraternity stunt") or else trying to claim that it was committed by a few bad apples, some rogue underlings. From the pictures now available, we know that things were worse than a fraternity stunt, and it seems very likely that the abuse of prisoners was going on with the tacit approval (at least) of the higher-ups.

The reason to show these pictures is to force people to deal with the issue of prisoner abuse and to try to find out the truth about who was responsible; both issues will otherwise get swept under the rug, excepting for a few trials to punish some patsies (e.g. Lynndie England) in order to keep up appearances.

I also notice that some of the pro-war talking heads are claiming that there is nothing new in the photos, so there is no point in us seeing them, and besides it would endanger the troops by getting the Arabs angry at us. I would tend to think those who make this claim are being disingenuous, and that their real concern is not that we know enough without seeing the pictures; rather, they probably want to have the freedom to lie about things without the pictures disproving them

That is all.

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