Abu Ghraib (not justification, just a comparison)

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Itterind
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Abu Ghraib (not justification, just a comparison)

Post by Itterind »

Something you won't hear much about (at all)...

(I do not agree with parts of this post, notably some of the excitement over the abuse scandle and Iraqis 'not knowing what they're doing' when I think they decided not to bother with adding it to their prison tour.)

"I believe when Abu Graibe was originally turned over to the Iraqis (sept of 2005?) the first thing to go was air conditioning. Second was the chicken served at most meals. The costs of running the prison didn't change. Only the people in charge. One reporter (from the BBC) who was allowed in after the turnover said the stench from uncleaned feces from cells as well as the screams heard from other quarters, along with many prisoners begging to be transfered to the Americans, left little doubt over the treatment that Iraqis would be subjected to...
Makes one wonder why anyone is even excited about Abu Graibe prisoner abuse scandle. Now that the facility has shut down and is to become a museum, the US abuse scandle is not even part of the tour. Well, what the hell do the Iraqis know anyway? "

- lifted from a comment at the semi-dubious page strategypage (but only because my standards are high). Feel free to disbelieve.
Wonder if conditions are a bit better now... probably.
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Boss Out of Town
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Re: Abu Ghraib (not justification, just a comparison)

Post by Boss Out of Town »

-- There is a basic illogic in excusing our actions violating our moral standards by noting that those actions are not violating someone else's moral standards. Torture has always been considered, right back to the time of George Washington, one of the foulest of violations of traditional American ethics. The fact that the brutalities our people inflicted on people at Abu Graibh might not have been as vile as what would have been inflicted on those people by the Iraqi militias or the Turks or the Romans or the Apache or the Witch King of Angmar is not really relevant.

I expect that conditions at Abu Graibh improved considerably after the nadir of abuse depicted in the scandal photos. I don't doubt for a minute that things were going to get worse when it was turned over to the Iraqis. How could they be better? The country was in bad shape under Saddam and we ruined a lot of what there, then failed utterly to rebuild it the way we promised to do. There are very few "good guys" in Iraq. We didn't support good people while we were running the place, and as we lost control of most of the country, the bad guys . . . corrupt Sunni clan leaders, fanatical Shiite militias, and the odd assortment of thieves and thugs who hang around any failing military occupation, picked up the reins of power.
History celebrates the battlefields whereon we meet our death, but scorns to speak of the plowed fields whereby we thrive; it knows the names of kings’ bastards but cannot tell us the origin of wheat. This is the way of human folly. --- Henry Fabre
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