Abusive Video may Lead to Bad Feelings
Saturday, August 13, 2005
(SNN Washington) The Pentagon is trying to block the release of new video evidence of prisoner abuse in Iraq’s Aru Ghraib prison. The Pentagon argues that release of the torture videos would incite negative opinion in the Muslim world.
The Pentagon argues that release of the torture videos would incite negative opinion
General Richard Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said if the images are made public, "riots, violence and attacks by insurgents will result.” He also said it will "endanger the lives and physical safety of the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines in the United States Armed Forces presently serving in Iraq and Afghanistan."
The photographs and videos in question were turned over to military investigators by a Specialist Joseph Darby, a reservist who was posted at Abu Ghraib. And the repercussions so far have been enormous, seeing the punishment of men ranking as high as Sergeant.
While we have already seen Iraqi detainees stacked in naked piles, led around like dogs, standing hooded and naked while evil Opie surveys their bellends, cowering in front of snarling military dogs, chained to beds in stress positions, with women's underwear put over their heads, these additional photos and videos, are apparently not so much fun as those light hearted “fraternity pranks”.
An open and free society sometimes has to arbitrarily imprison people
And the Pentagon is right. People in the Muslim world don’t take brutal torture of their countrymen lightly. In fact, they don’t take much of anything lightly. Really, you think they guys at the NAACP have no sense of humor when you show up on Halloween dressed as a ghost, but these guys are on a whole other level.
Some people just do not have the perspective to realize that an open and free society sometimes has to arbitrarily imprison people and deny their human and civil rights to show them how free they really are. People in the Muslim world are, in fact, quite beyond reasoning on the subject.
The clear victim in this case is the Pentagon. They only want to protect their jobs, their boss and our troops by keeping the world ignorant of the fact that they are doing things that are unbelievably unconscionable. If Specialist Darby would have just kept his mouth shut or had investigators simply lost the evidence, things could have quietly continued at Aru Ghraib.
