While we all abhor torture, etc, and strongly condemn the unlawful treatment of Al Qaeda members by US forces in Abu Ghraib prison, dontcha know, and call for an investigation to get the root causes, of course, we nonetheless note that not all Iraqis are upset about the photos:
EVERETT — The abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U.S. soldiers draws intense reactions from some who left Iraq to find freedom in Washington state, but prolonged outrage isn’t one of them.
While some local Iraqis are bothered by the images, others welcome them.
“It’s a terrible thing and it adds more wood to the fire,” said Hussein Al-Muhanna, who came to the United States in 1993. “(But) to me, it’s not the issue I have to worry about. To me, the main issue is Iraq’s future.”
Imad al-Turfy, another Everett resident, shows no sympathy for the prisoners, saying their treatment paled when compared with the horrors inflicted under Saddam Hussein’s regime.
“They raped our women. They killed our kids. So there’s hatred between us, the people here, and the people in Iraq,” he said, referring to the Shiite Muslims who emigrated and the Sunni Muslims who ruled Iraq under Saddam.
“Anything coming to them would make me happy.”
Ahem.
Are you some kind of caricature, Richard? What would you tell your kids if they told you that they waited a few years but they finally got even with the school yard bully? Do you really believe in that eye-for-an-eye bullshit?
How does the analogy of school yard bullies scale up to people who, “…raped our women…killed our kids”?
I don’t necessarily endorse the sentiments of those Iraqis who celebrate the panty-head torture and other inhumanities of Abu Ghraib, but simply pass them along in the interest of scholarship. The Iraqis are, after all, the authentic brown-skinned indigenous persons of victimhood, and as such all of us in the oppressor class are required to give them the utmost of consideration.
May I add just one uncomfortable fact? According to the Red Cross, 70-90 percent of the inmates at Abu Ghraib are innocent. And there are women’s and children’s wings.
I’ll try not to get in a morality pissing match with you. But do what you will with that information.
“According to the Red Cross, 70-90 percent of the inmates at Abu Ghraib are innocent”
How on earth would the Red Cross know who was innocent and who weren’t? And besides, it wasn’t 70-90% who were getting the abusive treatment. Let’s stop calling it torture. I agree it was inexcusible but I wish people would stick to the facts. Making people get naked and simulate sex acts and pile in a pyrimid hardly qualifies as torture. the pictures were taking to use as pressure to get information. No self-respecting Iraqi man would risk having pictures like those shown to other Iraqis.
Ask the Kuwaitis what torture is, the ones who lived through their “interrogations” by Iraqis back in 1991.