Vile Photos Miss the Rot Beyond a Few Bad Apples

[Southpaw Bookworm]

The leash shot is the one that will make its way into high school history textbooks, the diminutive Pfc. Lynndie England holding a naked Iraqi prisoner by a strap tied around his neck. The piles of naked Iraqis, the Iraqi standing naked with women's underwear placed over his head -- the images are sickening enough, but even creepier in the context of hundreds of other snapshots of military life in Iraq.

Based in Cresaptown, Md., the 372nd Military Police Company includes soldiers who grew up in Centreville and Springfield, in cosmopolitan Alexandria and in rural West Virginia. As we learn about the abuses these soldiers inflicted at Baghdad's largest prison, we search their pasts for clues to their behavior.

But to look at all of the photos is to focus less on individual soldiers and more on the chain of command.

I don't know who took these pictures, but they went everywhere with the 372nd: to markets, the swimming hole, historic sites, inside Abu Ghraib prison.

He makes a good point, mentioning Lord of the Flies and A Clockwork Orange. Hadn't considered that angle before.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A22685-2004May12.html

[primavera]

1. Chat session

They are just wrapping up a live chat session with Marc Fisher on this now and I managed to get a snippet in:


Washington, D.C.: Hi! Just wanted to express my gratitude to you for your editorial today. I've been frankly offended by the administration's enthusiasm in assigning blame for the prisoner abuse scandals to "a few bad apples," rather than acknowledging that the dehumanizing, good vs. evil language they've so vigorously employed, as well as the low value they've given to procedural due process and legal protections, might have contributed to the climate which now yields what I personally considered to be all too predictable violations of human rights. I find it rather ironic that the administration which has paid so much lip service to "supporting the troops" now finds it convenient to lay blame for human rights violations on an ever-expanding number of our troops, rather than conceding that the atmosphere of fear, aggression, and lawlessness created by their policies might in any way be to blame. So much for supporting the troops.

Marc Fisher: Thanks--the other issue that this raises is the role of the private contractors who are taking on roles that ought to be reserved to those who are clearly in the chain of military command. The idea that CACI is advertising even now for Interrogators is frightening; that's something I don't want outsourced, thank you.

Okay, so it wasn't a hugely thrilling response to my point, but he did flesh out the topic a bit more in response to the numerous questions posed by other readers. Might want to check it out.

http://discuss.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/zforum/04/r_metro_fisher051304.htm

[Southpaw Bookworm]

3. Odd, just read that

Got back from lunch and was catching up with my Web reading. How very cool that you got a question answered! And how wonderfully worded.

:pals:

Now get off the Internet and work on that paper! :spank:

[Mountainman]

2. Someone brought up Lord of the Flies a few days ago

I can't go along with the premise that man is basically evil and left to his own devises, without civilization, would revert back to evil.

We are not born evil. We learn to be evil. We are not tied to what we have done in the past or what our past experiences were. It surely influences our future choices but because we have choices we can chose to not let those influences rule. America can turn from the world according to Bush and become the America we were all proud to call our country.