A Wretched New Picture of America

I received this from Butrflynet:

Interesting article by Philip Kennicott of the Washington Post, but I don't think he goes far enough in his piece entitled "A Wretched New Picture of America" in which he says:

"But these photos are us. Yes, they are the acts of individuals (though the scandal widens, as scandals almost inevitably do, and the military's own internal report calls the abuse "systemic"). But armies are made of individuals. Nations are made up of individuals. Great national crimes begin with the acts of misguided individuals; and no matter how many people are held directly accountable for these crimes, we are, collectively, responsible for what these individuals have done. We live in a democracy. Every errant smart bomb, every dead civilian, every sodomized prisoner, is ours. "

and

"Look at these images closely and you realize that they can't just be the random accidents of war, or the strange, inexplicable perversity of a few bad seeds. First of all, they exist. Soldiers who allow themselves to be photographed humiliating prisoners clearly don't believe this behavior is unpalatable. Second, the soldiers didn't just reach into a grab bag of things they thought would humiliate young Iraqi men. They chose sexual humiliation, which may recall to outsiders the rape scandal at the Air Force Academy, Tailhook and past killings of gay sailors and soldiers. "

It doesn't take much brain power to see the common denominators between what happened in the Iraqi prison and school hazing incidents such as last year's Glenbrook powder puff party. Accusations of sexual humiliation and broomstick sodomy have occurred with more frequency at school organizations with kids only receiving cancelled prom dances as punishment. Americans aren't practicing these tactics just on enemy prisoners, our children are getting first hand training and up close and personal experience while parents mutter about their reputations and what the neighbors will think.

The Rush Limbaughs of the world excuse the behavior saying that what happened at the prison at Abu-Ghraib was no worse than fraternity hazing.

We truly are one very sick society if we can excuse the abuses at the prison as nothing more then what our own kids are doing to each other at school. We never did these things to each other when I was going to school. Did you? Let me remind you of what one of the reports by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba detailed.

"Between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility, numerous acts of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systematic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force. ... The allegations of abuse were substantiated by detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence ... including the following acts:

Punching, slapping and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet; Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees; Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing; Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time; Forcing naked male detainees to wear women's underwear; Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped; Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and jumping on them; A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee; Using military working dogs to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee; Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees; Breaking chemical lights and pouring phosphoric liquid on detainees; Beating detainees with a broom handle and chair; Threatening male detainees with rape; Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps with a broomstick."

If it happened to your children, would you be satisfied with a patronizing "boys will be boys" slap on the fingers? Why do we expect/demand any less from Iraqis? Why do we expect/demand so much less from ourselves and the behavior of our own children?