Have We Let Abuse Override Common Sense?

Two More Post 9/11 Abuse Issues Come To Light After Abu Gharib.

The first discusses a special operations force in Iraq being displinced for rough treatment of prisoners, some of it involving tazers, bruising and kidney pains.

Link

The second talks about Iraqi reporters and their abuse at the hands of US forces. In addition, these journalists were employees of Reuters, who is seeking answers from our military.

Link

The first is shocking due to the consideration of the gag of this hidden from us, the general argument being, of course, if you are hiding something you are doing, what you are doing is wrong. If these soldiers had to hide it, they knew their abuse was wrong and continued in this manner anyway. The Defense Intelligence Agency is there to report these issues and the fact is, they were clearly stopped from doing their job. From the article:

In the June 25 memo, written after the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal became public, the DIA chief complained about the harassment of DIA personnel -- including one case where special forces confiscated photos of a prisoner they punched.

DIA personnel also had their e-mails monitored and were ordered by a special operations task force "not to talk to anyone" about what they saw, said the memo, which was among internal documents released Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union.

You know, I hear all the time that our enemies torture and abuse prisoners and we're righteous for putting them down. While the soldiers were punished for doing so, have we become the very thing about our enemies that we hate so much? The second article details some Iraqi journalists being abused by soldiers once they were detained and arrested. Reuters, the news organization has tried to get results, and so far, not much has happened. The case is still pending, but they've been decried by the Army:

Reuters officials have decried the manner in which the Army dismissed their complaints. In January, the Army claimed the Iraqis were picked up because of reports that "enemy personnel" were posing as journalists, and then declared the case closed without interviewing the alleged victims.

Marshall wrote in a report (obtained by E&P) at that time, "It should be noted that the bulk of their mistreatment — including their humiliating interrogations and the mental and physical torment of the first night which all agreed was the worst part of their ordeal — occurred several hours after I had informed the 82nd Airborne Division that they were Reuters staff."

He tried to persuade American journalists to join his crusade, sending e-mails to Baghdad-based journalists, gently prodding reporters whenever possible, and giving brief statements on the case. But it never did much good.

"I was at a news conference after our [Iraqi news staffers] were released, and I was hoping that someone would ask about them," Marshall recalled. "But no one did. So I had to. It was distressing. If the journalists had been American, I think it would have been different."

Abusing reporters? Doesn't sound like anything else I know of, or that we've decried lately...*sarcasm*. Seriously, however, how can we, as a people allow this to go on? We need to find a solution to these rather disturbing cases of abuse that seem to be coming out. Did they originate from the anger produced from the 9/11 attacks? Is the war so intense that shades of grey are only possible in these case? And more importanly: how can we maintain credibilty being within the correct side of the war when we've seemed to be guilty of civil rights abuses as well?

I'm distressed, and I think this is a problem that's branched out from our 9/11 attitude. I think many of us are still angry and scared from these attacks and terrorists, and we've allowed ourselves to become jaded by this. This is probably best expressed by these allegations considering they occur in the group that holds their anger closest to them along with a sharp edge of fear just to survive. Can America afford to keep their cool and conscience if this war goes on too much longer? Can we afford to pay the price if we must withdraw?

Too many questions, not enough answers.

Worried about his country, the AWM/wolf dragon,

Sol

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