Angry. Very, Very Angry.

Wherein Our Heroine Can't Keep Silent.

The Abu Ghraib situation has me absolutely sick. Sick, angry, sad, tired, frustrated, ashamed. All of those words and more, and no matter how many words I would try to use, they still sound weak.

The photographs - nay snapshots. The smiles on the faces of young soldiers and "contractors." The creepy dehumanizing of prisoners via hoods, nudity, threats of electric shocks and worse. The "administrative rebukes" that are being issued by the higher-ups (what about to the higher-ups?). The people in our own country who look at the photographs, shrug and say, "Well, Saddam was worse." The apologist statements from the folks back home, defending the "anything goes" theory of war.

I'm sorry, when you're measuring behavior on a yardstick whose demarcations are marked out by a murdering megalomaniac, you have seriously lost the plot. And when you're confusing conditions in a military prison with conditions on the field of battle, you're either willfully ignorant or woefully delusional.

I am not at all surprised that this can have been committed by Americans. Just think back over the past few years - I was going to give a list of atrocities that Americans have perpetuated on American soil. But I'm sure you can come up with your own list. It would probably be better than mine.

I'm done now. I have to go call my congressional representatives. Mission Accomplished? Not until the people responsible - all of them - face the legal consequences of their actions.

Posted: Tuesday - May 04, 2004 at 08:11 AM | |