The R Word
This psychiatric report on the torture at Abu Ghraib is partly white wash and partly true, I think. But at least he brings up the big brown-skinned elephant in the room, which I think is long overdue:
At the Abu Ghraib prison in Baghdad, “the worst human qualities and behaviors came to the fore” in an atmosphere of “danger, promiscuity and negativity” within a closed environment, wrote Nelson, a member of the Army’s investigating team. He noted training lapses, as others have, but also said that soldiers’ unfamiliarity with Islamic culture, their pervasive sense of danger and the indefinite nature of their tenure were factors that wore them down.
[…]
In highlighting psychological and cultural factors underlying the abuses, Nelson noted that soldiers sent to Iraq were immersed in Islamic culture for the first time and said “there is an association of Muslims with terrorism” that contributed to misperceptions, fear and “a devaluation of a people.” He reported that one military police platoon leader was openly hostile to Iraqis, and that a police dog handler was ‘disrespectful and racist’ — attributing to his dog a dislike of Iraqi “culture, smell, sound, skin tone (and) hair color.”
Gosh, I wonder where they could have gotten these ideas? It’s not like anybody was saying Iraq was the central front in the War on Terror or anything. And, it’s not as if anybody ever said the War on Terror as nothing less than the battle between Good vs Evil. Where would Goober and Gomer get the idea that the government would sanction them torturing the Iraqi terrorist evildoers in retaliation for 9/11?
The good news is that they pipe in Rush Limbaugh daily so they should be straightened out on all these misconceptions really soon.