When you think about it, Montgomery can be a scary place sometimes, although it can seem rather subtle. Here's the story:
What is probably Montgomery, Alabama's most popular source for local television news, WSFA channel 12, regularly has a poll on their web site (wsfa.com) in which people can vote on whatever question they ask at the time.
Currently, as of this article, the question is:
"Do you believe allegations of abuse by U.S. military personnel in Iraq are overblown?"
Here are the results as of May 9, around 1pm central time:
Yes: 65%
No: 31%
Undecided: 4%
After seeing part of the 10 o'clock news on Friday, May 7, I probably could have predicted these results. During the story regarding Abu Ghraib prison and Secretary of Defense Donald "Rummy" Rumsfeld, they got a "local reaction" to the story. Of course, being in Montgomery, nothing makes for better television than finding a redneck who continues to sport the infamous mullet haircut, and asking him serious questions about politics.
When asked the poll question, the unknown redneck, which we'll refer to as "Billy Bob", answered (and I paraphrase), "They'd be doing a lot worse to us if we was [sic] in the same situation."
(His answer isn't the only thing that's sad here. I find it sad and insulting that the national news media looks at Alabama and thinks we are all like "Billy Bob", but that could have a lot to do with the fact that "Billy Bob" is always the one who ends up on the news giving his opinion on world politics, unless his wife, "Billie Jo" ends up on there with her curlers and mumu instead.)
I find it sad that 65% of people who voted in that poll say that the allegations are "overblown". Do they really know what the allegations are? Or do they think it stops where the pictures on Fox News stops? (Because you know that here in the USA, we always get the whole story from our corporate-owned media conglomerates, right?)
According to a May 3, 2004 story on the WSFA web site, entitled "Torture Report Details Coming Out":
"A 53-page Army report includes allegations (among others) of the punching, slapping, and kicking of detainees; videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees; forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing; placing a dog chain or strap around a naked detainee’s neck and having a female Soldier pose for a picture. "
And that's not all that happened. According to articles by BBC News and Alternet.org, they quote a report by The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) in which the ICRC's investigations found that the abuse of prisoners at Abu Ghraib were "widespread, and in some cases 'tantamount to torture'."
Apparently, some people here in Montgomery don't constitute what happened as "torture" because they think it's just "overblown."
The BBC News article, "Red Cross saw 'widespread abuse'", said that "The Red Cross mentions a number of 'serious violations of humanitarian law', including beatings and prolonged solitary confinement. "
The Nation magazine had this to say in an article titled, "The Horror of Abu Ghraib":
"The appalling images--seven naked Iraqis piled on top of one another as two grinning GIs look on; a kneeling detainee posing as if he is performing oral sex on another naked, hooded male inmate; the battered body of a dead prisoner packed in ice--have led to criminal charges against six US soldiers and administrative penalties for seven officers. "
There have been many allegations of prisoners being sodomized by Coalition forces, and the military personnel who are being charged with these crimes are blaming a lack of training, or even "an unclear chain of command or responsibility", according to the Charlotte Observer. The Charlotte Observer's "Becoming a Monster" article says something I think we can all agree with:
"No training is needed to know not to sodomize a man with a broomstick. No one at any point in a military chain of command should have permitted it. This is not merely a mistake. It is an exercise in inhumanity, and a costly defeat for the American effort in Iraq."
The Irony:
In The Nation's article, Saudi commentator Dawud al-Shiryan said on Al Jazeera's English version web site, "Abu Ghraib prison was used for torture in Saddam's time. People will ask now: 'What's the difference between Saddam and Bush?' Nothing!"
The Charlotte Observer published a quote by philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche from "Beyond Good and Evil" (1886):
"He who fights with monsters should look to it that he himself does not become a monster."
According to "Billy Bob", it would have been worse if the situation was reversed, but don't we as Americans put ourselves at a higher standard? "Americans are different." said Senator Joe Lieberman during Rumsfeld's testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, "That's why we're outraged by this. That's why the apologies were due."
Rumsfeld has mentioned other pictures and videos of abuse that have not made it to the media yet, so we should expect more of this to come. Many questions will be answered. Will Rumsfeld lose his job? Will this create more violence in Iraq? Is this war really another Vietnam?
But don't worry, Montgomerians, according to "Billy Bob", it's all just "overblown."
More Info:
Torture Report Details Coming Out (WSFA)
Hard to Say You're Sorry (Alternet)
The Horror of Abu Ghraib (The Nation)
Rumsfeld Testifies Before Senate Armed Services Committee (complete transcript - Washington Post)
Red Cross saw 'widespread abuse' (BBC News)
Becoming a monster (Charlotte Observer)
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