The pictures are horrific. I felt a multitude of
things as I saw them... the most prominent feeling was rage, of course.
I had this incredible desire to break something- like that would make
things somehow better or ease the anger and humiliation. We've been
hearing terrible stories about Abu Ghraib Prison in Baghdad for a while
now, but those pictures somehow spoke like no words could.
Seeing those naked, helpless, hooded men was like being slapped in the
face with an ice cold hand. I felt ashamed looking at them- like I was
seeing something I shouldn't be seeing and all I could think was, "I
might know one of those faceless men..." I might have passed him in the
street or worked with him. I might have bought groceries from one of
them or sat through a lecture they gave in college... any of them might
be a teacher, gas station attendant or engineer... any one of them
might be a father or grandfather... each and every one of them is a son
and possibly a brother. And people wonder at what happened in Falloojeh
a few weeks ago when those Americans were killed and dragged through
the streets...
All anyone can talk about today are those pictures... those terrible
pictures. There is so much rage and frustration. I know the dozens of
emails I'm going to get claiming that this is an 'isolated incident'
and that they are 'ashamed of the people who did this' but does it
matter? What about those people in Abu Ghraib? What about their
families and the lives that have been forever damaged by the experience
in Abu Ghraib? I know the messages that I'm going to get- the ones that
say, "But this happened under Saddam..." Like somehow, that makes what
happens now OK... like whatever was suffered in the past should make
any mass graves, detentions and torture only minor inconveniences now.
I keep thinking of M. and how she was 'lucky' indeed. And you know
what? You won't hear half of the atrocities and stories because Iraqis
are proud, indignant people and sexual abuse is not a subject anyone is
willing to come forward with. The atrocities in Abu Ghraib and other
places will be hidden away and buried under all the other dirt the
occupation brought with it...
It's beyond depressing and humiliating... my blood boils at the thought
of what must be happening to the female prisoners. To see those smiling
soldiers with the Iraqi prisoners is horrible. I hope they are made to
suffer... somehow I know they won't be punished. They'll be discharged
from the army, at best, and made to go back home and join families and
cronies who will drink to the pictures and the way "America's finest"
treated those "Dumb I-raki terrorists". That horrible excuse of a
human, Janis Karpinski, will then write a book about how her father
molested her as a child and her mother drank herself into an early
death- that's why she did what she did in Abu Ghraib. It makes me sick.
Where is the Governing Council? Where are they hiding now?
I want something done about it and I want it done publicly. I want
those horrible soldiers who were responsible for this to be publicly
punished and humiliated. I want them to be condemned and identified as
the horrible people they are. I want their children and their
children's children to carry on the story of what was done for a long
time- as long as those prisoners will carry along with them the
humiliation and pain of what was done and as long as the memory of
those pictures remains in Iraqi hearts and minds...