Rape Rooms

Via Tlachtga, Yahoo reprints an article from the Los Angeles Times.

BAGHDAD — One woman told her attorney she was forced to disrobe in front of male prison guards. After much coaxing, another woman described how she was raped by U.S. soldiers. Then she fainted.

A U.S. Army report on abuses at Abu Ghraib prison documented one case of an American guard sexually abusing a female detainee, and a Pentagon spokesman said Monday that 1,200 unreleased images of abuse at Abu Ghraib included "inappropriate behavior of a sexual nature."

Whether it was one or numerous cases of rape, many Iraqis believe that sexual abuse of women in U.S.-run jails was rampant. As a result, female prisoners face grave prospects after they are released: denial, ostracism or even death.

Yesterday, TalkLeft linked to what they admitted was an unsubstantiated set of photographs posted by an extreme anti-semitic website. The photos supposedly showed a female Iraqi prisoner being raped. Today they've pulled the link and apologized. However, I wouldn't be surprised if there are photographs showing sexual assaults on women incarcerated at Abu Ghraib. Let's not kid ourselves: some people will engage in sadistic behavior if you put them in a situation that allows them to "get away with it." That's precisely what happened in Iraq--along with more than a little racism added to the mix.

Dehumanizing the enemy is common during war. That's one way to get people to kill other people. However, we're in a situation where "the enemy" happens to be the entire population of the country--or it might as well be, since we have no reliable intelligence. Considering this, are we really surprised to see the horrors emerging from Abu Ghraib, even as General Taguba attempts to control the damage to the extent that he can?

One last thing: while Taguba and others bemoan "the few bad apples," no one mentions that the entire orchard may have been poisoned. Most soldiers trained to think of others as less than human will readjust just fine upon their return. But some might snap. Recall that John Allen Mohammed, the D.C. Sniper, was, among other things, a decorated Gulf War veteran. And that was a "relatively easy" conflict. Son of Gulf War is a decidedly different war, and will affect those who fought in it much more intensely.