Out of Sight, Out of Mind

Tbogg sums it up: What happens in our torture chambers stays in our torture chambers:

Senior Pentagon officials have opposed the release of photographs and videotapes of the abuse of detainees at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, arguing that they would incite public opinion in the Muslim world and put the lives of American soldiers and officials at risk, according to documents unsealed in federal court in New York.

Gen. Richard B. Myers, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in a statement put forth to support the Pentagon's case that he believed that "riots, violence and attacks by insurgents will result" if the images were released.

The papers were filed in Federal District Court in Manhattan in an ongoing lawsuit by the American Civil Liberties Union to obtain under the Freedom of Information Act the release of 87 photos and four videotapes taken at Abu Ghraib. The photos were among those turned over to Army investigators last year by Specialist Joseph M. Darby, a reservist who was posted at Abu Ghraib.

In other words, I'll bet the pictures and videos aren't all that pretty.

What's surprising is that anyone would BE surprised that abuses would occur. War is, above all, a breakdown of social order. Some are given outrageous amounts of power, usually the byproduct of having lots of weapons and strategic or tactical advantage...and anyone unfamiliar, i.e., the entire population in Iraq, has the potential to be labeled "enemy," and therefore unworthy of rights (that is, if they are even deemed human, as opposed to charming terms like 'alibaba' or 'gook'). "Our soldiers" are no better or worse than soldiers throughout history, and history demonstrates over and over again that such things happen with astonishing regularity in times of war.

Perhaps the only real difference is the evidence...people engaging in such activities usually don't capture it on film, tape, or electronically...for reasons that should seem pretty obvious at this point.

I won't apologize for anyone committing abuses, but once again, the real blame should rest squarely on the shoulders of those who insisted that Iraq needed to be invaded, and invaded on their terms. They STILL don't have any rational justification for this war-of-choice, and the consequences of the war are as much their responsibility as they are of anyone ordered over there in the first place.