More Evidence of Abuse

A New York Times article on Saturday documents further abuse purpetrated in Iraq.

The part of this article that makes me sickest is this:

"They wanted intel," said the sergeant, an infantry fire-team leader who served as a guard when no military police soldiers were available. "As long as no PUC's came up dead, it happened." He added, "We kept it to broken arms and legs."

And this is not considered torture by the administration, which made it clear that it only considered an action torture (and thus, prohibited) if it led to death or organ failure.

But as an intellectual exercise, imagine Saddam Hussein had held on longer in the war. Suppose we were still battling his troops, and he was still safely in control in a bunker somewhere.

And suppose reports came out of our soldiers being stripped naked, humiliated, threatened with dogs and having arms and legs broken.

Do you think Americans would be as quick to accept that this wasn't "torture"? Or would this be seen as absolute justification for our war in Iraq and proof that Saddam had to go?

Look at it that way and then perhaps you can start to understand that the so-called insurgency ISN'T (as we're told) made up primarily of foreign soldiers taking this opportunity to strike at America. Tactically, this would be stupid, and our enemies (particularly the still-at-large Osama bin Laden) are a lot of things, but not stupid, or they could never have pulled off something as big as 9/11.

No, the insurgency is made up of people who are watching what we're doing over there and wondering how we, invading foreigners, are any better than Saddam was. Sure, he may have tortured more and using more extreme methods, but on the other hand, at least he was local.

Liam.