ECHO 16/2/06

Abu Ghraib prison coughs up its ugly memory once again as more images of abuse of detainees are released – sordid, bloody sequences – harrowing – the motions of a prisoner bashing his head in anguish against a huge steel door that he has been strapped to – dogs snarling at prisoners – naked men tied together or being knelt on by US soldiers – smears and pools of blood – I wonder if the history of that place is inescapable, that it is passed on to a legacy of evil kept alive by the US Army and Government, a legacy that the US is condoning and seemingly prepared to expand upon in turn making them blatantly no better than Saddam Hussein’s dictatorship – do they believe that they are morally faultless since 9/11? That horrid episode is an excuse for sanctioned behaviour like this? In which case are they not tarring the memory of those people who dies in the Twin Towers? Surely their suffering and their families suffering should not beget bestial torture in their name? And that justice and truth become empty rhetoric in the mouths of Bush, Rumsfeld, and Cambone? Are not the people of Iraq also worth that honesty if they are to have any faith in the attempt to bring them some sense of self-governance? Can you blame them for anger when the history of a place like Abu Ghraib is being brought back to life? Why would anyone want to model themselves on killers and torturers in the name of democracy? How is it that the neo-cons are blind to this?