May 13, 2004
SOFTENERS:
What would you do? (Anne Applebaum, 5/13/04, Jewish World Review)
Turn the clock back six months. Imagine yourself on the other side of the world, in the soldiers' quarters at Abu Ghraib prison. Conditions are primitive: There is no mess hall, everyone sleeps in former cellblocks, it's impossible to escape the heat. As one of 450 military police in charge of 7,000 inmates, you wear 60 pounds of body armor at all times, and serve in shifts lasting up to 18 hours. You don't know who the prisoners really are, but you do know that any one of them might attack you, and that all of them might riot at any moment. During the day, you're tense and sweaty. At night insurgents fire over the prison walls.Now imagine you have been told that military intelligence wants some of the prisoners "softened up" for interrogation. What do you do? [...]
The lesson, if there is one, is that no one's behavior in extreme circumstances is predictable.
It actually is pretty predictable, we'd nearly all have joined in. Posted by Orrin Judd at May 13, 2004 9:20 AM
Comments
Based on Anne's premise I'd say their actions were fairly reasonable, but nor forgiveable, unless under orders.
What was it Orwell said about our being able to sleep at night?
I've interrogated a prisoner on the lines with a gun to his head in Korea. It's not fun you know. Not for him and not for me. War never was pretty.
Posted by: genecis at May 13, 2004 9:50 PM