[allAfrica.com] [Bill_Sutherland_Institute] The Spectre of Abu Ghraib Prison Vanguard (Lagos) OPINION June 3, 2004 Posted to the web June 3, 2004 By Mike Onwukwe THE US army is no less different from the rag-tag, Third World armies that have raped and murdered as its guiding principle. The rules of engagement are the same be it in Sudan, Somalia or Liberia. Rape, pillaging and plunder all the way. Using lethal weapons and high handedness against unarmed civilians when the soldiers are not facing immediate danger has been the modus operandi of this force. Using tank fire to respond to attacks from automatic gunfire, using cobra helicopters equipped with hellfire missiles to respond to shootings from a frenzied merry makers at a wedding party have all added up to show that US Forces are still mired by the same plethora of problems and miscalculations that are plaguing Third World armies. People brought in to save the Iraqis have same if not worse credentials. They have exchanged bees for wasp. Arab world is seething with deep anger not just because two of their leaders are under lock and key but because 46 million of their ethnic cousins in Iraq are oppressed as shown by the recent expose of Iraqi prisoners' abuse by US Forces. To put somebody in a leach and drag him naked on the floor and treat him like a dog as if he is keeping an appointment with the hangman is painful. Arabs don't have dogs as pets in their house and they don't like one. So to make one of them feel like dog is really sucking. Released former prisoners say that these acts are more than these and the soldiers raped men and women. It is complete travesty of all the known rules of engagement, circulated in CD Roms and video clips all over the world. The camera may never lie but the digital technology can. It is a great disaster for the coalition forces in Iraq. Why are the people taking pictures of these acts if it is not widespread? What interest will the pictures serve if not to highlight tacit support from above? Indicted soldiers are saying that there are many more cases and that it is a widespread act. Sexual torture Making people to be naked in the public and posing uncompromisingly is bad and let alone subjecting to sexual torture. This is reprehensible in every human society even in a society over populated by nymphomaniacs. There were charges of sexual abuse by released Afghans against US troops. Our collective sensibility has been assaulted with these prisoners' abuse, beaten and dumped. The job description of Abu Ghraib has not changed but upgraded under US supervision. The Saddam legacy should not be allowed under the American occupation. The gulag should be erased as a gesture to the Iraqi people. Talks of keeping it as a museum should be discarded as it will constantly remind Iraqis of her past horrors. If you demolish Abu Ghraib, it is not too bad but it wasn't the prison that abused the Iraqis but US troops. Saddam's cruelty and high handedness merely continued in a new frontier under foreign occupation. It will be very hard to paper over these images and it is going to be a permanent dent to the coalition. Iraq is speedily sliding into Somalia, a completely lawless society without central government and with the June 30th hand-over date, the spate of violence, attacks will be upped. Attackers will become more brutal and deadly, the future is littered with uncertainties and the task ahead is even greater. Private Lindy England, the 21-yr old soldier who bears the resemblance of conscripted minor than a soldier and her boy friend Sgt. Charles Graner, a neurotic man and a former Pennsylvania prison guard represent the worst bestiality in US Forces. But they are not alone in this as there are scores more still uncaught. We owe this revelation to Ist Lt. Joseph Derby documented and blew the whistle on January 13 this year. This is what you will get when bloody civilian contractors perform vital military duties in war zones. There are a lot of good men and women out there doing their very best but the actions of the very few have provided the brush with which to tar them. This has dealt a severe blow to the Coalition and has greatly undermined it, diverting the war efforts itself to dissipating the scandal. It is not good for this war that refuses to halt, this war that made US troops retreat from Fallujah this month and was contemplating recycling one Saddam's loyalist, Maj. Gen. Jasim Saleh to oversee the troubled area. This war has faltered, throwing uncoordinated punches here and there and it is clearly showing signs of fatigue. It is showing signs of a dazed pugilist at the verge of surrender. This war has refused to go away with April being the bloodiest with about 140 body bags sent home, the bottom line is that mission is not accomplished and the war is still far from over, contrary to what Bush announced atop USS Abraham Lincoln a year ago. One year after major combat, the situation is still hazy with pictures to support that. With Spanish troops heading home, the Coalition will be overstretched, to cover and hold the ground that is the current vacuum. Will you win hearts and minds by humiliating and torturing Iraqi POWs, shackled and being urinated upon, making POWs pose completely nude and in compromising positions? Is this the new face of liberation? They are not different from the man they came to remove. Fury and hatred These acts fuel the fury and hatred against US and compromise their standards. The acts are horrible, abhorrent and despicable and because they were in US custody, the onus lies with them to treat the prisoners humanly. Those who teach resentment and hatred against US have been greatly empowered by this scandal. The act is distasteful, complete negation and inimical to the goal of Coalition. At what stage does abuse turn to torture one might ask. Is it one of character or values? Can we trace these animalistic acts to doctrine, training, home upbringing or peer group influence? Or individual failure to adhere to rules? Or worse still human beings obeying their worst instincts? The 229 years of US Army leadership is under question; their handling of POWs and other prisoners is in complete variance with the provisions of Geneva Convention on prisoner treatment. They need a complete training and revamp on detainees' handling. Acts like this casts US Forces as conqueror and not as liberators, more so when a majority of these detainees were picked by random sweeps not that they pose serious security threats. The US military is mired in the mud as it is mired in plethora of allegations. This does not help matters as events leading up to the war are suspect: questionable intelligence and inability to find WMD. If this can happen in the heart of Iraq, what can be said in facilities ran in other places by US such as Camp X-Ray and Guntanamo Bay Cuba? It is high time we lift the lid on confidentiality and make public US Army operations in those areas. Mr Onwukwe writes from Arusha, Tanzania   =============================================================================   Copyright © 2004 Vanguard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). =============================================================================