Disgraced by Silence
When will the president respond to the cascading
allegations of
prisoner abuse by the military?
December 19, 2004
A Marine guard in Iraq sprayed an alcohol-based liquid on a detainee,
struck a match and ignited the prisoner, burning and blistering the
man's hands. Another Marine held wires from an electric transformer to
a detainee's shoulders, so that the man "danced as he was shocked,"
according to military documents made public this month.
In photographs now under investigation, Navy SEALs appeared to sit on a
hooded and handcuffed Iraqi prisoner and to point a gun at another,
bleeding detainee. Army troops repeatedly beat Afghan prisoners in
their custody, ripped off their toenails, shocked them and dunked them
in cold water, according to recent reports from a U.N. group. Most
incidents occurred in 2002 and 2003.
The cascading allegations
of prisoner abuse, of which these are but a few examples, long ago
demolished the president's claim that only a few bad apples were
responsible. So did reports that soldiers and officers who complained
to their superiors about this mistreatment were threatened with
reprisals and even physical harm. Yet as reports of unexplained deaths,
humiliations and depravity across the services multiply, President Bush
has recently remained silent.
Soldiers on the battlefield
deserve a fair amount of leeway for their conduct under the heat of
fire, when adrenaline and the need to kill or be killed prompt people
to do things they'd never consider under normal conditions. But many
pictures continuing to come to light look a lot more like coldblooded
sadism than acceptable combat actions. It's impossible to know what
other abuse, past or present, might await discovery.
In May,
soon after photographs from Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad became
public, Bush said he was "sorry for the humiliation suffered by the
Iraqi detainees … and their families." But "the cruelty of a few," he
said a week later, "cannot diminish the honor and achievement" of the
thousands who have served honorably in Iraq.
It is now clear
that "the few" are in fact many. So many that either U.S. troops are
not under their commanding officers' control or they are beating,
burning and sodomizing suspects with the blessing — or worse, at the
direction — of their commanders and Washington policymakers.
Either explanation is inexcusable, and as commander in chief, Bush has
an obligation to say so.
The president should directly and forthrightly state what he neglected
to say last spring: Torture and humiliation of prisoners disgraces
every American; such conduct is always unacceptable; and any officer
who learns of such behavior and, instead of stopping it, encourages or
ignores it, will be court-martialed.
