That's not the point. The object is to bring democracy to Iraq. The object is to WIN the war. No one on the Arab Street gives a crap about the 99.99% of our military who serve honorably. Everyone can crow about how unjust it is to paint the military with these broad strokes, but the fact remains, without the support of the Arab Street, we can't democratize Iraq.
They'd better get used to it if they want to join the civilized world.
I wouldn't put these pictures in a brochure about democracy and "civilization".
I get what you're saying, but my point was that a key component of modern civilization is the equality of women. This is the scariest thing to the Arab male, but without their coming to terms with this, Islam will never be "reformed", and the democratization of Iraq, or anyplace else over there, will be a facade that won't last five minutes past the departure of the last G.I. I also assume that half the "Arab street" is female. Until they assert themselves, there will be no real change.
I beg to differ with Mona about this. I think that, given the circumstances, 99% of our soldiers would do exactly what was done in these pictures.
These things were not done by accident. It wasn't like "Oops! We piled up a bunch of naked bodies! Somebody take a picture!" These things were done for a purpose. The purpose was to humiliate and degrade the prisoners. Presumably we were trying to extract information, but it looks like some of the guards were getting their jollies as well.
But given the fact that these soldiers were in a country they do not understand, guarding people who they loathe, in an prison environment specifically designed to be Hell-on-Earth, it is not surprising that they were willing to follow orders. The soldiers were told that there was a reason for what they were doing, and were only too happy to carry the orders out.
Anybody who thinks any different is deluding themselves.
The problem is with the people giving the orders. The problem is with degradation and humiliation as a mechanism of interrogation. Using such methods means that we resign ourselves to having pictures like this splashed across the media of the world. Surely nobody thought these pictures could be supressed indefinitely. The problem is that somebody, somewhere, decided that the information extracted was worth the price, and that person was not some low-level soldier with a leash.
This whole business is a complete disaster. It was a disaster by design. Somebody seriously screwed up in the formulation of our policy, and that somebody should have to pay.