Abu Ghraib and American Prisons

OpinionJournal ^ | 5/10/04 | JAMES TARANTO

[pookie18]

Not all Arabs are appalled at the lurid pictures from Abu Ghraib. "The abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of U.S. soldiers draws intense reactions from some who left Iraq to find freedom in Washington state, but prolonged outrage isn't one of them," the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports from Everett:

Imad al-Turfy . . . shows no sympathy for the prisoners, saying their treatment paled when compared with the horrors inflicted under Saddam Hussein's regime.

"They raped our women. They killed our kids. So there's hatred between us, the people here, and the people in Iraq," he said, referring to the Shiite Muslims who emigrated and the Sunni Muslims who ruled Iraq under Saddam.

"Anything coming to them would make me happy." . . .

[trebb]

You mean there's another side to the story??? I'm shocked!

[CatoRenasci]

Taranto makes the argument, true and sickening, but hardly shocking, that the sort of abuse of prisoners: beatings, homosexual rape and sex slavery is common in American prisons. Most people are perfectly willing to let it happen because the inmates "deserve it" (although who on a jury which votes to convict a criminal expressly consideres that he is sentencing a prisoner to be homosexually raped?) and prison authorities, in all states, tolerate the abuse because it helps keep control of the inmates.