US Has Always Treated Prisoners Well.

The Star. ^ | 5/23/04 | Mike Bowers

[gdogdaily]

Barely three weeks, and already I've developed Abu Ghraib fatigue.

At first, I was saddened and ashamed by the photographs of abuse. I thought they might cost us the war, and deservedly so.

But then I learned the prisoners in cell blocks 1A and 1B are not nice people. They're in prison because the Army thinks they did things like kill our soldiers with roadside bombs.

Then I learned that, not infrequently, such interrogation techniques work — they elicit information that allows us to catch plotters and save lives.

Then I was struck by the hypocrisy of Arab state leaders condemning us. Atrocities — real atrocities, not just having a finger pointed at your private parts — have a long history in the Middle East.

For example, in 1982, the president of Syria destroyed his fourth-largest city, Hama, in a matter of days.

According to one report, "Every building in the city was destroyed, and when it was all over, bulldozers were brought in to flatten the rubble." Settling a grudge, the Syrian dictator at the time, Hafez Assad, murdered more than 20,000 people.

Then the Left hyperbolized and exploited the issue. Ted Kennedy maligned our troops this way: "Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam's torture chambers reopened under new management: U.S. management."

Then our president apologized to the Muslim world. Our secretary of defense raised the possibility of financial compensation for the victims. And the first U.S. soldier to be court-martialed for the abuse was sentenced to a year in jail.

Finally, I saw the Internet video of the execution of Nick Berg. I shuddered as one of the killers proudly showed off the severed head, whose eyes were still blinking because the brain had yet to die.

Somehow, after all this, it's hard for me to feel a lot of outrage about Abu Ghraib anymore.

The truth is that starting with World War II, and probably earlier, the most fortunate detainees and prisoners of war in the world have been those held by Americans.

For example, in the early months of 1945, when the central cities of Germany were being overrun by the Americans from the west and the Russians from the east, citizens prayed the American invaders would arrive first.

They knew what would happen if they were taken by the Russians. According to numerous historians, the Red Army raped more than 2 million German women on their drive from the edge of East Prussia to Berlin.

Even the Japanese-Americans who were interned in World War II lived in bearable conditions. The detention decision by President Roosevelt was a mistake that embarrasses America still today. But it led to no atrocities or torture.

We know this from Eleanor Roosevelt herself. On April 23, 1943, she visited the Gila River Camp in Arizona. The visit is discussed in the book "No Ordinary Time," which was written by the liberal historian Doris Kearns Goodwin and which won a Pulitzer Prize.

The first lady recognized that the camp was a penitentiary, but she also saw that the Japanese had the necessities of a reasonable life.

"Despite the wind and the dust," Goodwin writes, "the internees had created a productive community.

"On the land surrounding the camp, they were raising livestock and producing vegetables sufficient to feed the entire camp. A camouflage-net factory was producing far beyond expectations. Within the camp itself, the evacuees had set up their own barber shops, dental offices, newspapers, adult-education courses, movie theaters and government."

Nearly 400,000 German prisoners of war who were held at 511 camps in the United States also lived in reasonable conditions.

In his 1979 book "Nazi Prisoners of War in America," Arnold Krammer wrote that "while in the United States, most of the Germans spent the war years uneventfully, and, in some cases, even enjoyably."

They worked side-by-side with Americans in towns like Macomb, Ill. They studied and played. Their waistlines expanded.

By war's end, many of the prisoners were so taken by the beauties and qualities of America that they stayed and began new lives here.

Other German prisoners who became prosperous businessmen back home recalled their time in American captivity as "wonderful years" and "the experiences of their lives."

In contrast, American troops who survived Japanese prison camps say their captors would sometime dine on the liver of an executed soldier. They considered it a delicacy, boiled in soup or pan-fried in soy sauce.

Then there is Guantanamo Bay today. Many Muslims there have a better standard of living than they did at home.

Even a left-wing London newspaper, the Guardian, recently acknowledged the camp is not a hellhole. In March, it reported that a 14-year-old former prisoner named Asadullah says: "I am lucky I went there, and now I miss it. Cuba was great."

According to the Guardian, Asadullah spent a typical day watching movies, going to class and playing soccer. Sometimes he played basketball and volleyball with his guards. He enjoyed learning about the solar system and proudly recites the names of the planets.

Asadullah, who is now back home in Afghanistan, also said the food was good, the teaching was excellent and the warders were kind.

Interrogation sessions were merely tedious, not abusive, he says. "Americans are good people. They were always friendly," Asadullah says.

"If my father didn't need me, I would want to live in America."

So the next time you hear someone slander America for "torture," remember Asadullah.

With the exception of a few losers, Americans are still good people. And so are our soldiers. Nothing at Abu Ghraib refutes this basic truth.

[lainde]

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