Images from Abu Ghraib: Illegal Occupation, Industrial Oil Regimes, and “Having Fun” Threatening Electrocution

“To ‘stack naked men’ is like a college fraternity
prank, said a caller to Rush Limbaugh and the many
millions of Americans who listen to his radio show.
Had the caller, one wonders, seen the photographs? No
matter. The observation — or is it the fantasy? —
was on the mark. What may still be capable of shocking
some Americans was Limbaugh’s response: ”Exactly!”
he exclaimed. ”Exactly my point. This is no different
than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation,
and we’re going to ruin people’s lives over it, and
we’re going to hamper our military effort, and then we
are going to really hammer them because they had a
good time.” ”They” are the American soldiers, the
torturers. And Limbaugh went on: ”You know, these
people are being fired at every day. I’m talking about
people having a good time, these people. You ever
heard of emotional release?””

“..most of the torture photographs have a sexual
theme, as in those showing the coercing of prisoners
to perform, or simulate, sexual acts among themselves.
One exception, already canonical, is the photograph of
the man made to stand on a box, hooded and sprouting
wires, reportedly told he would be electrocuted if he
fell off.”

“The charges against most of the people detained in
the prisons in Iraq and Afghanistan being nonexistent
— the Red Cross reports that 70 to 90 percent of
those being held seem to have committed no crime other
than simply being in the wrong place at the wrong
time, caught up in some sweep of ”suspects” — the
principal justification for holding them is
”interrogation.” Interrogation about what? About
anything. Whatever the detainee might know. If
interrogation is the point of detaining prisoners
indefinitely, then physical coercion, humiliation and
torture become inevitable.”

“Unfortunately, as Staff Sgt. Ivan (Chip) Frederick
noted in his diary, a prisoner can get too stressed
out and die. The picture of a man in a body bag with
ice on his chest may well be of the man Frederick was
describing.”

as Rumsfeld acknowledged, it’s hard to censor soldiers
overseas, who don’t write letters home, as in the old
days, that can be opened by military censors who ink
out unacceptable lines. Today’s soldiers instead
function like tourists, as Rumsfeld put it, ”running
around with digital cameras and taking these
unbelievable photographs and then passing them off,
against the law, to the media, to our surprise.” The
administration’s effort to withhold pictures is
proceeding along several fronts. Currently, the
argument is taking a legalistic turn: now the
photographs are classified as evidence in future
criminal cases, whose outcome may be prejudiced if
they are made public. The Republican chairman of the
Senate Armed Services Committee, John Warner of
Virginia, after the May 12 slide show of image after
image of sexual humiliation and violence against Iraqi
prisoners, said he felt ”very strongly” that the
newer photos ”should not be made public. I feel that
it could possibly endanger the men and women of the
armed forces as they are serving and at great risk.”