Abu Ghraib
During the war in Iraq that began in March 2003, US soldiers committed a series of human rights violations against detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. It was one of the world’s most notorious prisons, with torture, weekly executions, and vile living conditions. As many as fifty thousand men and women were in the prison, in twelve-by-twelve-foot cells.
It was this prison that introduced the world to the violent infrastructure of torture in the war on terror. In 2004, when photos emerged documenting extensive torture ranging from prisoners on leashes to bodies piled atop each other in pyramid structure to prisoners standing in crucifixion like postures, there were global shockwaves at the displays of brutality. Iraqi soldiers were forced to live without food or water in isolation cells for days, were handcuffed and restrained in painful positions, and physically and sexually abused.
Eric Fair, an interrogator at Abu Ghraib, stated, "We hurt people, and not just physically," he says. "We destroyed them emotionally, and ... I think at the very least it's a just punishment for us that we suffer some of those consequences, too."
The United States Department of Defense removed seventeen soldiers and officers from duty, and eleven soldiers were charged with dereliction of duty, maltreatment, aggravated assault and battery. These soldiers were sentenced to military prison and discharged. Two soldiers were sentenced to ten and three years. Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the commanding officer of all detention facilities in Iraq, was reprimanded and demoted to the rank of colonel. Several more military personnel who were accused of perpetrating or authorizing the measures, including many of higher rank, were not prosecuted. It was reported that 70-90% of the inmates were innocent
The administration of George W. Bush asserted that these were isolated incidents, not indicative of general U.S. policy. This was disputed by humanitarian organizations such as the Red Cross, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch. These organizations stated that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were not isolated incidents, but were part of a wider pattern of torture and brutal treatment at American overseas detention centers, including those in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. Bush chose merely to call this incident “disgraceful conduct.”
But the fact remains that no matter how morally superior that Americans like to think they are, Abu Ghraib, and many more prisons after that showed that we are just as capable as others of committing crimes far worse than any prisoner did.
Sources:
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2004/05/10/torture-at-abu-ghraib
https://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/abu-ghraib-legacy-torture-war-terror-170928154012053.html
https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2016/04/04/472964974/it-was-torture-an-abu-ghraib-interrogator-acknowledges-horrible-mistakes
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisoner_abuse
This was a very interesting article. It is interesting how we Americans often see ourselves as apart of a just and fair nation while other governments may be oppressive. This is a reminder that we are not so great.
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