open season on detainees
Atrocities happen in all wars. Two things, however, make the reported American transgressions at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Bagram AFB particularly appalling: first, the way they appear to confirm everything Islamist propagandists say about the “crusaders ‘” contempt for Islam; second, that they proceeded directly from the administration’s country-club tough-guy rhetoric.
Classic psychology experiments have repeatedly shown that, absent stringent discipline among their captors, isolated groups rendered helpless and defined as the “other” often fall prey to sadism and brutality–a phenomenon hardly unknown to U.S. military authorities. Instead of proper training, however, inexperienced American Reservists were encouraged to treat the captives as “terrorists” to whom the president naively determined the Geneva Conventions did not apply.
In effect, if not intent, George W. Bush and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who signed off on memos validating torture for “enemy combatants,” declared open season on detainees.
Gene Lyons, Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (read more. . .)