From: JDG [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] >At 11:50 AM 4/30/2004 -0500 Dan Minette wrote: >>1) How strong was the emphasis on getting information vs. keeping >>professional and humane standards?
>From what I have gatherered, these incidents were not connected to serious >attempts to gain information. Rather, the Iraqi prisoners appear to have >been tortured for the sheer pleasure of it. Its pretty ordinary, the whole affair, but its not like wars are pretty. We just get to see more of it these days. I dont condone any of the actions, but I think if we imagine that it doesn't happen a lot in every war thats ever been, then we are fooling ourselves. Take a bunch of young people give them guns and uniforms and power, put them in an alien place, scare the f**k out of them with bombs and random shootings, feed them a whole lot of patriotic bull (as is done in all wars) and this is what happens. War is inherently dehumanizing, for both sides. When you have just shot three people, and stepped over the tattered bodies of their dead children in their bombed-out house, I dare say urinating on a few prisoners may seem like a bit of harmless fun. I am sure there are some heroic Poet/Warriors in Iraq, along with a whole lot of scared, flawed human beings, acting crazy. I dont say this in criticism of the Iraq war specifically. All war is like this, even 'just' wars. Thats why I dont think its a good idea to start them. Andrew
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