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Rewriting Iraq's History
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| Contributor | Liberal |
| Last Edited | Liberal May 28, 2004 11:53am |
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| Category | Commentary |
| News Date | Friday, May 28, 2004 06:00:00 AM UTC0:0 |
| Description | can't wait to see Abu Ghraib prison reduced to rubble by the Americans--at the request of the new Iraqi government, of course. It will be turned to dust in order to destroy a symbol of Saddam's brutality. That's what President Bush tells us. So the re-writing of history still goes on.
Last August, I was invited to Abu Ghraib--by my favourite US General Janis Karpinski, no less--to see the million-dollar US refurbishment of this vile place. Squeaky clean cells and toothpaste tubes and fresh pairs of pants for the "terrorist" inmates. But now, suddenly, the whole kit and caboodle is no longer an American torture centre. It's still an Iraqi torture centre, and thus worthy of demolition.
The re-writing of Iraqi history is now going on at supersonic speed. Weapons of mass destruction? Forget it. Links between Saddam and al-Qa'ida? Forget it. Liberating the Iraqis from Saddam's Abu Ghraib life of torture? Forget it. Wedding party slaughtered? Forget it. Clear the decks for both "full (sic) sovereignty" and "chaotic events". This is, at any rate, according to Mr Bush. When I heard his hesitant pronunciation of Abu Ghraib as "Abu Grub" on Monday night, I could only profoundly agree.
But we're in danger again of missing the detail. Just as the unsupervised armed mercenaries being killed in Iraq are being described by the occupation authorities as "contractors" or, more mendaciously, "civilians"--so the responsibility for the porno interrogations at Abu Ghraib is being allowed to slide into the summer mists over the Tigris river. So let's go back, for a moment, to the long weeks in which the Department of Bad Apples allowed its jerks to put leashes around Iraqi necks, forced prisoners to have sex with each other and raped some Iraqi women in the jail.
And let's cast our eyes upon that little, all-important matter of responsibility. The actual interrogators accused of encouraging US troops to abuse Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib jail were working for at least one |
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