News broke yesterday that U.S. military documents revealed that on at least two occasions, the wives of suspected Iraqi insurgents had been taken to use as “leverage” to garner the surrender of the suspects.
The AP reported was dated at approximately 3:00 PM yesterday afternoon, but where are the stories this morning? Are the numbers to small, the abuse not widespread enough to realize that these kinds of actions are a cancer that must be eradicated? Can we not as Americans speak up to protest the actions of our military acting in all of our names?
Well I am speaking up. I support the men and women who fight and defend our freedom, but I condemn those who would use the tactics of our enemies to wage our war. We are unwanted, uninvited guests in a foreign sovereign nation. Detaining innocent people on suspicion alone in bad enough, but detaining the wives of those suspects is another, lower step in indecency.
There have been a lot of stories from the war in Iraq which indicated that our military was acting in a fashion that would only worsen the threat of terrorism. But, Abu Ghraib could be explained away as the rogue actions of a few night-shift guards. Not that I believe this to be the full truth, but nevertheless it was not official U.S. military policy.
In the first case described today, the wife of a suspected insurgent was held for two days, even though she was nursing a six-month old infant at the time. The second involved an “undisclosed” number of female detainees that have been, and still are, being detained in order to get to the husband. In both cases, officers higher up were aware the actions.
I don’t need to state how absolutely morally reprehensible this is. America cannot defeat terrorism by sacrificing its own founding principles. Whoever is responsible for ordering and assenting to this “leveraging” must be immediately court-marshalled. Fulfilling the mission of stomping out the insurgency cannot come at the loss of our humanity, and some in our military seem unaware of that fact.
We must secure a peaceful future for Iraq and exit for American troops in order to claim even a modicum of success there. Our chances seem slim at the moment, and with news like this that should make every American ashamed as I am our chances seem all but gone.
Our military is supposed to be abroad defending and promoting our interests, not merely killing and exacting revenge. President Bush needs to address the world with his shame and sorrow at the actions of these officers and enlisted men. The culture of violence, racism, and blood that seems to reign in certain quarters of the military needs to be extinguished.
You are absolutely right. The slippery slope that the US is on with respect to human rights is getting steeper and more slippery all the time. War is hell, and I believe that terrorism does redefine some of the “traditional” rules of war. But the mode we seem to be in now is “we know we’re right, so anything we do is right,” even if we would call it terrorism if anyone else did it. If the rule becomes “whatever our military and intelligence people believe it takes,” we are compromising the very thing we claim to be defending.
-Bruce