Editorial - Barbarity in Iraq
published: Thursday | May 13, 2004

THE RELEASE of graphic photographs of Iraqi prisoners tortured by their American interrogators has been a massive setback for the United States in the psychological war to win the minds and hearts of Iraqi citizens to the core values of democracy. President Bush has expressed his disgust at the atrocities which clearly violate the Geneva Convention which mandates humane treatment for all prisoners of war. A full investigation has been ordered to determine if what happened is an isolated case by military and civilian contractors, some of them women, who violated established guidelines or whether the practice is widespread.

Although the danger of a cover-up is always present when an institution like the army presumes to investigate itself, some comfort will be taken internationally that the American system of military justice, administered by the Judge Advocate Generals Department (JAG) is one of the most sophisticated and impartial in the world. Unlike the British system, it mandates that all officers involved must be experienced lawyers. Its provisions for pre-trial 'discovery' are more searching than in the Federal system and certainly more transparent and exact than exists in Jamaican practice. All JAG proceedings are reviewed by a civilian board in Washington, a provision designed to eliminate command pressure.

Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, in commenting on the matter, has said that such actions are not in keeping with the American character. America, like other countries, has participated in the general advance of civilisation from barbarity to compassion but there seems to be an ugly strain of brutality which persists in human nature. It manifests itself in little boys tearing wings off butterflies, hazing rituals in some American colleges, and the rise of sado/masochism in sexual experimentation. Up to the second World War, racially inspired lynchings were not uncommon in southern American States and the world has recently witnessed a glaring example of man's inhumanity to man in the Rwandan genocides which resulted in the torture and deaths of over a million Africans. Rising brutality in Jamaica is also grave cause for concern.

The latest chapter of unfolding horror in Iraq is the beheading of an American released on the Internet by the perpetrators who say that this is retaliation for the abuse of prisoners. This barbarity is the more ominous with the threat of more to come.