Copyright 2004 Ben S. Pollock
Wednesday, May 5, 2004. A note about the U.S. MPs’ sexual and general humiliation of Iraqi civilian/military detainees. Here’s The New Yorker’s link to photos and articles.
Jews are not supposed to make Holocaust comparisons lightly and don’t want non-Jews to make any at all. This, however, must be a fair comparison. That the United States of America can degrade another people is a symbolic but real form of genocide.
Do these pictures compare to the shots of the liberation of the Nazi Germany concentration camps of death and deprivation? No one has quite said that the U.S. soldier-miscreants physically hurt these poor people.
But WE don’t do that. WE don’t see ourselves as doing that. WE are above that. That’s why WE are best and WE are capable and competent to lead the world to OUR version of freedom and liberty, not to mention marketplace economy and legislative form of republican government.
Yet the young adults we raised or taught or otherwise know now are no better than Storm Troopers. They can do this without a Hitler to goad them into inhumanity. They can do this not out of being exhausted and confused from multiple tours of duty (one explanation for U.S.-inflicted atrocities in Vietnam) but after just months in the field, with essentially the full support of loved ones and communities back home. I realize the Iraq-Afghanistan theater is no picnic for the U.S. military but the reports of hardships are not on the same level as those in Vietnam, Korea or the two world wars.
Is this painting all the troops with one brush? Obviously not. First, that compromises the argument into absurdity. But second and more importantly, the proof that nearly all of our young people would not participate or stand idly by is that at least one American witness reported it. (That the Pentagon looked into it, confirmed it then sat on it for months without either disclosure or speedy discipline all the way to the top is a separate and also grave issue.)
Our kids doing this and recording their exploits is fairly comparable to the SS "following orders" for the ovens — and their infamously detailed records. Our kids did this, without prompting from our Way of Life, the American Dream. Not as bad as the Holocaust, but certainly the exact same course of evil. I hope further investigation proves me wrong. -30-
