'This has disgraced America . . . '
By DOUG SAUNDERS
From Friday's Globe and Mail
Shame and humiliation, indignity and loss of face - these emotions have a
power in the Middle East that is often compared to that of nuclear weapons.
Lengthy wars are fought for personal dignity. The worst forms of torture
involve sexual shame. The mere mention of public indignity can provoke
lifelong conflicts.
As such, the photos at Abu Ghraib prison are more than just a source of
shame to U.S. soldiers and their leaders. The images of naked men being
dragged on leashes by women, sexually humiliated and degraded are the worst
sort of weapons in the war of ideas, Arab observers say. In this view, the
photo scandal has been the equivalent of a major tactical defeat for the
United States.
"Nudity is not allowed - it's a conservative society. . . . So the idea of
rape, of men or women, and the idea of sexual contact is really not
accepted. It's really a culture of shame whenever it comes to sexual
contact," said Raghida Dergham, senior diplomatic correspondent with the
Arabic newspaper Al-Hayat. "I think this has disgraced America, if you will,
in the minds of Iraqis and some Arabs. . . . I think there will be many
people who will probably join the resistance."
The images manage to combine everything that is considered most shameful in
all Arab cultures: the display of naked flesh; the use of dogs and dog-like
treatment in human company; the removal of space between people and forced
contact, grovelling and prostration; physical and intimate touching by
strangers; nudity and sexual exposure before other men; homosexual contact;
the humiliation of men in front of women; filth; enslavement.
While most of these things are or have been considered at least somewhat
shameful in most cultures, they are considered unspeakable offences in most
Arab societies. One of the photographed prisoners told reporters in Iraq
this week that he will never be able to move back to his hometown because of
the shame.
Indeed, many of the victims say they are expressing stark disbelief that
anyone would ask them to do such things.
"The interpreter told us to strip," Hayder Sabbar Abd, who had been in
favour of the U.S. invasion of Iraq until his time in Abu Ghraib, told The
New York Times this week. "We told him, 'You are Egyptian, you are a Muslim.
You know that as Muslims, we cannot do that.' When we refused to take off
our clothes they beat us and tore our clothes off with a blade."
The effect on Arabs of such humiliations seems to have been well known to
the military-intelligence interrogation teams that allegedly ordered the
sexual and physical abuse at Abu Ghraib. Some of them were reportedly
trained at the U.S. Army interrogation school in Fort Huachuca, Ariz., where
interrogation instructor John Giersdorf boasted in 2002 that his job "is
just a hair's breadth away from being an illegal specialty under the Geneva
Convention."
A Wall Street Journal reporter who was granted a rare visit to the facility
noted that recruits are taught 30 interrogation techniques, many of them
based on shame and humiliation.
The trainees are taught "to prey on a prisoner's ethnic stereotypes, sexual
urges and religious prejudices, his fear for his family's safety or his
resentment of his fellows," the reporter wrote after reading their training
manual.
Yesterday, military officials in Iraq announced that they would be outlawing
as many as 10 of those techniques, some of which were presumably being
employed during the incidents photographed at Abu Ghraib.
Nudity and sexual shame have long been considered the most powerful forms of
torture in the Arab world.
Victims of Saddam Hussein's extensive torture regime, which included a major
facility at Abu Ghraib, have reported that the acts that left the deepest
scars included being stripped naked and forced to stand in a cell jammed
with other naked men for long periods, or being stripped and forced to sit
on a bottle.
But if U.S. interrogators believed that they could extract information more
efficiently by emulating Mr. Hussein's shame-based techniques, they failed
to realized the devastating effect these techniques would have on the Arab
world. Throughout the Middle East this week, the photos have turned even
former supporters of the U.S. occupation against the military.
"Arabs are even more offended when the issue has to do with nudity and
sexuality," Shibley Telhami, a professor of peace and development at the
University of Maryland, told The Washington Post. "The bottom line here is
these are pictures of utter humiliation which will give most Arabs a
permanent sense that the situation in Iraq is one of occupation."
Last year, Prof. Telhami wrote a much-discussed article titled "History and
Humiliation," in which he argued that the U.S. has failed to consider the
powerful issues of self-respect involved in the occupation of Iraq.
"Today, militancy in the Middle East is fuelled not by the military
prospects of Iraq or any other state but [by] a pervasive sense of
humiliation and helplessness in the region," he wrote.
Shame is such a powerful and misunderstood motive in Arab military and
diplomatic affairs that former U.S. national security adviser Henry
Kissinger once confessed that it had caused him to misunderstand the motive
for the Egyptian war against Israel in 1973.
"Our definition of rationality did not take seriously into account the
notion of starting an unwinnable war to restore self-respect," Prof. Telhami
quoted him as saying.
---
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: 'This has disgraced America . . . ' |
08 May 2004 05:44:37 AM |
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On Fri, 7 May 2004 06:58:25 -0400, "Ex" <ex@ex.com> wrote:
'This has disgraced America . . . '
Tip of the iceberg. There are a whole lot more attrocities to be
revealed yet. You pond scum Americans are finally going to have to
account for all your terrorism.
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| User: "eric davis" |
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| Title: Re: 'This has disgraced America . . . ' |
08 May 2004 07:21:58 PM |
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<Zak@home.com> wrote in message
news:9eep905oa4coupahripmtv1oi6eaeqv7og@4ax.com...
On Fri, 7 May 2004 06:58:25 -0400, "Ex" <ex@ex.com> wrote:
'This has disgraced America . . . '
Tip of the iceberg. There are a whole lot more attrocities to be
revealed yet. You pond scum Americans are finally going to have to
account for all your terrorism.
They're certainly asking for it. At this rate, even the stones will shout
out for vengeance against American atrocities.
eric.
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| User: "R. Foreman" |
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| Title: Re: 'This has disgraced America . . . ' |
09 May 2004 07:09:37 AM |
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"eric davis" <ericdavisj600@hotmail.com> Spat the Words
<Zak@home.com> wrote in message
news:9eep905oa4coupahripmtv1oi6eaeqv7og@4ax.com...
On Fri, 7 May 2004 06:58:25 -0400, "Ex" <ex@ex.com> wrote:
'This has disgraced America . . . '
Tip of the iceberg. There are a whole lot more attrocities to be
revealed yet. You pond scum Americans are finally going to have to
account for all your terrorism.
They're certainly asking for it. At this rate, even the stones will
shout out for vengeance against American atrocities.
The Rolling Stones have a new song out?
I think I'd be satisfied just to get rid of this President.
eric.
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| User: "Ex" |
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| Title: Re: 'This has disgraced America . . . ' |
09 May 2004 08:20:30 AM |
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"R. Foreman" <eidpers@anti-spam.comcast.net> wrote in message
news:Xns94E43E5D3D48Frrfkwrantispamattbic@204.127.199.17...
"eric davis" <ericdavisj600@hotmail.com> Spat the Words
<Zak@home.com> wrote in message
news:9eep905oa4coupahripmtv1oi6eaeqv7og@4ax.com...
On Fri, 7 May 2004 06:58:25 -0400, "Ex" <ex@ex.com> wrote:
'This has disgraced America . . . '
Tip of the iceberg. There are a whole lot more attrocities to be
revealed yet. You pond scum Americans are finally going to have to
account for all your terrorism.
They're certainly asking for it. At this rate, even the stones will
shout out for vengeance against American atrocities.
The Rolling Stones have a new song out?
I think it was Kiss ... 'Iraq and Roll All Night ( And Party Every Day )'
---
Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free.
Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com).
Version: 6.0.676 / Virus Database: 438 - Release Date: 5/3/04
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| User: "" |
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| Title: Re: 'This has disgraced America . . . ' |
09 May 2004 06:07:49 AM |
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On Sat, 8 May 2004 17:21:58 -0700, "eric davis"
<ericdavisj600@hotmail.com> wrote:
<Zak@home.com> wrote in message
news:9eep905oa4coupahripmtv1oi6eaeqv7og@4ax.com...
On Fri, 7 May 2004 06:58:25 -0400, "Ex" <ex@ex.com> wrote:
'This has disgraced America . . . '
Tip of the iceberg. There are a whole lot more attrocities to be
revealed yet. You pond scum Americans are finally going to have to
account for all your terrorism.
They're certainly asking for it. At this rate, even the stones will shout
out for vengeance against American atrocities.
eric.
And you wonder why everybody hates Americans. You made your bed now
suffer the coming consequences AMERICA. Hahahahahahaha
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