Treatment of Iraqi Prisoners

Gary Cruse of The Owner's Manual pointed me to this story which describes the methods used to treat detainees in Iraqi prisons. The article discusses the isolated incidents of sexual humiliation at Abu Ghraib by American soldiers and compares those incidents with the current situation where prisoners are beaten and tortured by Iraqi security forces. The slant of the story is best illustrated by the subheading.

Iraqis are policing Iraq now, which means that detainees are being beaten instead of sexually humiliated

In presenting the story in an upbeat manner, reporter Ghaith Abdul-Ahad relates his approval and the joy of others that the Americans no longer control the prisoners.

So what has happened since the handover on June 30? Nothing much, just a reinstallation of the 5,000-year-old tradition of human rights in this part of the world.

In Najaf police station, mid-August: cries of pain and thuds of people getting the shit beaten out of them were coming out of the hall where detainees from the anti-government Mahdi army were kept. A policeman carrying a thick electricity cable went running into the hall after being told that new suspects had just arrived.

It's not known whether he interviewed any prisoners, but I can't imagine many would opt for physical torture over humiliation. And the oddest thing is that the Western media criticized the Americans because treatment of prisoners was considered too brutal while, all along, the Arabs were critical because the Americans were too nice. That's how it looks to me.