More Torture

This MSNBC article (from the Washington Post) discusses the post-traumatic stress one solider is suffering after acting as an interrogator in Iraq, and torturing prisoners on behalf of the US Government. Unsurprisingly, on his return to the US, he finds himself haunted by his actions.

Some interesting quotes from the article-

"What are you going to do? You just want to get back at somebody, so you bring this dog in. 'Finally, I got you.'"

"At every point, there was part of me resisting, part of me enjoying," Lagouranis said. "Using dogs on someone, there was a tingling throughout my body. If you saw the reaction in the prisoner, it's thrilling."

After September 11th, I felt like torturing someone, too. And apparently, the President is hot to keep on torturing people, despite expert evidence saying that it produces bad intelligence, and despite the fact that in breaking the Geneva Conventions it exposes Americans all over the world to reciprocal behavior.

In his classic essay, Grief and a Headhunter's Rage, sociologist Renato Rosaldo discusses how the accidental death of his wife illuminated the puzzle of a Philippine tribe's headhunting ritual. When in mourning, the men of the tribe would seek out, kill and behead a member of a rival tribe. Rosaldo had previously proposed a complex "head economy" to explain this behaviro, which members of the tribe themselves found incomprehensible.

When his wife fell to her death in an accident in the jungle, he suddenly found himself feeling not only sorrow, but overpowering anger. Finding someone and cutting off their heads seemed suddenly like a very good idea.

It should be no surprise that when immersing young American soldiers in a guerrilla war, atrocities of various kinds happen. Human nature makes acts of revenge and atrocity inevitable. A Serbian soldier interviewed several years ago about war crimes said this-

"It was war; sometimes a baby falls on your knife."

But just because abuses will happen doesn't mean that they should be condoned. What's particularly revolting about the war in Iraq and the "war on terror" is that soldiers are acting as proxy torturers on behalf of the President, members of his Cabinet, and a significant portion of his constituency. By condoning torture, this Administration acts like a malevolent drug dealer, feeding the violent, addictive habits developed by soldiers in war.

The angry men in the administration are using the armed forces to play out their own fantasies of revenge. American soldiers are acting on the behalf of sadists, psychopaths, and idiots, and suffering for it.