Monday, January 17, 2005

Torture and Scapegoats

U.S. Specialist Charles Graner has been sentenced to 10 Years for the abuses he committed in Abu Ghraib. Even though this is a step to determine who was responsible for such inhumanity, his role as a ringleader begs several questions. Does it mean that he was the highest ranking responsible for all that happened? Does it mean that all the responsibility can be circonscribed to a handful of soldiers (7) who executed those acts of torture? Does it mean that those who executed those acts also conceived them?

Specialist Graner held that he merely executed orders from military intelligence. Will we have a chace to know more about this? The mere fact that similar acts of torture took place also in Guantanamo suggests that there is a culture of torturing in view of getting information from the prisoners. The tacit acceptance of those horrors in the past is a reason to enquire further and beyond the responsibility ascribed to Graner.

America has to prove to the world that those soldiers are not merely scapegoats for the sins, and crimes, of the administration in charge at the moment of the war in Iraq

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