Survival Arts

Unfortunately, Mr. Ross's suggestion that those photos somehow make attacks against Americans less likely depends on the unproven assumption that Arab men, when faced with what they would consider unspeakable evil, would choose to run away rather than fight. I consider this assumption patently absurd. After viewing those photos myself, and hearing some of the more serious accusations (the possibility that young boys were raped by Iraqi guards while U.S. soldiers stood by and watched, for example), I consider the modern U.S. military uniform to be devoid of honor. Since the military oath is to protect and defend the Constitution, the same Constitution that requires Congress to declare war, I don't see how the soldiers in Iraq can consider themselves to be upholding their oaths. If they're only there to avoid punishment for refusing to go, fine, but that hardly merits praise.

Given that at least some of the prison guards were reservists who also happened to be prison guards in the U.S., I'm not exactly going to burst into tears the next time I hear that a prison guard or police officer got killed by a criminal. After all, if being arrested means you might be beaten to death by some redneck guard, why wouldn't a criminal fight to the death just to avoid arrest? If that's my reaction (and I doubt that I'm alone in it), then what does Mr. Ross think the reaction of an Iraqi would be?

Given the number of U.S. casualties since the photos were released, I think Mr. Ross's assessment has been proven to be incorrect.

I don't think Mr. Ross was trying to say this WORKS, I think he's come up with an explanation for why it happened at all.

Until I read this, I couldn't figure out a good reason *why* anyone would be doing such things, much less taking so many photographs.

Just another bureaucratic screw-up of what might otherwise be a interesting questioning tactic.

Curt-

I think that the photos of the female American Guards humiliating the Iraqi prisoners has sealed the fate of any future female American soldier. She most likely won't be kept alive by any Iraqi if she's captured. I don't see the photos as a sign of American strength. It's easy to appear tough and in control when you have the weapons pointing at unarmed people. No disrespect meant to John Ross and his conclusions about "might makes right", I just don't see it that way.

I believe the quote from John Ross is from a recent essay in which he describes the legend of Gen. Jack Pershing, who supposedly killed Muslim terrorists and then buried their bodies with pig carcasses in order to frighten the remaining terrorists into submission. Unfortunately, even that story doesn't appear to be true, according to Snopes:

http://www.snopes.com/rumors/pershing.htm

How could John Ross, an obviously intelligent man, be duped into believing such a story? Maybe it was the hope for a "quick fix" to a complex problem, as the Snopes article suggests, or maybe it was simply a bigoted response. When a normally intelligent human being foregoes logic in order to advance a fantastic allegation against a particular group, I think that's about the best indication that bigotry is at work. I've been guilty of it myself, and I'm surprised every time that I can slip into that sort of thinking, when I supposedly pride myself on being rational.

I think its a good quote, and since I'm in Iraq, my second time, and I doubt you've ever been over here, my opinion matters more. Not like insurgents have ever treated prisoners fairly in the first place, with thier raping them on film to send out, their torturing American and coalition prisoners, not even for information, but just to do it. I think paybacks a bitch and they were getting the payback they deserved.