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War
makes beasts of men
Watch this video (part
1 here) of an Arabic-speaking former soldier, Aidan Delgado, who faced abuse and attacks after filing for Conscientious Objector status. His compassionate and powerful talk includes detailed Geneva Convention violations and shockingly personal accounts of the inhumanity he witnessed and experienced
Part II - Part
I Here
On the classic phenomenon of dehumanizing the enemy via
language. Haji:
"In English, or in army usage it has the exact same meaning
or connotation as 'gook' or 'charlie' or 'nigger.' it's very
very prevalent in the military. only on a handful of occasions
did I every hear Iraqis referred to as Iraqis. The rest of the
time it was haji this and haji that...and all of this
contributed to an atmosphere that brutalizes civilians and
ultimately brutalized the prisoners that we had under our thumb
at Abu Ghraib."
On Abu Ghraib:
"when I arrived there I kind've had the opinion that most
guys did; you know, that these are the most dangerous people in
Iraq, the most deadly criminals...they deserve all this harsh
treatment they're receiving. That's what I thought when I got
there. but serving at Abu Ghraib I got a chance to find out
differently."
As a result of the duty he'd been put on as punishment for filing
for Conscientious Objector status he was privy to prisoner
paperwork even guards hadn't seen:
"What I found was absolutely stunning. I found that the
majority of prisoners at Abu Ghraib hadn't committed any crimes
against the coalition -- they hadn't committed violent crimes.
They were at Abu Ghraib for petty theft, public drunkenness,
forged coalition documents, impersonating a coalition officer,
petty nonviolent offenses and they were inside Abu Ghraib with
real murderers, real rapists, real insurgents. In addition, a
large percentage of those at Abu Ghraib hadn't committed any
offense at all. The military had a policy of random
sweeps..."
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