Digging down

fafblog. Again.

oh no! somebody broke the liberation.

So it turns out that like a day after the Iraqi handover a bunch of guys from the Oregon National Guard caught Iraqi jailers torturing Iraqi prisoners, which is really bad. But they rescued them, which is really good! But then their superiors told them to give the tortured Iraqis back to their jailers, which is really bad again.

. . .

"You gotta use discipline on a young country," says Giblets. "Otherwise it won't grow up with the right values. Spare the gonad electrocution, spoil the child."

This isn't a joke; this is real, actual news.

In a nearby building, the soldiers counted dozens more prisoners and what appeared to be torture devices--metal rods, rubber hoses, electrical wires and bottles of chemicals. Many of the Iraqis, including one identified as a 14-year-old boy, had fresh welts and bruises across their back and legs.

The soldiers disarmed the Iraqi jailers, moved the prisoners into the shade, released their handcuffs and administered first aid. Lt. Col. Daniel Hendrickson of Albany, Ore., the highest ranking American at the scene, radioed for instructions.

But in a move that frustrated and infuriated the guardsmen, Hendrickson's superior officers told him to return the prisoners to their abusers and immediately withdraw. It was June 29--Iraq's first official day as a sovereign country since the U.S.-led invasion.

The incident, the first known case of human rights abuses in newly sovereign Iraq, is at the heart of the American dilemma here.

For over a year now, the first defense of the neo*cons has been, "It's better in Iraq with Saddam Hussein gone."

The occupation army is by small steps but steady making that statement no longer true.