take a number, please
I feel compelled to share the disturbing photo attached to the top story on my Yahoo page this morning:
The caption attached read, "A U.S. Marine writes an identification number on the forehead of an Iraqi man detained during a search in Haditha, 220 kilometers (140 miles) northwest of Baghdad, Wednesday, May 25, 2005…"
Does anyone else see something wrong with this picture? Perhaps there’s a perfectly logical reason we’ve reduced detainees to numbered cattle, but I’m having a difficult time understanding how such a system can have any effect but to dehumanize the Iraqi people in the eyes of the US military. It’s practices like this that make the incomprehensible abuse at Abu Ghraib possible.
I don’t really need to talk about all the things this war has done to sully America’s reputation (both in the eyes of its own citizens and to the people around the world), but do we really need to fuel the fire with images like this?
I am not belittling in any way the incredible work our soldiers are doing right now. They are brave men and women, and I wish they didn’t have to risk their lives for this war. I wish our president had respected them enough to use them as an absolute last resort instead of tossing them into harm’s way for his own personal agenda. And I wish that he had been smart enough to make this the quick confrontation he assured us it would be.
During a time of war it is even more important to remember the one thing that defines this country, that makes it a country worth emulating: integrity. Our nation’s fundamental belief that all people have the right to a free existence, that all life is valuable. And if our government and our soldiers lose the ability to see Iraqis as people, stops valuing their lives, then we will lose that integrity. We will be no better than the regime that we have replaced.
