Fisk: An illegal and immoral war, betrayed by images that reveal our racis

First, our enemies created the suicide bomber. Now, we have our own digital suicide bomber, the camera. Just look at the way US army reservist Lynndie England holds the leash of the naked, bearded Iraqi. Take a close look at the leather strap, the pain on the prisoner's face. No sadistic movie could outdo the damage of this image. In September 2001, the planes smashed into the buildings; today, Lynndie smashes to pieces our entire morality with just one tug on the leash.

The Muslim suicide bomber cries Allahu Akbar, God is great. And what does Lynndie England's partner-in-crime do? Why, his home garden is plastered with a legend from the Book of Hosea, about sowing and righteousness and ploughing.

Could ever Islam have come so intimately into contact with the sexuality of the Old Testament? Could neo-conservative Christianity - Lynndie is also a churchgoer - have collided so violently, so revoltingly, so obscenely with Islam?

And who were the innocent in these vile photographs? The American torturers and humiliators? Or the Iraqi victims?

President Bush is fearful of Arab reaction to these pictures. Why? For a year now, Iraqis have been trying to tell journalists of the brutal treatment they are receiving at the hands of their occupiers. They don't need these incriminating photographs to prove to them what they already know to be true.

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http://www.robert-fisk.com/articles400.htm#FullStory

how about Kerry's VP post?

makes me sick to be an American.

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So who were these mysterious "interrogators"? If they were not CIA or FBI staff, who were they? Several names are already doing the rounds - so far, journalists claim they have no final proof of them - and a number, I understand, hold more than one passport. Why were they brought in to Abu Ghraib? Who brought them in? How much are they paid? And who trained them?

Who taught them it was a good idea to get a girl to point at an Arab who was being forced to masturbate, to humiliate an Iraqi by hooding him with a girl's lingerie?

We are not just talking "sick" here. We're talking professionals. President Bush at last apologised yesterday to the Arab world for this filth - only, no doubt, because of the latest picture on the front of the Washington Post - but the constant, insistent refrain from US officers that these were a tiny group of unrepresentative Americans makes me very suspicious.

Lynndie and her boyfriend were not part of a "rogue" unit. They were told to do these despicable things. They were encouraged. This was an order from someone. Who? When can we see their pictures, their identity, their passports, their orders?

Yes, it's part of a culture, a long tradition that goes back to the Crusades; that the Muslim is dirty, lascivious, un-Christian, unworthy of humanity - which is pretty much what Osama bin Laden (now forgotten by Mr Bush, I notice) believes about us Westerners.

And our illegal, immoral, meretricious war has now brought forth the images that betray our racism.

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