The Iraqi tortures are an extension of the American justice system.

Did anyone hear the guy on C-SPAN say that he was stripped nude and thrown in a cold cell for 3 days? Did anyone else think that the problems of torture and abuse extend beyond Iraq to our very own cities....right at our backdoors? So, I decided to repost this from a couple of days ago...
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Now, before you say that is going a little too far, take a moment to think of it. Police dogs are used whenever needed by our police forces. People are strip searched every day, sometimes innocently. People are abused by our police forces everyday and sometimes, as in the case of Rodney King, it is on film. Most of the time it is never documented. Of course, some would argue that Waco was a police force gone wild.

Even in Colorado Springs, there were a couple of deaths related to tying unruly prisoners to plywood boards, before it was reported and stopped. It happens everyday across America. Our police forces beat and abuse our citizens. For those that might argue it is not that bad, we would say that it is also not that good...

I think this argument kind of diminishs the experience of those at Abu Ghraib Prison. There could be vast improvements in the American criminal justice system, particularly in the area of race relations (not sure what to call it, but I assume you know what I mean). I'm not sure what's wrong with using police dogs, incidently; they provide a valuable service.

But the abuses in America take place in a framework that condemns them; the system is set up such that while offenses do occur, they can be dealt with, at least in theory.

The prisoners in Abu Ghraib did not have that. There was no system of law that they could rely on. All they had was the good will of the Americans, and everyday they were presented with evidence that such good will did not exist.

To sum up--I think that both the Abu Ghraib Prison scandal, and abuses in the American Legal Systems are serious problems, but they are seperate and distinct problems.

Bryant
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