The Abu Gharaib Prison Scandal - Essay Example

The Abu Gharaib Prison scandal The United s military action against Iraq in 2003 resulted in the imprisonment of several Iraqis in the once notorious Abu Gharaib prison, twenty miles west of Baghdad (Hersh, 2004). The deserted prison complex was refurbished with toilets, and tiled flooring and used to house several thousand civilians picked up in random military sweeps and suspected of crimes against the coalition. However, during the period October to December of 2003, there were several instances of “sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses” at Abu Gharaib (Hersh, 2004). Some of the instances of cruel, sadistic acts that were reported included threatening male detainees with rape, sleep deprivation, dousing naked prisoners with cold water, severe beating of prisoners and forcing them to commit indecent acts. These acts were especially humiliating for the prisoners because homosexuality is against the Islamic law and it is degrading and humiliating for men to be naked in front of other men. (Hersh, 2004). In the subsequent investigations that were carried out, it was also revealed that such incidences of abuse were actually instigated by higher ups in military intelligence, who wanted to ensure that the prisoners were abused in order that they would loosen up and provide security information. (Hersh, 2004). All of the lower rank officers who were later prosecuted would testify that they were following orders and assumed that the incidents were occurring as a part of normal military duty. For instance, according to Army Captain Donald Reese, who was installed as warden of part of the Abu Gharaib prison complex, army intelligence officers informed him that “there was nothing illegal or wrong” about keeping the prisoners naked.(Pound and Roane, 2004). There was rampant disorder and chaos in the prison with the chain of authority remaining indeterminate and resulting in soldiers running amuck. These incidents at Abu Gharaib prison occurred in the context of war, when there are feelings of enmity and hostility that lead to widespread abuse. As Pound and Roane (2004) point out, the soldiers functioning in the prison were subjected to chaotic conditions, where prisoners were constantly rioting and trying to escape. War generates the kind of conditions where the moral rules and regulations that apply in real life are sometimes subordinated to the dangers and threats that arise in a combat situation. However, in my view the events that occurred at the Abu Gharaib prison were unacceptable from a moral and ethical standpoint, especially because they were perpetrated by American soldiers and America being the epitome of democracy, has failed to maintain minimal standards of decency before the whole world. The Iraqi prisoners were kept naked and made to perform homosexual acts of sodomy on each other, which is repugnant to their religion. Moreover, most of the prisoners were civilians rather than hard core criminals or war embittered veterans. While they were all suspected of some crime or the other against the coalition, it was only a few individuals who were actually suspected of being leaders in the insurgency against the coalition forces. The purpose of this roughing up treatment was purportedly to loosen up the prisoners so that they would spill secrets and divulge information that would be of assistance to military intelligence. But how far can this justify the acts of abuse of the American prisoners? Forcing the prisoners to engage in homosexual acts was against their religion and therefore morally wrong in that it forced these individuals to commit humiliating, degrading and morally reprehensible acts. While beating and torturing of prisoners in war time situations is common, as a means to extract information, the act of deliberately forcing a person to commit an act that is repugnant to his or her religion violates the principles of individual privacy and right to freedom of belief, which are the basic tenets of democracy. There may be some instances when an act of violence during the war may have some justification, despite it being cruel and sadistic. For instance, in the story of “Another way to die” by Murakami, a Japanese army captain forces his soldiers to kill a group of escaping soldiers with bayonets, in order to save bullets. One of the escapees who had killed four men with a bat was sentenced to the same fate and killed with a lethal blow dealt to his head using a bat. While the act of killing itself was brutal, to some extent, its severity is mitigated by the circumstances in which it occurred and the losses dangers and hardships of the war. However, the situation when applied in the context of the Abu Gharaib incidents in quite different. Although Iraq was in a war situation, the incidents that occurred were not deaths or shooting that occurred while someone was trying to escape. Most of the civilians who were in the prison had been rounded up off the streets and all the refurbishments to the Abu Gharaib prison were made in the midst of the fanfare about Iraq being liberated from cruel, despotic rule, so that the prisoners would actually fare better in the prison than they had been doing before. Moreover, the American soldiers were not cornered into any situation where they were subjected to undue danger or stress, as a result of which the violent and degrading acts ensued. The failure of the American soldiers to provide basic amenities and clean food to the Prisoners of war may have been excusable, beating and some levels of abuse could also conceivably have occurred since it was a war situation. However, the homosexual abuse was unnecessary and inexcusable. These acts of forced sodomy and homosexuality were degrading to the prisoners from a religious and ethical standpoint. The Fairness approach to ethics examines how fair or unfair a particular action may be when it is distributed among the members of a group. An ethical fairness approach requires that all individuals must be treated the same, in a consistent manner “unless there are morally relevant differences between them”.(www.scu.edu). On this basis therefore, there are some general principles which would apply in the case of everyone on the basis of simple morality and fairness for all. There will be an exception to this principle only if some members are to be excluded on the basis of moral repugnance. Since most of the prisoners in the Abu Gharaib prison were Muslims, the fairness approach would require that all the prisoners are treated consistently. Respect for their religious principles would be one of the salient aspects that would be covered under this, and America as a proponent of democracy that came into Iraq to liberate the people, should have demonstrated sensitivity to Islamic principles. By deliberately forcing Iraqi prisoners to engage in homosexual acts and violate their religious principles, the soldiers engaged in blatantly unethical actions, which are also morally repugnant. References: * “Approaching Ethics” Retrieved November 5, 2007 from: http://www.scu.edu/ethics/practicing/decision/approach.html * Hersch, Seymour M, 2004. “Torture at Abu Gharaib”, The New Yorker, May 10, 2004. Retrieved November 5, 2007 from: http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2004/05/10/040510fa_fact * Murakami, Haruki. “Another way to die” * Pound, Edward T and Roane, Kit R, 2004. “Abu Gharaib prison: A hell on earth”, Countercurrents.org, Retrieved November 7, 2007 from: http://www.countercurrents.org/iraq-roane130704.htm Read More