Free Republic

The prisoner, a 44 year-old female captured near Baghdad University, was held incommunicado for five months in a dark airless 6 by 12 foot cellar where it was impossible to stand erect. The prisoner spent her days and nights confined to a mattress, blindfolded, her hands and feet bound. She was punished if she squirmed too much, forbidden to speak, half-starved, allowed two trips to the toilet per day, one shower per month. The prisoner testifies that after the first week of solitary confinement, she shared her ordeal with an unidentified male prisoner. Accused by the guards of trying to...

Seems half the world is enraged at the recent revelation that some Iraqi prisoners of war were “abused." And the other half is apologizing for it. But before we beat our breasts and rend our robes, let’s take a calmer look at exactly what happened. The charges are that, on a handful of occasions, Iraqi detainees were stripped naked and photographed in degrading positions. Apparently this is an offense of some magnitude in the sexually convoluted world of Islam, and a cultural breach of unimagined proportion. I guess the protocol with filthy, half-mad religious zealots captured by your soldiers is...