The media are having a field day with reports of what they call torture of Iraqi prisoners in a Baghdad jail. Maybe. But what I have seen of the pictures on TV is not torture. It is humiliation. The press apparently doesn’t know the difference.
We desperately need to know when and where the next terrorist attack will come against our troops in Iraq. If humiliation of the suspected terrorists will get that information, American lives will be saved. Not only American soldiers, but also Iraqi civilians, international aid workers and women and children among the citizenry of Iraq all have been maimed and killed by these thugs.
I do not believe that the Geneva Convention applies to terrorists. I do not condone raping and killing of prisoners. But I do believe that when terrorists launch attacks from inside Muslim houses of worship, when they refuse to wear uniforms to identify themselves as lawful combatants, when they deliberately endanger the citizenry by hiding in their midst to plan the next attack, then a certain zeal is necessary to gain information.
I write as a World War II infantry veteran. I recall that in order to save lives, President Harry Truman ordered the atomic bombing of two Japanese cities. His order caused the deaths of tens of thousands of civilians. But it cut short the war. I believe he was justified. And by the same token, I believe the humiliation of terrorists, if it gains vital information, is fully justified.
Harvey Lord, South Paris
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