Dear Muslims Brothers and Sisters:

By. Stephan E

I am disgusted at the abuse of the Iraqi prisoners. 

Yet I am dismayed at the degree of your outrage. Moderate muslims (in the US ) that I had counted on as associates have become furious at all “Americans” for being “devils.” Opinion columns and web boards are full of people claiming that the abuse of these prisoners is a true picture of the American attitude toward all muslims.

I believe that your current outrage at all Americans is in fact an indictment of your disturbed mindset.

To illuminate this, we need to compare your reaction now with your reaction to last month’s outrage near Fallujah. Four American contractors seeking to reconstruct Iraq were tracked, beaten, dragged, mauled and then murdered by a jubilant mob of Iraqis. Hundreds of men, women, and children celebrated mutilating their bodies and hanging them up. The Arabic media filmed all of the events and then aired them without qualms.

You aired and watched those horrendous acts of barbarity over and over and gloated at your “victory.” You made CDs and sold them in Baghdad and Damascus . When the American army called for the perpetrators to turned over, the whole town hid them. Even the Iraqi Governing Council was silent in approval.

In the face of this much barbarity we remained silent. Even the forums of FFI and similar sites refrained from condemning all Arabs. Instead, we attributed the savagery to a small number of evil people. And we continued to relate to you on gracious terms, despite your gloating.

Now look at the Iraqi prisoners’ abuse by a few American soldiers. Yes what they did was inhumane and deserving of punishment. But the degree of abuse was no where close to what the 4 American contractors and the 700 American soldiers endured at the hands of angry Iraqis.

First, there is no evidence of torture, which is when an extended period of physical abuse permanently traumatizes a victim. Accusations of sodomy have been made, but the photos and reports only prove that it was being posed for the sake of the photos. For the most part, a group of prisoners were being paraded about naked and occasionally made to pose in degrading positions with hoods on. No pain was inflicted and no forced sex was involved. The six soldiers apparently kept themselves to the rules of hazing, which involve humiliation without the infliction of pain.

Second, you can argue that there was psychological torture, but the case is weak. Practices almost as bad as these are common in hazing rituals in the American Army and in fraternities. They may be humiliating but they are not tortures.

You claim that such humiliation is worse than death? Ask the prisoners and their families whether they would rather be dead or endure a year of anonymous humiliation.

Third, these prisoners were being held at the highest security prison in Iraq . They were mostly guilty of killing Americans. Was this worse than what Saddam used to do with his prisoners on daily basis for decades? Where was your cry of indignation then?  

The more important point I would like to make is that the acts of 6 army police can’t be taken as a sign of American barbarity by any rational person. Six out of 150,000 soldiers is 0.00004%. And the number of abuses was limited to one isolated cell block. No other similar cases by Americans have turned up despite a year of heavy media coverage.

Additionally, these six were obviously mentally messed up. Not no sane person would take photos of those acts and then distribute them.  

Finally, they were amateur soldiers who felt they didn’t need to live up to any expectations. They were National Guardsmen who had been torn away from their lives in the US to work in a miserable country full of angry men trying to kill them. One or two apparently felt entitled to playing sadistic practical jokes and the others in their isolated team went along.

So my Muslim brothers and sisters, I am in solidarity with you in condemning the acts of these few soldiers. No sane person would approve or condone such thing.  

Now Instead of giving free rein to your hatred of America , shouldn’t you rather ponder upon the silence of the Muslims worldwide when the news of the cold blooded murder of the Americans reaches them?