DUPLICITY

Malcom Lagauche

In March 2003, a U.S. soldier captured by the Iraqi military, was shown on Iraqi TV. He stated his name and home town. "Foul," cried the U.S. administration. This was a contravention of the Geneva Convention. However, when the Abu Ghraib scandal erupted, the U.S. government, until this day, has never come clean about the atrocities. I think the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis who have been tortured by the U.S. military would gladly have changed places with the U.S. soldier who was not tortured, but who was seen on TV stating his name. In July 2003, the U.S. killed Uday and Qusay Hussein, the sons of Saddam Hussein, as well as Qusay’s 14-year-old son. At the time, they were on the run and conducting resistance activities. A distant relative told the U.S. their whereabouts and earned a $30 million payday. The killing of the trio consisted of six hours of steady attack, including bombs, missiles, rockets and bullets. The following day, the bodies of the Hussein brothers were shown repeatedly on TV stations all over the world. The U.S. media broadcast the pictures around the clock. Not one U.S. official said this was in bad taste. After all, Iraqis are not equal to U.S. citizens. They were depicted as trophies in the U.S. "war on terror." "They deserve what they got," was a common phrase.(...) Shortly after dawn on December 30, 2006, pictures of Saddam Hussein hanging from a gallows made their way to the world media. U.S. TV stations and print media outdid each other in trying to show as many pictures of a dead Saddam as possible. The duplicity in U.S. values is incredible...

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