Rush Limbaugh, apologist extraordinaire
for the Bush Administration, recently
commented on the treatment of Iraqi
detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison.
According to Rush: "This is no
different than what happens at the
Skull and Bones initiation and we're
going to ruin people's lives over
it and we're going to hamper our military
effort, and then we are going to really
hammer them because they had a good
time. You know, these people are being
fired at every day. I'm talking about
people having a good time, these people,
you ever heard of emotional release?"
Mr. Limbaugh's justifications are
sickening and absurd. On the other
hand, he has finally said something
that should not be ignored. Specifically
his assertion that the documented
abuse of Iraqi prisoners is akin to
the initiation rites of Skull and
Bones (the Yale secret society which
claims both George W. Bush and John
Kerry as alumni). Although the purpose
of Rush's argument was to minimize
the harm suffered by Iraqi prisoners,
he has stumbled upon something important
in comparing what happened in Abu
Ghraib to hazing practices common
to many American fraternities, military
academies, and sports teams.
Last summer three members of a high
school football team from New Jersey
were sodomized with broomsticks and
other objects by older teammates,
while at training camp. In September,
a 16-year-old cadet at New York Military
Academy was "hazed" by being
beaten with socks stuffed with bars
of soap and a lock, knocking out a
tooth and causing other head injuries.
Just last month at Arizona State University,
photos surfaced which showed current
fraternity pledges being sexually
degraded and whipped-some of the pictures
showed visible welting on their bare
buttocks. This spring in Iowa, a Cornell
College fraternity was placed on probation
after pledges were held in a wet basement,
with no working shower or toilet,
and forced to go without any sleep
from February 26 to February 28. Last
March, an 18-year-old died after being
forced to take part in a drinking
game by the fraternity he was pledging
in upstate New York. And who can forget
last Fall's ubiquitous video of girls
from a high school in Illinois being
tormented with buckets of filth and
beatings about their heads-all inflicted
on them by girls who had apparently
endured similar treatment the year
before.
There are obviously significant differences
between young people tortured by classmates
with whom they are voluntarily associating,
and Iraqis being detained by the United
States military. But there are also
significant and chilling similarities
between the physical, mental, and
frequently sexualized abuse of young
people in certain American organizations,
and the horrific treatment of Iraqi
detainees. Whether abuse is the price
of imprisonment or the dues for membership
in a respected organization, forcing
a person to endure physical harm,
mental torment, or sexualized humiliation
is harmful. And fundamentally, acts
of rape, forced humiliation, physical
beatings, and the like, are toxic
to humans-and do serious damage to
victims and aggressors.
But why should we care that many
American hazing practices mirror what
happened in Abu Ghraib? One reason
is that the men and women who inflicted
the well-documented torture in Iraq
may themselves be survivors of physical,
mental, and sexual abuse through hazing.
Their willingness to degrade other
humans, their tolerance for acts of
torture and humiliation, their active
support for scenarios which cry out
for intervention and prevention, may
have been learned when they were themselves
subjected to, and not rescued from,
abuse and torment.
Of course they're still responsible
for their actions (and I hope they-and
their chain of command-will be held
accountable), but a truer understanding
of what happened in Abu Ghraib could
help us better prevent such abuse
in the future. It may be true that
the majority of US troops have not
engaged in or tolerated such abuse,
but it would be criminally naive to
believe that what happened there was
completely aberrant and unpredictable,
given the well-documented existence
of sanctioned and tolerated abuse
in the US military (Tailhook, anyone?
The Air Force Academy rape scandal?
Need I go on?).
The abuse suffered by the men and
women detained in Abu Ghraib was of
a different order of magnitude than
the abuse inflicted upon most young
Americans in fraternities and sports
teams and the military every year.
Most hazing in the US doesn't rise
to the level of physical, mental,
or sexual assault. But for survivors
of forced sodomy, like the football
players from New Jersey, or the rape
survivors of the Air Force Academy,
the greatest difference between what
was done to them and what was done
in Iraq may very well be the absence
of photographic evidence of their
torture.
Take a moment to consider the damage
that has been done to the men and
women whose abuse you are now privy
to because of the photos splashed
across your TV screen. Consider that
beyond the physical pain, the humiliation,
the nightmares, the flashbacks, the
anxiety, and the depression that they
are likely to be dealing with, they
are people who have been shown, by
example, how to dehumanize and degrade
other humans. If their abuse is tolerated,
or minimized, or sanctioned, it will
teach them that torture is an acceptable
fact of life, and they may come to
tolerate and sanction-and perhaps
even participate in-similar torture
against others.
Rush Limbaugh may be right when he
asserts that what happened in Abu
Ghraib is simply a better-documented
example of what happens in American
fraternities. But he could not be
more wrong than when he models tolerance
of the behavior there. I don't know
how or why he came to be such a celebrant
of abusive actions, but I grieve whatever
led him to accept torture as the byproduct
of people "having a good time."
Humans are not destined to treat others
the way the detainees in Iraq were
treated, and abuse like they suffered
is wrong wherever, by whomever, and
for whatever purpose it is meted out.
Kaethe Morris Hoffer
[email protected]
