I can appreciate that people will react differently to different images. But it seems like there should be some values that lead to unanimity in the face of horror.
Initially, it seemed as if lawmakers who saw unreleased photos of Americans torturing Iraqi detainees had identical reactions, regardless of party. Everyone, it seemed, was repulsed.
Scores of lawmakers yesterday viewed unreleased photos and videos of Iraqi detainees being sexually humiliated and physically threatened. The images, which included Iraqi corpses, U.S. troops having sex with each other, and previously undisclosed videos of at least one inmate ramming his head into a wall, convinced some legislators that the number of Americans who violated military protocol is larger than previously thought.
The private screenings arranged by the Pentagon — one for senators, one for House members — surely ranked among Congress’s more bizarre scenes. House members silently crammed into a standing-room-only committee room as hundreds of images, some described as pornographic, flashed on a screen for a few seconds each. Lawmakers emerging from that session, and from a less-crowded Senate room, seemed almost at a loss for words.
“What we saw is appalling,” said Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.). “I saw cruel, sadistic torture,” said Rep. Jane Harman (D-Calif.). Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) told Reuters: “There were some awful scenes. It felt like you were descending into one of the rings of hell, and sadly it was our own creation.”
An AP report highlighted the non-partisan disgust — with one exception.
“I don’t know how the hell these people got into our army,” said Colorado Republican Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell after viewing what he called a fraction of the images.
“I saw cruel, sadistic torture,” said Rep. Jane Harman, D-Calif., who said some of the images were of male prisoners masturbating. She said she saw a man hitting himself against a wall as though to knock himself unconscious.
Others said they saw images of corpses, military dogs snarling at cowering prisoners, women commanded to expose their breasts and sex acts, including forced homosexual sex.
“There were people who were forced to have sex with each other,” said Rep. Gary Ackerman, D-N.Y.
Rep. Trent Franks, R-Ariz., said, “There were some pictures where it looked like a prisoner was sodomizing himself” with an object. He said blood was visible in the photograph.
And then there was our dear House Majority Leader.
House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, R-Texas, said he thought “some people are overreacting.”
“The people who are against the war are using this to their political ends,” he said.
One really has to wonder about his humanity sometimes.