Weekend
Edition
May 8 / 9, 2004
Torture Party
Limbaugh and the Babes of
Abu Ghraib
By KURT NIMMO
Torture at the Abu Ghraib prison in
Iraq
? It's no different than fraternity
hazing. Or so declares the king of reactionary radio, Rush
Limbaugh.
Beating and killing Iraqi detainees, according to Limbaugh, is
good fun.
"I'm talking about people having a good time, these
people [CIA agents and
MPs at Abu Ghraib], you ever heard of emotional release? You
heard of need
to blow some steam off?" Limbaugh asked a caller.
"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."
Limbaugh is attracted to people who torture. On his May 3
show, the
loudmouth drug addict said "have you people noticed who
the torturers are?
Women! The babes! The babes are meting out the torture."
Limbaugh is talking about Spec. Sabrina D. Harman, a military
police officer
who has been charged with abusing detainees at Abu Ghraib.
Harman is now
probably the world's most infamous dominatrix of
sadomasochism. She took her
orders from Army military intelligence officers, CIA
operatives, and
civilian contractors who conducted brutal, Israeli-styled
interrogations.
She is accused of photographing dead Iraqis, posing with
corpses, striking
several prisoners by jumping on them as they lay in a pile,
writing
"rapeist" on a prisoner's leg, and attaching wires
to a prisoner's hands and
penis while he stood on a box with head covered.
Most of us would likely find Harman seriously deranged and in
need of years
of psychological treatment. But Limbaugh finds her and Pfc.
Lynndie
England
attractive.
England
is featured in many of the torture photos. In one, she
smiles happily with a cigarette clenched between in her teeth
as she points
at a hooded Iraqi man's private parts.
England
's boyfriend, Sgt. Charles
Graner, is a former prison guard with a history of domestic
violence. None
of this bothers Rush. On the contrary, Harman and
England
are patriotic
Americans innocently engaged in "good old American
pornography," as Limbaugh
said on May 6.
More like "good old American" snuff films.
In fact, for Limbaugh, torture is a good thing. It builds
character.
Americans are too squeamish, too wimpy, unable to face up to
the neocon plan
of total war against Muslims and Arabs, a war Bush has
promised will last
for generations. "I think a lot of the American culture
is being feminized.
I think the reaction to the stupid torture is an example of
the feminization
of this country," he told his audience. In other words,
if torturing people
makes you sick you're effeminate, or maybe French. Get used to
it, Rush
seems to be saying, there's more where that came from.
For Rush and the neocons, it's all about humiliating and
torturing as many
Arabs as possible. "It could well be that the whole
purpose here, which has
been said, was to humiliate these prisoners. And there's no
better way of
doing it than what was done. These are Arab males -- what
better way to
humiliate them than to have a woman have authority over them?
What's the
purpose here? What's the objective of this? The objective is
to soften them
up for interrogation later, later on. As I said, there was no
horror, there
was no terror there was no death, there was no injuries,
nothing." Never
mind that people were killed -- and photographed by Limbaugh's
centerfold,
Spec. Sabrina D. Harman. The point Rush is making is that
Arabs are
untermenschen, sub-humans, and they do not experience horror
and injury the
same way Americans do. It's okay to saddle up a 70 year old
Iraqi woman with
a harness and ride her around like a donkey because Arabs are
immune to
terror and abuse.
Finally, you'd think Bush, given the chance, would distance
himself from
Limbaugh's obvious sadism and racism. But no, instead White
House press
secretary Scott McClellan refused to go on the record and
condemn Limbaugh.
Here's how McClellan responded during a news conference:
Q: Scott, there's a segment of society that differs with the
White House as
it relates to these pictures and the investigation of the
U.S.
soldiers'
conduct to include Rush Limbaugh who, Tuesday, agreed with the
caller,
equating the pictures to a college fraternity prank, and said
the
U.S.
soldiers should not be punished because it was an emotional
release as they
were letting off steam. What's the White House say about that?
MR. McCLELLAN: April, I think the White House says what we
said yesterday
and what the President has said over the last few days.
Q: No, but Scott -- no, seriously. This man is a conservative
--
MR. McCLELLAN: And I actually got asked a question earlier
today about that
matter.
Q: But none --
MR. McCLELLAN: And I addressed it then.
Q: But if you stand out strongly trying to let the Arab world
know that this
is wrong and then you have the proverbial spokesperson for the
conservative
party saying this, doesn't that send a mixed message?
MR. McCLELLAN: The President's views have been very -- have
been made very
clear.
Indeed, Bush's views are clear -- and they are the views of
the neocon
rabble in the Pentagon and ensconced deep within
conspiratorial neocon
foundations: this is a war against Islam and the Arabs, at the
behest of
Likudite whack jobs and Christian Zionists. Bush has
"apologized" for the
depravity of Abu Ghraib -- an apology not accepted by Arabs
who understand
his sincere motivations and those of the neocons -- but only
because there
is an election right around the corner. It can be stated
without much doubt
that Bush supports whatever plan the CIA and the Pentagon come
up with to
defeat the Iraqi resistance -- including torture. For a man
who mocked the
anguished plea of a death row inmate in
Texas
and killed more than 10,000
innocent Iraqis under false pretenses, the humiliation and
beating death of
a few Iraqis cannot be of much concern.
Rush Limbaugh, on the other hand, is free to say what Bush
most certainly
thinks but cannot say if he wants another four years in the
White House.
Kurt Nimmo is a photographer and multimedia developer in
Las Cruces
, New
Mexico
. Visit his excellent no holds barred blog at
www.kurtnimmo.com/blogger.html . Nimmo is a contributor to
Cockburn and St.
Clair's, The Politics of Anti-Semitism. A collection of his
essays for
CounterPunch, Another Day in the Empire, is now available from
Dandelion
Books.
He can be reached at: nimmo@zianet.com
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