Editorial

Donning the Mantle of the Nazis

The revelations of widespread abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of their American captors have created profound feelings of revulsion in people around the world. Pictures of American soldiers revelling in the humiliation of Iraqis are apparently just the tip of the iceberg. During his six hours of testimony before the U.S. Congress, U.S. Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld admitted that there are more photos and videotapes documenting the torture, rape and murder of prisoners, as well as evidence of similar crimes committed in Guantanamo and elsewhere.

A great mystery is being created about how such atrocities could happen. How have ordinary young Americans been turned into vicious, sadistic brutes? However, there is no mystery. One of the lessons of the Nazi era, a lesson which was learned again during the Vietnam War, is that when you dehumanize your opponents you also dehumanize yourself.

The process of dehumanizing the Arab people begins at the highest levels of the Bush administration. President Bush repeatedly refers to Arab enemies of the U.S. as "terrorists" and "evildoers". Various high level officials within his administration have referred to Iraqi insurgents as "rats" and "vermin". It was Bush, Rumsfeld and U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft who decided that various categories of prisoners captured during the war on Afghanistan would not be afforded the protection of the Geneva Conventions, that they could be stripped of all human rights and treated like animals in Guantanamo and other prisons.

The Bush administration also initiated an ideological campaign, through the U.S. media and close associates in various right-wing "think tanks", to push the idea that torturing prisoners is totally justified if it "saves American lives". In fact, many of these Bush associates went even further, arguing that torture was not only justified in such situations but was actually a moral necessity.

Of course, it is well-known that information extracted through torture is essentially useless and those making the argument for torture must have been aware of this fact. Clearly, the purpose of this intense ideological campaign was simply to dehumanize the Iraqi people in the eyes of Americans, so that they would not sympathize with the suffering of the Iraqi people at the hands of their soldiers or demand an end to this war of aggression being waged in their name. This campaign provided tacit approval for all of the atrocities that are now coming to light. Clearly, the American soldiers who committed these atrocities felt that they had the support of their superiors and their society; what else can explain the fact that they took such obvious pleasure in recording their crimes for posterity?

Furthermore, it is well-known that following the Second World War the U.S. military adopted wholesale the training methods of the German Nazi army. The essence of such training is to strip their own soldiers of any self-respect or humanity while carrying out intense indoctrination about the sub-human quality of their enemies. In this way, soldiers are created who willingly and blindly follow orders and experience sadistic pleasure at inflicting pain and suffering on their opponents.

With an administration that thinks, talks and acts like Nazis and a military which is trained like Nazis, it should come as no surprise that Nazi-style atrocities and war crimes are being committed by the U.S. imperialist occupation forces in Iraq.