At this point it’s a matter of speculation whether the freed POWs were tortured/ mistreated when in captivity. It may be days or weeks before the extent of their ordeal is known, but I was frankly stunned when ALL the POWs were found to be in relatively good physical health. My first reaction when I heard of their capture was fear of seeing their bodies dragged through the streets ala Somalia.
On a related note, I know that demonizing of the enemy is a method of propping up the war effort on both sides, but besides awaiting word of WOMD discovery (another apparent false alarm yesterday), I’m also wondering where all the bodies are. Day after day in the US news media, we hear anecdotal evidence of systematic torture and family members taken into custody and disappearing without a trace, but though some of the torture chambers have been exposed, where are the remains? So far, no Third Reich ovens or piles of bones like in Pol Pots’ killing fields. While I’m convinced Saddam was brutal in his own right, compared with the Stalins and Hitlers of the world, he was/is definitely a piker.
So has the US overdemonized this regime? Without more evidence, I’m kind of thinking, yeah. Flame on.
Just for the record, AFAIK nobody has ever produced any evidence that Saddam Hussein (or his flunkies) ever had anyone tossed into wood chippers. This is one of those things that gets my goat, because it’s so over-the-top that I can’t believe people actually believe it.
And the pre-Gulf War I accusations that Iraqi soldiers were yanking Kuwaiti babies out of incubators was also proven to be a load of imaginary nonsense.
Not so much bodies in the dead sense of the word, but certainly something that needs no extra demonization.
Thanks for the link, Mullinator. I’m not familiar with the story or the source.
I’ve got to say, I do wish they’d stick with the facts and leave out the “widely-believed rumors” spread by taxi drivers (as appears at the end of the story).