When you do your duty because it is the right thing to do, that's being a hero to me.
From the New York Times, May 22, 2004
"Specialist Joseph M. Darby had just arrived ...when his friend ...showed him a picture ...of a naked prisoner chained to his cell with his arms hung above him.
"The Christian in me says it's wrong," Specialist Darby would later tell investigators ...Specialist Darby came forward two months later... after deciding that the photo and others he saw were "morally wrong."
He said in his sworn testimony: "I knew I had to do something. I didn't want to see any more prisoners being abused because I knew it was wrong."
....In alerting criminal investigators, Specialist Darby, a 24-year-old from from Maryland, stood out from other soldiers who learned of the abuse. ... many other people, including medics, dog handlers and military intelligence soldiers ... saw or heard of similar pictures of abuse, witnessed it or heard abuse discussed openly at Abu Ghraib months before the investigation started ..."
Where were those other Christians? Where was that small, still voice telling them they were doing wrong?
2 comments:
while i agree that darby was wise and compassionate to report what he saw, why did it take him 2 months? (the stanford prison experiment--links below--gave us a heads up on this thirty years ago, but what would make the government compelled to look at psychology research? something should.) what has happened to the investigations? how's rumsfield doing?
i'm worried that what we need is for the government and the public to talk about what's actually going on here, why we put american soldiers in these positions of power in the first place, the psycological forces, etc, but what we're getting is cover-up and media coverage aimed for an increasingly short attention-spanned viewer.
and to me, that's as scary as the prison abuse scandal in the first place because failing to deal with it now makes it only a matter of time before it happens again (My Lai wasn't "learned from", i'd argue, as much as it could have been, and here we are..." and i wonder what other world-shaking events are being handled in a similarly sloppy and careless matter.
two websites to learn more about the stanford prison experiment:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/05/09/power_turns_good_soldiers_into_bad_apples/
http://www.prisonexp.org/
hi dad :)
while i agree that darby was wise and compassionate to report what he saw, why did it take him 2 months? (the stanford prison experiment--links below--gave us a heads up on this thirty years ago, but what would make the government compelled to look at psychology research? something should.) what has happened to the investigations? how's rumsfield doing?
i'm worried that what we need is for the government and the public to talk about what's actually going on here, why we put american soldiers in these positions of power in the first place, the psycological forces, etc, but what we're getting is cover-up and media coverage aimed for an increasingly short attention-spanned viewer.
and to me, that's as scary as the prison abuse scandal in the first place because failing to deal with it now makes it only a matter of time before it happens again (My Lai wasn't "learned from", i'd argue, as much as it could have been, and here we are..." and i wonder what other world-shaking events are being handled in a similarly sloppy and careless matter.
two websites to learn more about the stanford prison experiment:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2004/05/09/power_turns_good_soldiers_into_bad_apples/
http://www.prisonexp.org/
hi dad :)
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