Power of Media
Recently the news headlines have been dominated by stories of occupying soldiers who abuse Iraqi people and POWs. This is not only very sad but also reveals the real intentions of Bush-Rumsfeld and Co. in their so-called operation Iraqi Freedom!
But having witnessed another war for 8 years, I really appreciate the fact that this issue has been brought up by the media, and has attracted so much attention around the world. I'm sure during all the major recent wars e.g. the Iraq-Iran war, the Soviet-Afghanistan war, and probably further back during the Vietnam war, POWs were abused, tortured, and murdered, but we never heard anything about it.
Let me think again carefully, during the Iraq-Iran war, everyone knew that Iranian POWs will be tortured and abused in Iraqi prisons, especially if their ranking in the army was high. We knew it and had accepted this fact: War is war, it's not a nice game. When they used chemical and biological weapons, how could we expect them not to use torture? In other words, human rights especially towards the POWs were non existent.
The only thing that makes me happy out of the current messy situation is that the media are using their power to reveal everything that is going on behind bars and closed doors, and the fact that the issue of human rights for prisoners and POWs has become very important. At least people talk and care about it, this is a very positive change.
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