May 27, 2004
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Prisoner abuse and the rot of American culture
Rebecca Hagelin
May 12, 2004
Every decent person I know has reacted in horror to the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners in Al Ghraib prison near Baghdad. When the lewd photos emerged of American soldiers forcing prisoners to engage in sexual acts, and leading them around on leashes with hoods over their heads, and threatening them with electrocution, people were speechless and horrified.
Should we be shocked that some Americans are capable of such barbaric behavior as depicted in the infamous photos?
Consider:
- Pornography is the No. 1 Internet industry.
A comprehensive 2-year study by Alexa Research, a leading Web intelligence and traffic-measurement service, has revealed "sex" was the most popular term for which people searched.
Pornography websites earned $1.5 billion in 1999 and more than $2 billion in 2000.
- According to a 2001 report by the American Academy of Pediatrics Committee on Public Education, "American media are thought to be the most sexually suggestive in the Western hemisphere."
- The 2001 pediatric report also said that "56 percent of all programs on American television were found to contain sexual content."
The average soldier receives three hours of training a year on the proper treatment of prisoners of war. Is it possible to deprogram and reprogram soldiers – who come from a culture living the above statistics – in three hours a year?
With the non-judgmental, sex-crazed, anything-goes culture that we have become at home, it seems that America has set herself up for international humiliation.
We permit school children to be taught that homosexuality is an acceptable lifestyle. We allow Christianity and the teaching of Judeo-Christian values to be scrubbed from the public square. We allow our children be taught how to use condoms in school, rather than why to avoid sex. We let these things happen. They don't happen on their own.
Rebecca Hagelin is a vice president of The Heritage Foundation
- Pornography is the No. 1 Internet industry.
Comments (2)
I'm guessing the conclusion she is coming too is that it is the American peoples' fault that these people like to do sadistic things to soldiers. (I hope in saying that I'm not simplifying it, or weakening her statement. If so, I don't mean to.) Just some questions:
1) Since when does the American attitude towards sex have anything to do with some soldiers who did sadistic things to these people? If anything, the American attitude against sex could be cause for intolerance and such attitudes. Is it that Americans are immature about it? I mean, the Europeans approach nudity and sex so differently....
2) And how is the teaching of acceptance of homosexuality responsible for violence on prisoners? Something accepting that attempts to bring about understanding produces acts of such? Tell me, how??
3) Where is it that Christianity and Judeo-Christian values ever wipe out such violence? Is it a knowable fact that if we introduce such values into the system that there'll be a reduced violence rate? Better yet, is there any way of knowing that these values would actually prevent violence? (In other words, just because the violence does reduce, is the introduction of them really responsible?)
Blah.
Er, wow, I just noticed how I screwed that writing up, hahaha. Thanks though.
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