[Mr 5 0]

Abusing prisoners, in an American jail or an Iraqi jail, by civilian guards or miliary guards is morally and legally wrong but, sadly, all too common, as Dr. Weir has clearly testified. His story is chilling and belies any comforting notions that: 'as long as you don't break any laws you have nothing to worry about from the police'. If only. I'll add that while Dr. Weir was clearly mistreated by the police and the courts, which is inexcusable, he was open enough to freely admit that he made a gigantic mistake in talking to his obviously vindictive wife - with a brother in local law enforcement - after being visited by the police and had he not done so, - maybe - his ordeal could have been avoided. Maybe not. At this late date neither he or any of us will ever know. I'm also quite sure others could add their own horror stories to his on this BBS.

I agree that the police and courts, who once ignored womens domestic abuse complaints or treated them as minor, have gone way too far in the opposite direction and now make otherwise decent men criminals and ruin their lives because a jealous or vindictive soon-to-be ex-wife cries and lies on cue to the police and the judge. It's not right and this abuse of men in divorce cases must be curbed. Not wanting to be married anymore, often for good reasons, shouldn't end up putting a man in jail and bankrupting him.

That stipulated, I maintain that the Iraqi prisoner abuses by American military personnel at Abu Ghraib prison have been wholly overblown by a (mostly) liberal media in order to inflict as much harm to the reputation of our military as possible with the additional goal of decreasing American citizens support for the occupation of Iraq and by association, the president and hs chances for re-election. In short: it's political. Humiliation, even male sexual humiliation by female soldiers is not 'torture' and these were not all innocent people brought in to the prison for nothing. There is a low-level war going on in Iraq and intelligence is sorely needed by the Coalition forces to find and eliminate the residual terrorists still trying to kill Americans and subvert the birth of a democratic Iraq. No, that excuses nothing illegal but it does put what happened in some sort of context, a context that has been missing in most of the media stories that continue to this day, even though the abuses happened over six months ago and have long since been stopped, investigated, the offenders charged and military trials scheduled with one accused soldier already sentenced to jail time.

I use to know the former Garrison Commander of the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas and I can tell you that he was a straight shooter who brooked no abuse of prisoners or any other illegal actions under his command. He's now a Sheriff in a bedroom community of a large midwestern city and even there, he runs a tight ship - but a clean one. Maybe he's the exception but most law enforcement people I've dealt with (not many, to be honest) have been O.K. and not sadistic manaics or Nazi wannabe's, although I know these kinds of people do exist in some of the larger police departments. Police work is necessarily negative in nature and a tough job that's not for everyone, obviously. I assume being a prison guard is worse. I can't imagine being locked in with a bunch of criminals day after day, no matter how much it paid. With those observations, I'll leave the thread and stand by my previous comments, while thanking others for theirs.