Madam, - According to George Bush, the the abuse of Iraqi detainees by Americans was supposedly limited to a few culprits, and it was "un-American". Both statements are incorrect.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has stated that the abuse was systematic and widespread. It is now alleged that a senior American general was present in the jail at the time of the abuse. Hardly limited to a few people acting on their own initiative.
The abuse of prisoners, far from being "un-American", is in fact quintessentially American. The American prison system is one of the most repressive and, incidentally, racially biased in the world.
In Vietnam the Americans tortured prisoners and routinely threw them out of helicopters. In Chile they trained Pinochet's torturers at the time of the coup against the democratically elected government of Salvatore Allende.
In Afghanistan and Guantánamo today they are torturing prisoners.
We should not be surprised. American society is a brutal one where the strong survive and prosper and the weak, the poor and the sick are despised and left without protection. This is the environment in which potential torturers are nurtured.
We should not be surprised also that George Bush is trying to limit the damage done by the pictures emerging from Iraq. These amount to the biggest condemnation possible of a country, a society and a view of life.
The ugliness and emptiness of everything that America stands for is laid bare before our eyes. - Yours, etc.,
ALAN McPARTLAND,
Grange Court,
Rathfarnham,
Dublin 16.