SUNDAY HERALD
Stripped of dignity, the defeated soldier is an easy target
Sun May 2, 2004 03:33
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Stripped of dignity, the defeated soldier is an easy target
http://www.sundayherald.com/41692

The Treatment Of Prisoners: By Trevor Royle


The most dangerous moment for the surrendering soldier is when he decides to throw down his weapon and raise his hands to signify he is giving in. Often, in an attempt to establish friendly relations, the gesture will be accompanied by hopeful smiles and the proffering of gifts such as cigarettes or even the display of family photographs. In the heat of battle, though, it is difficult to restrain men who have been busy killing or witnessing the slaughter of friends one minute and are then asked to treat the enemy with friendship and compassion.

Most soldiers have only a 50-50 chance of surviving the encounter and all too often the request for clemency is met with a burst of fire or the stab of a bayonet. As Guy Sajer, a battle-hardened German veteran of the eastern front in the second world war put it in his classic account, Storm Of Steel: “A man cannot change his feelings again during the last rush with a veil of blood before his eyes. He does not want to take prisoners but to kill.”

Once the surrender has been accepted the soldier should be treated under the general terms of successive Geneva Conventions that have laid down a range of rules for the proper treatment of prisoners of war and, in theory at least, should protect them from humiliating or degrading treatment. Basically this means giving them sufficient food and clothing, affording them basic care and protection and ensuring they are treated with human dignity in reasonable conditions.

However, everything lies in the interpretation of these rules and throughout the history of warfare the ill-treatment of prisoners has been part and parcel of the experience of battle, no matter what the lawmakers decide.

The problem has its origins in the nature of combat. For the professional soldier, surrendering represents humiliation and loss of manhood: it should not happen to someone who is supposed to be good at his job. In that sense, surrender is not just about losing a battle, it is also about the forfeiture of personal honour to a superior being. Disarmed, stripped of much of his uniform and forced to obey orders from the winning side, the prisoner has had his identity removed and, put simply, is no longer a fighting soldier but a beaten man.

The captors quickly latch on to this feeling and usually waste no time in exerting their authority. Far from facing disciplined uniformed soldiers capable of killing, the prisoner is dealing with a dehumanised rabble who are very much at the bottom of the pile.

Once the fighting is over and the blood has cooled, frontline soldiers will generally offer rough generosity to their recent enemies, recognising them as fellow soldiers and not as hostile ciphers. Food and cigarettes will be offered and, provided the winning side has the time and organisation to deal with prisoners, they will generally be treated well. For every soldier who died with the words “too late, chum” ringing in his ears, there are others who survived when they were told that they had done enough.

The problem usually gets worse the further a prisoner is removed from the frontline and dealt with by rear echelon troops anxious to prove their toughness. Treatment can be worse if the prisoner belongs to an elite force or has been using weapons that are considered to be unfair or immoral.

During the second world war, British bomber crew were regularly executed on the spot after escaping from aircraft shot down over German territory as they were considered guilty of using terror weapons, and during the first Gulf War harsher treatment was meted out to members of Saddam Hussein’s elite Republican Guard units suspected of committing atrocities against the Iraqi people.

That dehumanisation of the enemy also extends to the use of insulting epithets to degrade and humiliate them. If a defeated prisoner is subjected to slurs and name-calling, ( such as Menachim Begin’s notorious description of Palestinians as “the beast walking on two legs”) it becomes easier to degrade him. Stripped of his uniform, naked and vulnerable, the creature is no longer a soldier worthy of facing his opposite number in equal combat but a defeated prisoner unworthy of honourable treatment.

As the photographs from the Abu Ghraib prison show all too graphically, the equation is shockingly simple. Take away the humanity and the dignity from soldiers and all that is left are the naked bodies of anonymous prisoners being maltreated and insulted by grinning guards who in all probability have never heard a shot being fired in anger.

02 May 2004

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MORE disgusting photos AT: http://www.albasrah.net/images/iraqi-pow/iraqi-pow
(CBS) Last month, the U.S. Army announced 17 soldiers in Iraq, including a brigadier general, had been removed from duty after charges of mistreating Iraqi prisoners.