Because it's like this in Iraq

[TayTay]

From the Washington Post:

An Iraq Interrogator's Nightmare

By Eric Fair
Friday, February 9, 2007; Page A19

Aman with no face stares at me from the corner of a room. He pleads for help, but I'm afraid to move. He begins to cry. It is a pitiful sound, and it sickens me. He screams, but as I awaken, I realize the screams are mine.

That dream, along with a host of other nightmares, has plagued me since my return from Iraq in the summer of 2004. Though the man in this particular nightmare has no face, I know who he is. I assisted in his interrogation at a detention facility in Fallujah. I was one of two civilian interrogators assigned to the division interrogation facility (DIF) of the 82nd Airborne Division. The man, whose name I've long since forgotten, was a suspected associate of Khamis Sirhan al-Muhammad, the Baath Party leader in Anbar province who had been captured two months earlier.

The lead interrogator at the DIF had given me specific instructions: I was to deprive the detainee of sleep during my 12-hour shift by opening his cell every hour, forcing him to stand in a corner and stripping him of his clothes. Three years later the tables have turned. It is rare that I sleep through the night without a visit from this man. His memory harasses me as I once harassed him.

Despite my best efforts, I cannot ignore the mistakes I made at the interrogation facility in Fallujah. I failed to disobey a meritless order, I failed to protect a prisoner in my custody, and I failed to uphold the standards of human decency. Instead, I intimidated, degraded and humiliated a man who could not defend himself. I compromised my values. I will never forgive myself.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/02/08/AR2007020801680.html

Reminds me of something else:

We wish that a merciful God could wipe away our own memories of that service as easily as this administration has wiped their memories of us. But all that they have done and all that they can do by this denial is to make more clear than ever our own determination to undertake one last mission, to search out and destroy the last vestige of this barbarous war, to pacify our own hearts, to conquer the hate and the fear that have driven this country these last 10 years and more and so when, in 30 years from now, our brothers go down the street without a leg, without an arm or a face, and small boys ask why, we will be able to say "Vietnam" and not mean a desert, not a filthy obscene memory but mean instead the pace where America finally turned and where soldiers like us helped it in the turning.

http://www.c-span.org/2004vote/jkerrytestimony.asp

I wish history repeating itself wasn't so damn painful to see.

[karynnj]

1. Reading that interrogator's comments and re-reading

that segment of Kerry's absolutely incredible testimony, I can see exactly why he chocked up in his Senate speech where he did.

It bothers me that so few so what we really lost in 2004 - not only would repairing the middle east have started earlier - Kerry clearly still believes in turning the bad policies.

[_dynamicdems]

2. So very sad. How could we possibly go there again?

Powerful words from two different generations about two different senseless wars.

The sense of betrayal must be unbearable for those fighting in such a war. As if the horrible memories of brutal violence and loss aren't enough, these men and women have to live with the knowledge that they have been abandoned and even betrayed by the country they have put their lives on the line to serve. They have to live with the knowledge that their government advocates torture and inhumane practices. This leeches all dignity and humanity from the nobile cause of serving in the armed forces. It turns their honorable service into a joke. It's heartbreaking.

Just reading this makes me so angry and heartsick. It's too horrible to think about what is going on over there at this very moment.

[whometense]

3. Tom Schaller has a comment at TAPPED

http://www.prospect.org/weblog/2007/02/post_2740.html#015438

This took courage. If only there were more Americans like Eric Fair. I hope his nightmares from Iraq, and ours, end soon.

--Tom Schaller

All I can say is, amen.