And while I bitch about Iraq, don't think I've forgotten the local bullshit
REPRESENTING
By J. Douglas Allen-Taylor
[From the May 7, 2004 UnderCurrents column published in the Berkeley Daily Planet, http://www.berkeleydailyplanet.com. UnderCurrents is archived at http://www.safero.org/undercurrents.html. ]
There is videotape of the beatings by the six guards, available on the Internet for download. Soft and grainy and shot from a distance, still, what is happening is unmistakable. Two prisoners are lying sprawled on the floor, face down, unresisting. An L.A. Times news article graphically describes the scene: "[One of the guards] sits astride [one of the prisoners and] begins punching him with alternating fists, landing a total of 28 blows. At one point, [the guard] can be seen lifting [the prisoner's] head by the hair in what looks like an effort to get a better angle for his punch. A few feet away, the tape shows [a second guard] slugging [the other prisoner] and using his right knee to pummel him in the neck area as the [prisoner] lies motionless. One [guard] is seen shooting the [prisoners] with a gun that fires balls of pepper spray, while another sprays their faces with mace."
The video also shows one of the guards giving a kick to the head of one of the prisoners with the toe of his boot.
No, the videotape is not of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad. So far as I know, no such videos exist. The video of which I speak documents the beating of two United States citizens-juvenile prisoners under the control of the State of California-by guards of the California Youth Authority at the Chaderjian Youth Correctional Facility in Stockton, California. Chaderjian. Abu Ghraib. It is easy to get them confused, I suppose.
