Sometimes You Hope Things Are Fake

This is one of those times.

Evan at PEEK has posted an incredibly disturbing video of three guys sitting around drinking beer. One of them was purportedly a guard at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and the other two are questioning him about his experiences. The video was originally posted at YouTube and has been removed, and Evan reports that "According to IraqSlogger, an investigation into the validity of the obscured man's claims of torture, rape and abuse has begun. Though the Army's investigative affairs division isn't providing details they do say they're taking it 'seriously,' according to Christina Davidson's report, which goes on to point out that there have been a number of false claims of both soldier and insurgent atrocities." I hope it's a hoax and fear that it's not.

The worst part of the conversation is when the alleged former guard speaks to "the most fun thing" at Abu Ghraib: the women.

What was the most fun thing?

The most fun thing…? Um… Definitely the women.

[snip]

Girl, she was probably like 15 years old. Yeah, she was hot dude. The body on that girl, yeah, really tight. You know, hadn't been touched yet. She was fucking prime. So....

[jump cut edit]

One of the guys started pimping her out for 50 bucks a shot. I think at the end of the day, you know, he'd made like 500 bucks before she hung herself.

Really?

Yeah.

She hung herself? How's come she hung herself?

I don't know. She wasn't happy.

[snip]

In their culture, it's really shunned upon if you get raped. I guess she would have been stoned to death anyways by her people, you know. It's fucked up.

She was fucked anyway, I guess. In more ways than one.

When asked whether his commanding officer ever gave them any "shit" for the way they treated detainees, the alleged former guard replied, "Not until those pictures came out; then the biggest rule was no fucking cameras."

You know, I can't really imagine why someone would create something like this as a hoax. That doesn't mean anything in terms of its actual veracity; I just mean to say I can't empathize with the psyche that finds this kind of shit a goldmine of comedic material any more than I can with the psyche that engages in this behavior for real. So, even if it is a fake—still seriously fucked up.