The villainous Americans, so brutal and racist, have given over control of Abu Ghraib Prison to the Iraqis, who are able to provide appropriate and culturally sensitive care to the charges who inhabit its cells. The UK Telegraph reports:

An independent witness who went into Abu Ghraib this week told The Sunday Telegraph that screams were coming from the cell blocks housing the terrorist suspects. Prisoners released from the jail this week spoke of routine torture of terrorism suspects and on Wednesday, 27 prisoners were hanged in the first mass execution since the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's regime.

Conditions in the rest of the jail were grim, with an overwhelming stench of excrement, prisoners crammed into cells for all but 20 minutes a day, food rations cut to just rice and water and no air conditioning.

Some of the small number of prisoners who remained in the jail after the Americans left said they had pleaded to go with their departing captors, rather than be left in the hands of Iraqi guards. [emphasis added]

Of course, far worse abuses occurred under Saddam, but the critics of America paid no heed. Of course, official brutality is quite normal in much of the Arab world. But the critics of America save their outrage for fraternity initiation—style pranks which landed the perpetrators in jail.

Hat tip: Dennis Sevakis

Thomas Lifson   9 11 06