Ethics In Iraq

In early 2004 this country learned of the abuses occurring at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. The reports of detainees humiliated in front of other detainees, photographed naked, and forced to stay that way for hours at a time caused a massive outcry from the world. Ethics and the military have had a very volatile relationship over the past several centuries. It has been and probably will be a hotly contested debate for a very long time. Out of all the good the United States does all over the world, this scandal has tarnished the reputation of this country.

Some people say the scandal was nothing but techniques used by the military to elicit information from insurgents. Others say that this is a prime example of the military and their lack of ethics in how they deal with people in other countries. The military is seen as unethical because politics plays such a huge role when our armed forces are in other countries. Politicians have tied the hands of our military to the point that our servicemen have to wait until they are fired upon before they can return fire. Our men and women see their friends killed and they see the military as slow to react. The mental toll this takes on our men and women in the military is incomprehensible. They feel powerless when they cannot defend themselves properly or appropriately. So when they are finally placed in a position to have control over the people that supposedly have been active in attacks against other soldiers, the natural reaction is to exercise a little pay back on behalf of all entities involved. Did this scandal occur because of the unethical behavior a few soldiers, or is this the result of condone unethical treatment of prisoners in the military, or is this the result of the military's lack of planning to deal with the stresses of fighting against terrorist warfare.

So the question remains, is it ethical to torture and abuse enemy prisoners in order to save lives? Well the politicians

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