I've been waiting for someone to address an aspect of the torture at Abu Ghraib which I, as an American woman, find particularly confusing and shameful—namely that three out of the seven torturers, pictured in the photographs, are American women. And that's just the beginning.
The director of the prison, Gen. Janis Karpinski, is an American woman. Major Gen. Barbara Fast, the top U.S. intelligence officer in Iraq, responsible for reviewing the status of detainees before their release, is an American woman. And Condoleezza Rice, the U.S. official in charge of managing the occupation of Iraq, is an American woman, as well—at least when she isn't a 136,000 ton Chevron oil tanker.
While I've become increasingly disillusioned with America, I did still have faith in the good sense of women. I see now that I have been naive.
Oddly, Susan Sontag made no mention of gender in her article for the NY Times on Sunday.
But Barbara Ehrenreich, in her op ed for the LA Times, went straight to the broken heart of the matter.