At 6:40 this morning the adjuncts and the administration of NYU came to a contract agreement and there was no strike. Selfish bastards. Now I have to finish writing my term papers and studying for finals.

I have come to a decision that in order to be a president of a large nation, like the US for example, one must learn how to be a prisoner of war. I think it would humble a leader and make him that more compassionate if he knew how it felt to be locked in cell with no contact to his/her family, the council of a lawyer, and no bathroom facilities. I think that one would be more thoughtful about waging wars if one knew what a soldier might encounter, a fate worse than death, the seemingly endless nightmare of captivity. But maybe that's just what its like to be a prisoner of the Unites States.

There was an interesting yet incredibly sickening and heartwrenching article on commondreams.org regarding the 20,000 Iraqi prisoners of war that the US has taken, dare I say stolen from their families. Read: Iraq: Think of Those the US Has Detained

Yes, the Iraqi "insurgents" have taken hostages and one US soldier as a POW. According to the released hostages from Japan and previous reports from American soldiers that were captured early in the war and now can be seen on Oprah, prisoners are treated decently. They are given medical care and decent food and are treated with respect. What really disturbs me is the cruelty of the American soldiers that this story details. I believe its true. I have written here in a previous entry that I had spoken with a friend, part of the National Guard, that is getting ready to go to Iraq, and he had discussed that in his training if he had to choose between stopping to help a bleeding child in the road or running over the child with his tank, then he should run over the child in order to avert an ambush. I can ALMOST understand that kind of thinking, believe it or not. I can't, however, stand behind the cruelty of leaving 20,000 Iraqi men and BOYS in a yard like a pack of dogs to piss themselves in the rain and in the burning sun. I can't stand behind a soldier that taunts these prisoners by throwing pebbles at them, like they were animals in a petting zoo. Another friend of mine visited Iraq with Code Pink and she recanted a story to me of a woman whose daughter had been shot and instead of trying to help the injured girl, a soldier reached down and stole the earrings off of her body and left her for dead. Luckily, the child lived. I can't stand behind an army that is showing repeatedly in Iraq to be institutionalizing cruelty. I am ashamed and I am left to wonder if this is just another American policy of Fuck ALL, if another truth is being revealed to my naive self as I still believe what I have been told my whole life America stands for, or if this is just an example of the leadership of our military forces, the Fuck All policy is that of our Commander in Chief, not a representative of the entire nation or armed forces. If the latter is the case then why is it so easy for these soldiers to turn so cruel? Part of it is the training, I am sure. I don't know what goes into the making of a soldier, but I can only guess it is a lot easier to point a gun at a human being if you believe they are somehow less human than you are. It is that much easier to fall into sadistic behavior when you see these prisoners surrounded by barbed wire, forced to urinate wherever they can find a space, when these people speak a different language, maybe pray to a different god.

It may be easier when you are under the pressure of war to learn to hate, to be vicious, to kill the humanity in yourself when you are forced to kill others. I don't buy it though. I think that's just a cop out. If the army is supposed to teach a soldier "to be all that you can be" then I think we should expect them to be more then what they are right now. Remember the lie, we were there to liberate them, not treat them like a country of criminal deviants.

I don't like to criticize the soldiers in Iraq because I wouldn't want to trade places with them myself, but I am ashamed that they are allowed to act this way, that this kind of activity is probably encouraged, and that a culture with so many technological advances has made so few advances in humanity. They are just following orders, but so were the Nazis. So where the Hutus that killed their neighbors in Rwanda. Where does all of this violence and hatred end? When will it be enough? If you are a soldier, how do you go back to being an ordinary guy or girl, living with your children and trying to lead a normal life after participating and witnessing such atrocities? I don't have answers, just more and more questions.

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