Bdos: EXCUSES Excuses excuses...

Besides the abhorrent nature of the acts perpetrated by those depraved guards involved in the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal, Many entities are viewing the scandal as an opportunity to point fingers and position the U.S. as the real bad guys in order to distract attention from their own prison excesses. Such fallout from the incident is popping up all over the world as the following Bajan article unintentionally illustrates.

At a time when the United States faces global criticism for abusing prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan, its State Department is complaining about prison conditions in Barbados and the rest of the Caribbean.

And while the charges levelled at Barbados are mild compared with what went on in Iraq, the coincidence of the assessments of prisons conditions in the Caribbean and the scandal now rocking the Bush White House put Washington in an embarrassing situation.

In its annual human rights report, the State Department has charged that prison overcrowding was commonplace in the English-speaking Caribbean, including Barbados, beatings of prisoners were often reported, and poor conditions existed in a number of countries where inmates were routinely denied a proper diet and adequate medical care.

In at least two countries, Guyana and Trinidad and Tobago, things were so bad that inmates either had to buy their medication for certain diseases, or relatives had to bring food and water for people behind bars. Inmates in the Barbadian prison weren?t treated that way.

The prison abuse scandal in Iraq has forced President George W. Bush and Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to apologize to Iraqis. Rumsfeld, who is resisting calls for his resignation, has also warned that the scandal would get worse as more photographs of prison abuse are publicized.

In addition, corrections officials, inmates and human rights advocates in the United States said that physical and sexual abuse of prisoners, similar to what took place in Iraq was routine in United States prisons, but received little attention in the media and was often ignored by the federal, state and local governments which run jail systems.

In its report on the prison system in Barbados, the State Department charged that ?conditions remained inadequate?, a complaint that it has made for at least a decade. It described the sole adult prison, Glendairy, as being ?antiquated and overcrowded with more than 940 male and 44 female inmates in a 150-year old structure built for 350 inmates?.

But it was also quick to point out that the Government in Bridgetown planned to build a new maximum-security prison that would hold 600 inmates.

The report referred to allegations of beatings of 36 inmates three years ago in Barbados that resulted in charges being filed against prison officers, mainly for assault. The guards have not yet been tried.

But if the complaints about Barbados were comparatively mild, the same can?t be said for Guyana where the prison system was criticised, not simply for overcrowding but for the ?lack of medical personnel? and for ?poor staff morale?.

It also charged that some jail cells were ?damp? with few beds, washbasins, furniture or utensils. Meals were ?normally inadequate?, so much so that relatives ?had to bring detainees food and water? to inmates.

The lack of sanitary facilities was particularly bad, often forcing inmates ?to use holes in the floor for toilets?.

Like Guyana?s, Trinidad and Tobago?s prison conditions were said to be ?poor? and the system was characterised by overcrowding.

And as in the case of Barbados, ?overcrowding continued to be a problem. At the Frederick Street Prison in Port-of-Spain, which was built to accommodate 250 inmates in 1812, it now holds about 900 prisoners?.

?Diseases such as chicken pox, tuberculosis, HIV/AIDS, and viruses spread easily, and prisoners had to purchase their own medication,? charged the report.

As for Jamaica, its prison system was plagued with ?overcrowding, inadequate diet, poor sanitation and insufficient medical care?.

The events in Iraq and the photographs of mistreatment of Iraqis by soldiers is focusing attention on the abusive environment in America?s prisons.

In some jurisdiction, there is a prison culture that tolerates violence, and it?s been there for a long time,? said Chase Riveland, a former prison chief in Washington state and Colorado.

Maybe those little freaks from Abu Ghraib should be doing their time in Guyana...

However, I think it more appropriate that they be thrown into Abu Ghraib itself for gifting whiny anti-Americans and terrorist scum alike such easy propaganda.

Both groups have been handed an easier opportunity to obfuscate away their own prisoner-related, as well as general societal transgressions in order to discredit and undermine the overall efforts of the vast majority of honorable Americans in Iraq who suffer daily hardships for the cause of liberty...And they do so with the utmost professionalism whilst carrying out their duties in conditions quite a bit worse than are suffered within the confines of prisons in say...Colorado, or Washington State.

Yes the actions of those base miscreants are unforgivable and the full weight of American law needs to be - and no doubt will be - applied to those foul cretins who caused it.

Despite what the politically opportunistic cannibals of the American left and their talking point fellow travellers across the planet would have us believe, Donald Rumsfeld is not by any stretch of the imagination the one to be held to account for the degenerate actions of an out-of-control cell-block in Iraq.

Additionally, calls for Mr. Rumsfeld's resignation and removal by the likes of a date-diving Ted Kennedy and the self-described "war criminal" Kerry are the true hypocrisy.

I would like to think that we all know that...