Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, who wrote the Army report on torture of Iraqi prisoners, is an See Luc Sante’s article<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A> I would venture that Taguba’s experience as a Filipino-American immigrant with a special
\nAmerican
\nhyphenate<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>. He is NOT white. He is a Filipino-American, born in
\nManila, who moved to Hawaii at age 11 and grew up there in a largely mixed-race society. I’d bet
\nthis made him sensitive to issues of racism that often sail right over the heads of many white
\nAmericans. Why is this relevant? Because unspoken racism seems to me to have been a factor in
\nwhat happened at Abu Ghraib. <\/P>
\n
\nthis morning on the op-ed page of The New York Times. Sante, an authority on the history of
\nphotography, notes the similarity of the torture photos at Abu Ghraib to old lynching photos of
\nAfrican-Americans. He calls both kinds of photos “trophy shots.” Sante writes: “Like the lynching
\ncrowds, the Americans at Abu Ghraib felt free to parade their triumph and glee not because they
\nwere psychopaths but because the thought of censure probably never crossed their minds.”<\/P>
\n
\nsensitivity to racism had as much to do with the depth of his report as his courage in bucking the
\nsystem. No less important:<\/FONT><\/EM><\/B><\/A>
\nTaguba’s father, while serving in the U.S. Army during World War II, was captured by the
\nJapanese in Bataan in the Philippines and was a prisoner of war until his escape during the
\ninfamous Bataan death march. You can be sure that his POW experience,
\ntoo, focused his son’s attention.<\/P>
\n