For a profound, first hand view of the war in Iraq, watch this video of a talk by Aldan Delgado, who turned in his rifle and filed for conscientious objector status after serving one year in Iraq.

Some highlights:

On the classic phenomenon of dehumanizing the enemy via language. Haji:

“In English, or in army usage it has the exact same meaning or connotation as ‘gook’ or ‘charlie’ or ‘nigger.’ it’s very very prevalent in the military. only on a handful of occasions did I every hear Iraqis referred to as Iraqis. The rest of the time it was haji this and haji that…and all of this contributed to an atmosphere that brutalizes civilians and ultimately brutalized the prisoners that we had under our thumb at Abu Ghraib.”

On Abu Ghraib:

“when I arrived there I kind’ve had the opinion that most guys did; you know, that these are the most dangerous people in Iraq, the most deadly criminals…they deserve all this harsh treatment they’re receiving. That’s what I thought when I got there. but serving at Abu Ghraib I got a chance to find out differently.”

As a result of the duty he’d been put on as punishment for filing for Conscientious Objector status he was privy to prisoner paperwork even guards hadn’t seen:

“What I found was absolutely stunning. I found that the majority of prisoners at Abu Ghraib hadn’t committed any crimes against the coalition — they hadn’t committed violent crimes. They were at Abu Ghraib for petty theft, public drunkenness, forged coalition documents, impersonating a coalition officer, petty nonviolent offenses and they were inside Abu Ghraib with real murderers, real rapists, real insurgents. In addition, a large percentage of those at Abu Ghraib hadn’t committed any offense at all. The military had a policy of random sweeps…”