Abu Ghraib Victim Exploiting His Own Torture?

Posted on Mar 16, 2006

Truthdig says:

NFL star Tiki Barber, a “Fox & Friends” guest host, asserted that an Abu Ghraib torture victim is “taking advantage” of his past by heading a prisoners’ rights group.

Granted, the victim in question, Ali Shalal Qaissi, is the man whom the New York Times recently misidentified as being the person portrayed in a notorious photo of detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib--the one that shows a hooded man with electrical wires trailing from his arms. And Qaissi may have contributed to the Times’ mistake by using that very photo on his business card.

But Barber knows, or should have known before he went on TV to talk about the issue, that Qaissi was almost certainly tortured with those same electrical wires; so the suggestion that Qaissi is “taking advantage” of his past seems like the height of insensitivity, to say the least.

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Think Progress:

Yesterday, the hosts of Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” questioned the motives of former Abu Ghraib detainee Ali Shalal Qaissi (aka “Clawman") for speaking out about his situation.

HILL: Meanwhile, over the weekend if you read the New York Times you saw an article about a man who allegedly was the man featured in one of the photos from Abu Ghraib and he was dressed head to toe—that’s the one, arms stretched out, he had electrical wires sticking out of his arms. Well, they IDed him in this article as, Ali Shalal Qaissi, 43 years old, says he works for a human rights organization.

BARBER: He’s taking advantage of this in a lot of ways. He’s put this picture on his business card and is working for a human rights group, trumpeting this.

HILL: So this article is very sympathetic to this guy.

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