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To anyone acquainted with the [[reality ]] of the US way of [[life]], the photos immediately brought to [[mind ]] the [[obscene underside]] of US [[popular culture]]- for example, the initiatic [[rituals]] of [[torture]] and [[humiliation ]] one has to undergo in [[order ]] to be accepted into a closed [[community]].

The Abu Graib tortures are thus to be located in the series of [[obscene ]] underground practices that sustain an [[ideological ]] edifice.

While [the Abu Ghraib tortures] cannot be reduced to simple [[evil ]] [[acts ]] by [[individual ]] soldiers, they were of course also not directly ordered - they were legitimized by a specific version of the obscene "[[Code Red]]" rules. This is why the assurance from US [[Army ]] command that no "direct [[orders]]" were issued to humiliate and torture the prisoners is ridiculous: of course they were not, since, as everyone who [[knows ]] army life is aware, this is not how such things are done. There are no [[formal ]] orders, [[nothing ]] is written, there is just unofficial pressure, hints and directives are delivered in private, the way one shares a dirty [[secret]]...

Abu Ghraib was not simply a [[case ]] of American arrogance toward a THird [[World ]] [[people]]: in [[being ]] submitted to humiliating tortures, the IRaqi prisoners were in effect ''initiated into American [[culture]]'', they got the taste of its obscene underside which forms the necessary [[supplement ]] to the [[public ]] values of personal dignity, [[democracy ]] and [[freedom]].<ref>[[Zizek|Žižek, Slavoj]]. [[The Parallax View]]. Cambridge: MIT Press. 2006. p.367-372</ref>