The Washington Post reports from Baghdad

[darrels joy]

Good News Watch
The Washington Post reports from Baghdad on Hasham Mohsen Lazim, an apparently innocent man who was picked up last August and incarcerated at Abu Ghraib for 24 days:

"Something awful happened to me," Lazim said during a two-hour interview broken by long pauses of silent despair. "I will never forget it until the day I die."

Lazim, 34, was prisoner No. 15227, according to his release papers. He said he was one of the hooded men in the photographs taken inside an Abu Ghraib cellblock that have generated worldwide revulsion. Although his identity could not be confirmed from the photographs, his account was supported by a friend from the prison, Hayder Sabbar Abd, who said he experienced the same treatment and could identify both himself and American guards from the photos. Lazim's papers show that he was in Abu Ghraib when the abuses occurred late last year.

What's heartening about this is what he's doing now:

Lazim has completed a course in Jordan to become an officer in the new U.S.-sponsored Iraqi police force. His uniform hangs at home as he awaits orders for where to report. He will be joining a force the U.S. occupation authority is counting on to help stabilize the country. . . .

He was asked why he would now join the U.S.-sponsored Iraqi police force.

"I want to do it because I will never hold an innocent man," he said. "I wanted to make sure it wouldn't happen again to someone else."

Meanwhile, here's an encouraging note we received from reader Bernard Marchois (you may remember him):

Sorry, I'm in a foreign country and don't have my dictionary. So is my English very bad. Alas, cruelty is in the human nature and the U.S. soldiers aren't better than others. I wrote to the WSJ a lot of times, with very strong criticisms, because I don't like Mr. Bush and his politics. But I must say one thing: Only in the U.S. you can read, see and hear that the administration accept to show the dark side, in all the abhorrent details. This is, despite all the errors, a real lesson of democracy. In France, my country, this is impossible. Never a French government will recognize the Army's abuses.

Americans have reason to feel good about our country, in spite of what some rogue soldiers have done in its name.