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Numerous accounts of Iraqi prison abuse scandals began emerging just a few months following the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, the best known of which took place at the Abu Ghraib prison. The abuse became public knowledge in April 2004 when 60 Minutes II TV news and The New Yorker magazine reported on the story complete with graphic images depicting torture, sodomy, homicide and various forms of humiliation of Iraqi inmates by US military personnel. Subequent criminal investigation led to the removal of seventeen soldiers and officers from duty, a majority of whom, most notably Specialist Charles Graner and his former fiancée Specialist Lynndie England, were found guilty in courts marshall, sentenced to prison and/or dishonorably discharged from the army.

Somalia Affair

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In 1993, gruesome photographs of a 16-year-old Somali boy Shidane Arone being beaten to his death shocked the Canadian public and the world in what became known as the Somalia Affair. The crime, which was committed by two Canadian soldiers participating in the United Nations peacekeeping efforts in Somalia, revealed serious problems in discipline and leadership among the ranks of the Canadian Airborne regiment that went beyond the pair involved. The government decision to cut short its inquiry and persistent allegations of cover-up to protect senior officers resulted in the dissolution of the regiment, extensively damaging the morale and international reputation of Canadian Armed Forces.

Dreyfus Affair

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The Dreyfus Affair was a scandal that deeply divided French society at the end of the 19th century. It involved a Jewish army officer, Alfred Dreyfus, who in 1894 was convicted of treason for selling military secrets to Germany and sentenced to life imprisonment in Devil’s Island, a penal colony off French Guiana. Four years later, the military courts acquitted French Major Ferdinand Esterhazy despite new evidences proving that he had carried out the crime for which Dreyfus was imprisoned. In a campaign to sway public opinion in Dreyfus’ favor, Emile Zola published an open letter entitled “J’accuse,” accusing the highest levels of the French Army of obstruction of justice and anti-Semitism. The case against Dreyfus collapsed when Esterhazy eventually confessed to falsifying the evidence against him. Dreyfus was pardoned by President of the Republic but it was not until 1906 that he was fully exonerated of all charges and reinstated in the army.

The Holocaust

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In his quest for a racially pure nation populated by his idea of blond blue-eyed master race, German leader Adolf Hitler, who took power in 1933 under the National Socialist (Nazi) Party, set about to systematically exterminate the Jewish population, first in Germany and then across Europe. Other groups that who did not fit his vision were also eliminated: the disabled, homosexuals, political opponents, various religious groups, and so called “racial aliens”-Blacks, Gypsies and Slavs. Concentration camps brutally ran by the Schutzstaffel (SS), the Nazi elite paramilitary force, were set up for this very purpose, in what came to be called the Holocaust. By the end of the World War II (1939 – 1945), it was estimated that at least 11 million perished, including 6 million Jews and 2 million Gentile Poles.

My Lai Massacre

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My Lai Massacre was a mass murder incident that occurred on March 16, 1968 at the height of Vietnam War (1960 – 1975). On orders, US Army forces executed around 500 unarmed citizens of My Lai and My Khe hamlets in South Vietnam, including women and children, suspecting them to be Viet Cong members or sympathizers. Some victims were raped and tortured, while some bodies were discovered to be badly disfigured. All charges subsequently brought against 26 US soldiers for their crimes at My Lai were dropped except for Lieutenant William Calley who was initially sentenced to life imprisonment but would serve only 4 ½ months in a military prison upon the controversial intervention of President Nixon to have his sentence adjusted. The scandal did much to foment anti-war sentiments that demanded immediate withdrawal of US troops from Vietnam.

Iran-Contra Affair

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The Iran-Contra affair was an American political scandal in the 1980s that somehow threatened Ronald Reagan’s presidency. It was revealed in 1986 that the administration entered into illegal negotiations for arms sales to Iran in return for American hostages being held by Islamic groups in Beirut, with profits being channeled to fund anti-Sandinista and Anti-Marxist forces or Contras in Nicaragua. President Reagan and his vice-president George H. W. Bush denied all knowledge of the affair. As a result of the exposé, Reagan fired Oliver North, a Lieutenant Colonel in the US Marines who conjured up the plan, while some members of his staff were forced to resign.

Beslan School Hostage Crisis

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On September 1, 2004, a group of about 30 armed, camouflaged and masked multinational terrorists, demanding full withdrawal of Russian troops from Chechnya and recognition of its independence, broke into School Number One (SNO) in the Russian town of Beslan in North Ossetia and took more than 1,200 hostages, including some 800 children, gathering them in the school’s gymnasium, where they mined with wire explosives. On the third day, following the breakdown of negotiations and a series of explosions that set the building ablaze, the Russian security forces, in a contentious move, stormed the facilities with tanks, rockets and heavy weaponry, leading to a chaotic battle with the hostage takers. The siege ended with at least 370 deaths, half were children, and a couple of hundreds reported wounded or missing. The attack was met with condemnation in the strongest possible terms from the international community.

More “Scandals” Articles:

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• 31^st to the new President-elect

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