In the wake of the Abu Ghraib scandal in 2004, American officials and media apologists did their best to cast the torturous goings - on at the Iraqi prison as the work of an isolated group of bad apples - an alleged anomaly that unfairly tarnished the image of the otherwise munificent US armed forces.
Far from an aberration, however, these bad apples were instead symptoms of systemic putridity, the inevitable byproduct of an imperial setup predicated on the violation of human rights at home and abroad.
The diminutive nation of Lebanon is now enjoying its own mini-Abu Ghraib moment following the release, this past weekend, of leaked footage of members of the Lebanese Internal Security Forces (ISF) beating and torturing Islamist inmates at Roumieh prison outside Beirut. READ MORE AT MIDDLE EAST EYE.