Hi, everyone. I'm Nicole Hemmer, and this is this day, a history show from Radiotopia.

As regular listeners know, each week during the first year of the second Trump administration,

we are offering some Sunday context. Today, we're revisiting our episode on Abu Ghraib,

the Iraqi prison where U.S. soldiers tortured prisoners in the early months of the Iraq invasion.

I've been thinking about Abu Ghraib a lot lately, particularly after the release of the dehumanizing photos coming out of El Salvador.

The Trump administration has cut a deal with the Salvadoran government to hold

deported and renditioned residents of the U.S. in a place called Seacott. Seacot is a

notorious prison, rife with human rights violations. The Salvadoran government intends everyone

who enters to be detained for life. Christy Noem, the new Homeland Security Secretary, visited

Seacott to film what can only be described as an influencer video, with dozens of detained

men crowded in a cell behind her. Since then, at least seven Republican members of Congress have

traveled to Seacot for photo shoots of their own.

They're giving thumbs up and they have these big, wide smiles.

The photos are eerily similar to those of Lindy England,

the Army Reserve Soldier who posed for grinning photos with the Abu Ghraib detainees in the midst of their abuse and torture.

These are some of the most violently offensive photos

I have ever seen. When I teach 9-11 and its aftermath to my students, I don't even show these

photos, though I let my students know they exist. I don't share the Seacot photos online either.

These men are being put on display as part of their dehumanization.

To spread their photos across the internet feels like participating, however passively, in that crime.

And yet, the photographs, like the ones from Abu Ghraib, exist. And it's actually really important

that people know that they do. For people still able to access their humanity, these images shock the conscience.

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