Delgado, Aidan 1981-

PERSONAL:

Born 1981. Education: Attended New College of Florida. Religion: Buddhist.

ADDRESSES:

E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer and activist. Military service: U.S. Army Reserve, 2001-04; served in Iraq, 2003-04; honorably discharged with conscientious objector status.

WRITINGS:

The Sutras of Abu Ghraib: Notes from a Conscientious Objector in Iraq, Beacon Press (Boston, MA), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

As a college student in 2001, Aidan Delgado decided to join the U.S. Army Reserve. He signed up on the morning of September 11, 2001, only to learn moments later that the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon that day would make his military commitment into something entirely different than he had imagined. He was right: in 2003 he was sent with his unit to Iraq, where he was stationed at the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. His memoir of this experience, The Sutras of Abu Ghraib: Notes from a Conscientious Objector in Iraq, recounts the abuses he witnessed there and his efforts to leave the military on grounds of conscience.

Delgado, the son of a U.S. diplomat, had grown up in Thailand, Senegal, and Egypt, where he had learned some basic Arabic. This background, he feels, gave him a more humane perspective on Iraq than that shared by his fellow military personnel. He was appalled to witness acts of cruelty by the U.S. Army, which he believes sprang from racist assumptions about Arabs. He was also troubled by the realization that his religious beliefs had evolved and he could no longer in good conscience remain a soldier. Delgado had been attracted to Buddhism since his earlier days in Thailand, and now considered himself a practicing Buddhist. Disturbed by the abuses at Abu Ghraib—where prisoners were severely beaten, deprived of clothing and shelter, and sometimes shot to death if they protested conditions—he requested conscientious objector (CO) status. "I was becoming disillusioned," he explained in an interview with Paul Rockwell for In Motion Magazine. "I expected brutality from the enemy. That was a given. But to see brutality from our own side, that was really tough for me. It was hard to see the army fall so much in my esteem." It is quite difficult, Delgado explains in the book, to establish the necessary criteria to be granted CO status, yet he finally succeeded. He received an honorable discharge as a conscientious objector at the end of his tour in Iraq.

The Sutras of Abu Ghraib is an "honest, often moving chronicle of [Delgado's] political and religious evolution under the stress of war," observed Booklist reviewer Jay Freeman. A writer for Kirkus Reviews felt that the book is too "inward-looking" to offer a "wider sense of the war," but observed that its descriptions of racist attitudes and casual cruelty toward civilians "rings true." A Publishers Weekly reviewer offered a similar assessment, concluding that although Delgado's comments on pacifism are sometimes "tendentious," his story serves as a "welcome corrective to much of the aggressive rhetoric that has pervaded the debate over the war in Iraq."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, August, 2007, Jay Freeman, review of The Sutras of Abu Ghraib: Notes from a Conscientious Objector in Iraq, p. 30.

Kirkus Reviews, May 15, 2007, review of The Sutras of Abu Ghraib.

New York Times, May 2, 2005, Bob Herbert, "From ‘Gook’ to ‘Raghead.’"

Publishers Weekly, May 21, 2007, review of The Sutras of Abu Ghraib, p. 46.

ONLINE

Aidan Delgado Home page,http://www.aidandelgado.com (January 28, 2008).

AlterNet,http://www.alternet.org/ (January 28, 2008), Scott Fleming, "In Good Conscience."

Buddhist Channel,http://www.buddhistchannel.tv/ (January 28, 2008), Dewey Hammond, interview with Aidan Delgado.

Chico Beat,http://www.chicobeat.com/ (January 28, 2008), Tom Blodget, interview with Aidan Delgado.

Democracy Now Web site,http://www.democracynow.org/ (January 28, 2008), Juan Gonzales, interview with Aidan Delgado.

In Motion Magazine,http://www.inmotionmagazine.com/ (January 28, 2008), Paul Rockwell, "Army Reservist Witnesses War Crimes: New Revelations about Racism in the Military."

Progressive U,http://www.progressiveu.org/ (January 28, 2008), Chelle, interview with Aidan Delgado.

Religion Writer,http://www.religionwriter.com/ (January 28, 2008), "Q and A with Aidan Delgado."

St. Petersburg Times,http://www.sptimes.com/ (September 23, 2007), Nathaniel French, review of The Sutras of Abu Ghraib.