One interrogator at Abu Ghraib commented, "We thought they [the Iraqis] were animals," revealing that soldiers thought Muslims were something only human- like. Some US soldiers likened Iraqis to animals, referring to them as "beasts." There were "striking similarities between the lives of animals and the lives of prisoners captured on film at Abu Ghraib," except the dogs used to torture the prisoners were treated better. Survivors of Abu Ghraib testified to the inhumane treatment they were subjected to. Haider Al-Aboodi recalled how he and others were "forced to walk like dogs on our hands and knees. And we had to bark like a dog," Kasim Hilas told of the rape of an Iraqi boy by a male soldier that was filmed by a female soldier, and as Nori Al-Yasseri testified, "They treated us like animals not humans."

Sophia Rose Arjana, Muslims in the Western Imag…, loc. 744