When I first heard about and then saw the images of prisoner abuse coming from Iraq last week, I had this overwhelming sense that it was over for us in there. Two editorials capture and help to explain what I think are the primary issues.
First, Phillip Kennicott writing in the Washington Post, writes that you cannot separate the acts of a few individuals from a nation as a whole. I believe he nails the fundamental issue here:
“Look at these images closely and you realize that they can’t just be the random accidents of war, or the strange, inexplicable perversity of a few bad seeds. First of all, they exist. Soldiers who allow themselves to be photographed humiliating prisoners clearly don’t believe this behavior is unpalatable. Second, the soldiers didn’t just reach into a grab bag of things they thought would humiliate young Iraqi men. They chose sexual humiliation, which may recall to outsiders the rape scandal at the Air Force Academy, Tailhook and past killings of gay sailors and soldiers.
“Is it an accident that these images feel so very much like the kind of home made porn that is traded every day on the Internet? That they capture exactly the quality and feel of the casual sexual decadence that so much of the world deplores in us?”
To allow themselves to be photographed, they did not believe that what they were doing was wrong or appalling. Similar examples come to mind: the video tape of high school girls in a Chicago suburb abusing candidates for an athletic club and a group of young boys documenting their rape of a young girl. A wretched new picture of America indeed.
Thomas Friedman writing in the New York Times captures the decline of America’s influence as a moral authority and inspiration to the world. He writes:
“We were hit on 9/11 by people who believed hateful ideas ? ideas too often endorsed by some of their own spiritual leaders and educators back home. We cannot win a war of ideas against such people by ourselves. Only Arabs and Muslims can. What we could do ? and this was the only legitimate rationale for this war ? was try to help Iraqis create a progressive context in the heart of the Arab-Muslim world where that war of ideas could be fought out.”
He goes on to say that Bush should fire Rumsfeld today and then reach out to the U.N. and the leaders of the Arab world and aplogize for what has taken place.
Based on the arrogance I have seen to date coming from the Bush camp, I don’t see this happening any time soon. The damage has been done; I’m not sure there’s much hope.