Monday, May 10, 2004
Of Atrocities and Atrocious Behavior
There's been an ocean of ink and a galaxy of pixels devoted to the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison. Although I too am disgusted by behavior of the soldiers in the photographs which I've seen, it's also my impression that the abuse has a lot more of the atmosphere of fraternity hazing about it...
...than it has of Babi Yar, My Lai...
...or any other war crime I've ever heard of.
Rich Galen has been to Abu Ghraib prison and he offers these observations:
The Roar du Jour from those who want to get into this story by beating their chests over how terrible it all is, keep telling us that this has damaged American credibility in the Middle East.
Let's look at that.
First, lots of Arabs don't like us in the first place. Those Arabs will not like us any less for this incident.
That dislike has nothing to do with our cultural insensitivities. It has to do with America's refusal to allow those same Arabs, many of whom have been bankrolling the Palestinian terrorists for decades, to wipe the State of Israel off the face of the Earth they way they have wiped it off the face of their maps.
Second, those who claim that the Abu Ghraib situation will poison the well of American goodwill for decades, are really the ones who are under rating Arabs. They have to believe that all Arabs will assign the actions of perhaps a couple of dozen soldiers to the 280 million Americans who have pledged to help the Iraqis attain security, independence, and prosperity.
Those making that claim must, therefore, believe that all Arabs have the intellectual capacity of a frog (a real frog, not a French person) and the emotional development of a three-year-old (a real three-year-old, not a French person).
The American soldiers who are guilty of abusing and humiliating Iraqi prisoners should spend the next ten years bustin' rocks in Leavenworth, and I have every expectation that they will. That being said, I think it is equally important to keep these incidents in perspective and remember that, as war crimes go, stuff like this...
...isn't even remotely in the same league as this:
No. Not even close.
ceklundesq at 9:52:00 PM CDT
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