Appalling

I am, of course, appalled by the revelations of American and British prison guards abusing and torturing prisoners in Iraq.

But I'm appalled almost as much by two parts of the reaction to that news:

USA Today decided to publish small photos of the US soldiers killed during April in Iraq, instead of the photos of prisoner abuse. That's not the appalling part; I can understand making that editorial decision. The appalling part is this quote from "David D. Perlmutter, a historian of war and media at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge":

"The torture pictures are absolutely irrelevant. [. . .] Americans care about American soldiers, and only journalistic and political and academic elites fret about pictures of collateral damage. [. . .] If you start talking to the public, you'll find people sympathizing with the soldiers."

The MSNBC article containing that quote (down at the bottom) doesn't make clear whether Perlmutter said that as a neutral analysis of facts or with approval, so I don't know whether to be appalled at the public or just at Perlmutter. Since when is torturing prisoners "collateral damage"? Certainly the leaders of the US and UK governments and military have said that they're appalled by these actions; I don't think anybody in any official role is characterizing this as "collateral damage."

Meanwhile, according to another MSNBC article, here's the mother of one of the American (and female, btw) soldiers who appears in one of the photos:

The alleged abuses of prisoners were "stupid, kid things—pranks," Terrie England said. "And what the (Iraqis) do to our men and women are just? The rules of the Geneva Convention, does that apply to everybody or just us?"

Oh, good; it's the "they hit us first" argument. So because there are people in Iraq who have done horrible things to Americans, it's appropriate to blindfold prisoners and attach wires to their hands and tell them they're going to be electrocuted? The one action does not in any way justify the other, and I'm utterly disgusted that anyone could think it does. Keeping a prisoner "confined naked for three consecutive days without toilets in damp, unventilated cells with floors 3 feet by 3 feet" is a "prank"? So Ms. England, it wouldn't bother you if some neighborhood "kids" did that to you?

And then there's this, from the lawyer of one of the accused soldiers:

"I can assure you Chip Frederick had no idea how to humiliate an Arab until he met up" with higher-ranking people who told him how, Myers said.

That's not the most impressive excuse I've ever encountered. (To be fair, it sounds like that particular accused soldier did try to stop what was going on, so it's possible the lawyer was just being an idiot or the article misquoted him.)

3 Responses to “Appalling”

  1. David Moles

    This is the thing about America: We don’t hold ourselves to a higher standard; we don’t even understand the higher-standards argument. We want to claim some special moral high ground on account of our founding ideals, our Constitution, our democracy, and Divine Providence, but when the chips are down we can justify sinking to any depth so long as the other guy is already there.

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  2. Vardibidian

    True enough, for most Americans at most times. Remember, though, that Jimmy Carter didn’t do that (for the most part), and even Bill Clinton was shamefaced about that sort of thing. He understood the higher-standards, even if he didn’t live up to it.

    I think we’ll find out, now, how many of us can take the lowering of our standards that far. I hope (oh, I hope I hope I hope) that most of us will recoil from this whole business, and we will ultimately demand some accountability up to the top. But we’ll see.

                        ,
    -Vardibidian.

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  3. Tonya Liburd

    I tend to listen to community radio and I regularly hear updates from Free Speech Radio News, and I’ve been hearing about these abuses for some time now. The sad thing is that mainstream news, corporate media, doesn’t see fit to cover these things most of the time.

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