Not Writing About Abu Ghraib

I've tried to write about Abu Ghraib several times now, but I always end up deleting the post. For reasons which maybe are obvious, or maybe aren't (I really don't know), I just can't seem to write about it. The revelations seem to have really gotten to me at a deeper level than anything else in this whole misbegotten war. Talking with friends suggests that this is not an uncommon response.

And what could I say that isn't already obvious?

Arab public opinion is horrified - but that's obvious. Even if the LA Times quotes a senior official as saying that it isn't that bad, they [the "Arab street", that is] aren't firebombing embassies or anything. No, that comes later. Because they hate our freedoms.

Torture is wrong, and self-defeating for those who no longer care about right and wrong. Again, that should be obvious. The stories that are now coming out about the as yet unreleased pictures... did I really read a senior DoD official saying that they had pictures of an old woman beaten half to death and gang rapes of young boys? I don't want to believe that. I'm sorry, I just don't. But that doesn't make it untrue.

I've been deeply shocked - though not surprised - by the morally bankrupt response of much (but hopefully not all) of the right. "We aren't as bad as Saddam"... my god, is that really supposed to make it okay? To my ears, this is one of the most anti-American sentiments I've ever heard - being satisfied with being a little better than Saddam says that these people expect nothing better from America, nothing better from this society, nothing better from us. The opinions now spewing forth from that open sewer - "they didn't apologize to us for 9/11" and "Saddam was worse" and "I'm not sorry, we should have tortured them harder" (I'm not linking here on purpose) - suggest something deeply sick. The same people who used to savage every attempt at rational analysis of 9/11 by sneering something like "notice how they always begin with a pro forma 'while this doesn't excuse 9/11'" now begin every comment with 'while this doesn't excuse torture' and then move on to excusing torture. And the same people who perfected the art of "why doesn't the Left write about X? Because they are morally bankrupt" now breezily confess that they just don't have much to say about or much interest in this particular issue. But enough - yes, this shocks me, but it doesn't surprise me. I long ago gave up reading most of those people because this kind of partisan response was entirely, depressingly predictable.

Sarcasm fails me, and analyzing the fallout gives me no pleasure. I'm going to be dealing with the short and long term impact of this on Arab public opinion towards the United States for a long time in my real job. And, no doubt, here. But for now, not so much. My soul hurts, and picking at the wound isn't going to make it feel any better right now.

I should probably delete this one too, but I'm not going to.

Comments

[No Preference]

I'm glad you didn't delete that post, Aardvark.

[paper tigress]

Wahed gawa for habibi aarkvark. Ayouni, aarkvarks rule. Memnoon.

[james]

"they didn't apologize to us for 9/11"

That was Lieberman wsn't it?

[the aardvark]

Yes, that one was Lieberman. Where there are sewers open, you just know that particular name is going to turn up. Boy, I miss that guy.. how could the Dems have let that prince get away?