War & Peace: May 2004 Archives

Remember General Boykin, who gave a sermon in his military uniform and made that comment about a Muslim general in Somalia? He's baaaaack. Worse, it seems he never went away.

I feel the need to link to this. Would it work? Who knows? At least it's a positive plan for action, and lord knows the current approach in Iraq isn't working. It's also nice that it's from a liberal group...

If your faith in the wisdom of the war in Iraq continues undimmed, you might want to consider the following:

1) Conservative blogger Andrew Sullivan admits that his support for the war is hanging on by a thread in the wake of this past week's news.

This quote from the New Yorker article on the prisoner abuse scandal in Iraq...

Such dehumanization is unacceptable in any culture, but it is especially so in the Arab world. Homosexual acts are against Islamic law and it is humiliating for men to be naked in front of other men, Bernard Haykel, a professor of Middle Eastern studies at New York University, explained. “Being put on top of each other and forced to masturbate, being naked in front of each other—it’s all a form of torture,” Haykel said.

Right. Ask any American man how he'd feel about being in that situation. I suspect he wouldn't feel much more positively about being forced to participate in sex acts with other men at gunpoint. I know, I know, he said such "dehumanization is unacceptable in any culture"...

Bush finally says it. But this you call an apology? (Emphasis mine)

Bush said he told Abdullah he was "sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi prisoners and the humiliation suffered by their families."

"I told him I was as equally sorry [sic] that people seeing those pictures didn't understand the true nature and heart of America," Bush said during his appearance with Abdullah.

Um, once you've done something wrong, you don't get to control how other people feel about it. And what's the "true nature and heart of America" when it's at home? It's not like the Iraqis have gotten to see much of it.

Edited to add...

Thinking more about the nature of apologies. I know I've said "I'm sorry" for things when what I really meant was "I'm really sorry that you're pissed at me about something." Not quite the same thing as being sincerely sorry that I did something wrong. That takes longer to get to, and defensiveness tends to be my first (and second, and third) reaction.

Much like the Bush administration.

At least Rumsfeld apologized. But it's still not enough to satisfy the world. And then of course dear Democrat-only-in-name Senator Joe Lieberman had to give his pious little speech about how "he hasn't heard anyone apologize for the 3,000 Americans killed in the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, or an apology for the hundreds of Americans killed in liberating Iraq or an apology for the killing and desecration of four security persons in Fallujah."

Yes, but the intentions of terrorists are presumably to terrorize. They meant to hurt us. Why would they apologize? Our intentions were supposed to be nobler than that. So when we act like a bunch of thugs, we should damn well be sorry, and we should say so... and we should take steps to make sure the thuggery stops. (And vote the thugs out.)

I probably shouldn't even bother writing about any of this, but there's been a kerfluffle over this cartoon. I looked at it, it didn't really make me laugh or inspire any particular thought. If I was Pat Tillman's family, I'd be pretty pissed to see a complex and interesting human being reduced to caricature for political purposes. He doesn't sound like he was racist at all. Why was it necessary to say that he was? Why is necessary to insult a dead guy to make a point that this administration lies about its motives and goals? Bush may be after the oil fields of the Middle East, but Tillman sure wasn't.

I didn't support the war on Afghanistan at the time (wussy Berkeley 1960s product that I am!), but logically... if their government was hosting Bin Laden, and there was a pretty good linkage established (especially compared to the sorry excuses for this war), I can see why people like Tillman would sign up for the military in good faith. And once you're in, you go where you're told.

The right-wing media is all over this one. It occurs to me that they have also reduced Tillman to a two-dimensional figure for their purposes, like he died to excuse every sin this country has committed in the course of the war on terrorism. It also occurs to me that with the news this week being what it is, they might find other directions to direct their ire. But no. I suspect Ted Rall serves as a useful distraction from the smelly pile of failures that is the Bush administration and their track record of the last three-plus years.

Tillman died for our sins, and Rall cartooned for them?

When your defense comes down to "OK, it was bad, but it wasn't as bad as under Saddam!" you've got a problem. Perhaps for this MP, another defense could be "OK, the British government screwed up, but we didn't screw up as badly as the American government, who started this whole invading Iraq thing!" Read it and weep...

Sometimes you read a letter to the editor in the paper that simply renders you speechless. But not blogless! From today's Chron:

Editor -- Just as you had no problem in your shallow attempt to embarrass the Bush administration with pictures of the Iraqi prisoners ("Images of abuse at U.S. hands stir world furor,'' May 1), I have no problem with how they are being treated. War is not a pleasant thing and I think anything we can do to discourage the enemy from fighting is a good thing to do. We are not fighting Iraq. We are fighting a vicious Islamic radical group whose stated goal is to kill infidels wherever they are and to all but enslave the women. As long as you claim you are being responsible by publishing such pictures, why don't you also publish some pictures of Saddam Hussein's torture chambers and explain to your latte-sipping liberal readers just what went on in those places?

TOM MARTIN
Sunnyvale

I feel like pointing out that "the enemy", far from seeming discouraged, seems more inspired to violence than ever at the moment, and suggesting to Mr. Martin that this is America, and generally, we do have a problem with treating human beings that way, even if our government and military seems not to at the moment, and that if he doesn't like it, he should feel free to move to a third-world dictatorship somewhere.

Sheesh! Almost ruined my latte there!

Edited to add: here's a link to the full report on the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, in PDF format, courtesy of NPR.

Why, why, why? And in a prison which was a notorious symbol of Saddam's excesses, no less. What were they thinking? Nice way to win over the populace, guys. And it is worse when we do something like this, somehow, because we're supposed to be the good guys! We're supposed to know better! We're the ones bringing democracy to Iraq, remember? I mean, WTF?

Riverbend says: