You can't look away from... The Photo That Lost The War.
Never mind all the other photos of abuse from the Abu Ghurayb prison in Baghdad. This is the one that sums up the war for me: a female U.S. soldier with a goofy grin on her face and a cigarette dangling out of the side of her mouth, pointing at a prisoner's crotch and giving a big thumbs up.
Exactly what kind of chain of events could lead anyone into thinking this was a good idea?
"That's all right, I'm sure those men of Islam don't mind being tied up, stripped naked, and made into the submissive sex slaves of an American woman. And, of course, once you've done all that, be sure to take photos for everyone to see. They'll love it, trust me."
Now, Iraqis and Arab Muslims who were indifferent towards the U.S. have an all-new, all-different reason to hate us: photographic proof that, at the end of the day, we just want to make them our bitches.
Actually, I'm not really all that surprised or outraged. (At least, no more so than I was when the war started, and during the entire time since. Which is a lot.) Because if you're a soldier in a war, you really don't have a choice but to completely demonize the enemy in your mind. The men you're assigned to kill aren't men; that makes it easier to pull the trigger. Should we really be surprised that, once our soldiers captured and imprisoned enemy combatants, their instinct was to utterly and totally humiliate them?
Any hint of abuse or atrocity or unfair play was sure to spark more anti-American fervor. Thus, we have witnessed the "War on Terrorism" now, probably, give birth to more terrorists. That's Really Scary Thing About All This #1.
Really Scary Thing About All This #2 is how some Americans have responded: blame the messenger. CBS's 60 Minutes II program first aired the photos and story last week, and in some circles has been criticized for showing them in a time of "war." Not really by people in the blogosphere, but by more "ordinary" Americans like these:
Mrs. McClarran, 52, also criticized news organizations for "over-zealous use" of the photographs and the rush to judge the soldiers, saying the coverage only fuels anti-American sentiment in Iraq."It puts our soldiers in harm's way," she said.
At Shooters, a bar and grill frequented by guards from the nearby state penitentiary, a military veteran who lost his left leg in the first war in Iraq said he was more disgusted by one-sided news coverage of the war than by the soldiers' misconduct.
"We got people who are prisoners and they are being tortured in every way, shape and form," said the 47-year-old veteran who declined to give his name. "Nobody wants to tell the truth about that."
[...]
Marty D. Hitchins, a 41-year-old machinist for a defense firm near Cumberland whose cousin served as a military policeman with the 372nd in Iraq, said, "I don't like the way the press runs our guys down but not their guys."
He said the humiliating treatment was like a "trip to Disneyland" compared with the torture that captured Iraqi President Saddam Hussein inflicted, but that it still was unjustified.
So now that media is actually digging into the truth behind the war on Iraq... excuse me, "giving Iraq its freedom"... it's our free press that poses the biggest problem to that effort. IRONY!
If only Bush could come up with some way to silence the press, the public outcry would be no more! Ulp... that's probably next, isn't it?
Really Scary Thing About All This #3: Since when are women allowed to do hella-stupid things like this?
Guys are supposed to hold the patent on stupid, immature or otherwise inappropriate behavior or language, especially when it comes to inappropriate references to sex, like in that photo. Have we finally co-opted females into the the loutish junior high mentality we males inhabit? Or is it just that the military has this effect on them?
On last night's Daily Show, Jon Stewart made pretty much the same point about how any media outlet that dares point out that anyting bad is going on in Iraq is viscerated. He was referring to all the uproar about Ted Koppel reading on Nightline (I think, I'm too lazy to look it up) of the names of those who have died in Iraq.
I have two thoughts (among others) about it, one being that, contrary to what one of those crazy people thought, there has been ample coverage of "their guys" and their misdeeds. Second, even given the fact that American hostages are being tortured, etc., I don't think it's unreasonable for us to expect more of "our guys."