Here’s yet another reason why America shouldn’t be running the world. (Note to Aaron: yes [insert your mass-murdering fuckhead dictator here] was bad, and we’re not as bad by comparison, but something tells me that if this occupation were truly international that the chances of something like this happening would be significantly reduced. When you are running the show, the responsibility and the spotlight are on you tenfold.) Kofi, can you take away the keys now?
Score one for The New Yorker. (And don’t the Post and the NYT feel dumb?)
Responses from the blogosphere:
Fafblog via Boing Boing summarizing the Bush spin on this situation:
– The activities that occurred at Abu Ghuraib prison are not to be compared to those of Saddam Hussein’s rape rooms and torture chambers. After all, those were rape rooms and torture chambers. These were merely rooms in which rape occurred, and chambers in which individuals were tortured.
– In war, atrocities will happen, as dew on the grass in the morning, or flower blossoms in the spring. The dew gathers. The buds open. The atrocities bloom. It is all according to the mysterious, ever-unfolding cycle of life – a cycle too vast and complex for mere mortals to comprehend.
– These were isolated incidents, and the behavior of these prison guards should in no way reflect upon the military superiors who endorsed and promoted such behavior. This is because atrocities are supervenient on subordinates, but not on command structures. Those with greater learning will understand.
And Drezner:
No question, these reports are a stain on America’s image to the world. I share the disgust and revulsion that Glenn Reynolds and Jonah Goldberg have expressed on this issue.
Here’s the thing, though — I feel a similar involuntary revulsion at reading press reports on the reaction of “the Arab street” to these pictures. Does anyone think that any of the Arabs interviewed for this story displayed even the slightest hint of rage or shame at the Arabs who burned four American civilian contractors in Fallujah in March?
I’m not even remotely suggesting that this redeems anything done by U.S. soldiers in Abu Ghraib. And tactically, this will obviously inflame Arab resentments. But spare me the righteous indignation of the Arab street.
And finally, our very own Brad DeLong, critiquing Drezner:
Two questions:
First, I am most familiar with his type of argument when it used to be made by people like Andrei Vyshinksy, who argued that Americans who had not taken effective steps to stop the lynching and disenfranchisement of African-Americans had no moral standing to complain about anything that Josef Stalin did. It was a bad argument then. Is there any difference that could make it a good argument now?
Second, it is the policy of the United States to divide the world into two groups: the enormous majority of right-thinking peace-loving people everywhere, and the insane fundamentalist terrorists of Al Qaeda and its ilk. It is the policy of Osama bin Laden to divide the world into two different groups: western crusaders on the one hand and true Muslims on the other. In his rejection of the moral right of Arabs on the street to be outraged at Abu Ghraib, is Daniel Drezner advancing the policy interests of the United States or of Osama bin Laden?
