Check out the following attempts to glean some deeper lesson from the Abu Ghraib obscenity. James Taranto blames the “academic left.” Hello? I cede to no one in feeling dismayed by the “academic left” but how did they get to be responsible for the sexual humiliation of Iraqi inmates? Here’s how. The soldiers who committed the abuses seem like rejects from the latest edition of “Cops.” Therefore, er, well I can’t really summarize Taranto’s argument. So here it is:
Many academic institutions have barred ROTC or military recruiters from campus for left-wing political reasons–first as a protest against the Vietnam War, and later over the Clinton-era “don’t ask, don’t tell” law. Whatever the merits of these positions, it’s time the academic left showed some patriotic responsibility and acknowledged that the defense of the country–which includes the defense of their own academic freedom–is more important than the issue du jour.
I think that means that Yalies wouldn’t do such things. Then Linda Chavez wants to blame women-in-the-military:
While some advocates of women in the military have argued that women’s presence would improve behavior, in fact, there is much evidence to suggest it has had the opposite effect. For years now, the military has ignored substantial evidence that the new sex-integrated military interferes with unit cohesion and results in less discipline.-Putting young men and women at their sexual prime in close proximity to each other 24 hours a day increases sexual tension. Allegations of sexual harassment, even rape, have become commonplace.
Look, I know what it’s like to have to write a column. You can’t always come up with a new angle. But please.
NUMB BY REPETITION: On the other hand, don’t you think the exposure of these photographs – especially on television – has become a little insistent? The visual point, of course, is that they do provide constant visceral shock, as they should. But at some point, it gets almost pornographic. Doesn’t there come a point at which the humiliation of these people is actually abetted by excessive exposure? Less is more sometimes. But then I’m not a TV executive.
EMAIL OF THE DAY: “I’m all for the ongoing insistence on showing those prison images as long as the media begins showing the World Trade Centers being immolated again. When was the last time we saw those? Think we’ll see them again, even once, on the mainstream media before November? No, that kind of visceral shock wouldn’t serve the left’s agenda.” We also need to see the full scope of the murder of Daniel Pearl, the corpses outside Fallujah, and the severed hands and bodies of those murdered by suicide bombers. Those victims deserve no more privacy than the victims of abuse at Abu Ghraib. And they can no longer be humiliated, because they’re dead. More feedback on the Letters Page.
BRITAIN’S TED RALL: He’s the Guardian cartoonist, Steve Bell. A hater, pure and simple. Here’s the latest.
