The Dish

Iraqi blogger, Zeyad, writes:

“Now, regarding the disgusting images from Abu Ghraib that the whole world had witnessed in the last few days. They didn’t come as a surprise at all, we have been hearing stories about the abuse of prisoners for a long time from released detainees and from humanitarian organisations. It doesn’t shock me at all that some American soldiers are so sick and devoid from any humanity. You need to have a cousin pushed off from a dam by some in order to learn that. What surprises me though are people saying ‘Saddam did worse’, or the soldiers responsible claiming they were ‘never taught anything about running a prison’, and ‘No one gave us a copy of the Geneva conventions’. We have a saying for that over here, ‘An excuse uglier than the guilt’.

The fact that the soldiers were merely relieved from duty and reprimanded wasn’t surprising either. In fact it is to be expected. The outcome of the investigation indicated that systematic psychological and physical torture, mistreatment, or abuse (whatever) was indeed routine in US detention centers throughout Iraq. Military Intelligence officers had encouraged it, referring to it as ‘setting the conditions for subsequent interrogation’, and of course soldiers follow orders without questioning. Keep in mind, though, that former Iraqi Security and Mukhabarat officers also employed appropriate measures to ‘set the conditions’, and we thought we were over that now.
While Saddam Hussein sits safely in his comfortable cell in Qatar or wherever else he is being held, Iraqi detainees are being put into the most humiliating and degrading conditions that can be imagined. While the guilty are free to wreak havoc, and take refuge in holy cities, the innocent are detained and mistreated for months without charges. But it seems like that is life.

They may be just a few soldiers, it may be an isolated case, but what’s the difference? The effect has been done, and the Hearts and Minds campaign is a joke that isn’t funny any more.

I have to say my mind and heart are reeling from these images from the bowels of Abu Ghraib and the thought that worse are yet to come. The look on Lindsey Graham’s face yesterday said it all: he was in a kind of panic. Yes, I know that the implications of this do not extend to our entire endeavor in Iraq; it is still a noble, important and worthwhile thing to accomplish. In fact, it is perhaps more essential that we get it right now and, by a successful end, remedy in part the unethical means of Abu Ghraib. But I cannot disguise that the moral core of the case for war has been badly damaged. It would be insane to abort our struggle there now because of these obscenities. But we will be changed even in victory. I believed the WMD rationale for this war and that still survives, though with greatly diminished credibility. But I believed in the war fundamentally on moral grounds. When doubts surfaced in my head before the conflict, I kept coming back to the inadequacy of the alternatives, i.e. keeping a crumbling Saddam in power, and to the moral need to replace a brutal dictatorship with freedom. By any objective standard, that rationale still holds. Iraq is a far better place today than it was as a police state, and its future immeasurably brighter. But what this Abu Ghraib nightmare has done is rob us of much of this moral high ground – and not just symbolically or in the eyes of others. But actually and in the eyes of ourselves. The political consequences of this – will Rumsfeld go? will Kerry become president? – strike me as less important than the crisis of national morale it provokes. I want us to get over this but I also don’t want us to get over this. The betrayal of our ideals is too deep to be argued away. Images in this media-saturated, volatile world can have more impact than any words. But the impact will, I think, be deeper on Americans than on an Arab street where hatred for this country runs high in any case. And that is how it should be. For these pictures strike at the very core of what it means to be America. We must expose, atone for, and somehow purge ourselves of this stain, while fighting a war that still must be fought. And it will not be easy.

They say he needs to go.

From the funny names file.

More sectarian Muslim murders. Bombings almost every day. A reminder that this war is not just about the West versus radical Islam, but radical Islam versus the peaceful members of that religion.

The theoconservative attack-dogs now go after Cardinal McCarrick, one of the sanest men in the leadership of the church. Check out the ad here and you’ll see how emotive they have become.

Eugene Volokh provides a superb set of legal answers to David Frum’s set of questions about the potential implications of Massachusetts’ marriages for other states. The bottom line is that federalism, as a matter of current law, will not mandate that even incidents of gay Massachusetts’ marriages be transferrable from state to state. All I know as someone who isn’t a lawyer is what I have tried to read and understand of the legal state of play on this. But Volokh is an expert. And he should calm some conservative fears about “nationalizing” civil marriages for gays in Massachusetts. (By the way: ten days till equality!)

Lawrence Kaplan has a typically astute piece on the topic.

Now here’s an interesting take on the hideous pictures from Abu Ghraib:

What is particularly interesting in these photographs of abuse coming out of Iraq is the prominent role played by Lynndie England. A particular strand of feminist theory – popularised by Sheila Brownmiller and Andrea Dworkin – attempts to argue that the male body is inherently primed to rape. Their claim that only men are rapists, rape fantasists or beneficiaries of the rape culture cannot be sustained in the face of blatant examples of female perpetrators of sexual violence. In these photographs the penis itself becomes a trophy. Women can also use sex as power, to humiliate and torture.

I think that’s right.

They now have an ad that uses the crucified Christ to insult the archbishop. If you want to read how the culture war could tear the Catholic church apart, read this piece.