The Priorities Of The Godly

My friend lives on the far side of the world, in Tasmania, and he referred me to a website he had located and asked me a simple question that was, more or less: "Is it just me, or do these people have no sense of morals?"; Well, Bernie, it isn't just you; and, yes, they have no sense of morals. Like many of the United States-based news services, ABC (which surely must stand for "America's Best Crap") is running pictures of the abuse and torture of Iraqi prisoners by America's best and brightest. We have all heard by now of the shocking treatment of detainees in Iraq, particularly at a place called Abu Ghraib. And we are comforted in knowing that Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has accepted full responsibility for the actions of the American troops, even though we see that "accepting responsibility" is meaningless since it carries no consequences. Americans are forgetting all too easily their own outrage over an incident that occurred at the beginning of the 2003 Iraq war. One of their troops had been captured and was shown on Iraqi television in handcuffs. This prompted cries of outrage from the American side about violations of the Geneva Convention on prisoner treatment and anger arose across America about one of their boys being shown on television as a prisoner. All of that was promptly forgotten, however, when America decided that televising the killing of Saddam Hussein's two sons might make for some cool footage and when poking and prodding the man himself for a world-wide audience prompted peals of glee from Rumsfeld about how "we got him". [Never mind the fact that he was actually "got"; by the Kurds; no matter, they don't mind the Yankees misappropriating the glory.] But now, the whole world is seeing not only how Americans think nothing of the Geneva Convention on prisoner treatment, but how they think nothing of basic human decency. It must be that same moral compass that allows the U.S. to send troops, without any misgivings, anywhere in the world that they feel the local population needs culling. There appears to be mixed feelings in the United States about whether anyone should give a damn about the actions of their troops in Iraq and whether all these photos and videos are horrible or just entertainment. Some condemn them and call for legal retribution against the American troops while others would just as surely pin medals on these brave young men and women. Americans were rightly outraged by the slaying of Nicholas Berg and while there are those who claim the videotape of his alleged decapitation was a distracting staged event, possibly even orchestrated by the Americans themselves, the fact remains Mr. Berg met a tragic end. Thinking people everywhere should be saddened and horrified by his death, no matter how it occurred or who actually perpetrated it, although it seems likely that many Americans will canonize Mr. Berg while believing that all those bloody Iraqis have gotten off far too lightly. But what got my friends' knickers in a knot about the ABC news item was not the photos themselves; they are repulsive, but they are no worse than what any other news outlet has been displaying for the past couple of weeks. What made him, and me, see red was the warning that accompanied the photos. The photos in question are, at the time of this writing, to be found at http://abcnews.go.com/sections/World/popoff/Politics/iraq_prisoner_abuse_040503_ssframeset_1.html and because of the disturbing and sensitive nature of the photos, they are prefaced by a warning for viewers which reads: WARNING: The following graphic depictions include nudity. Viewer discretion is advised. Let me quote directly from my friend's email message to me because he says it as well or better than I would. He wrote that he sees "something distinctly disturbing about a society that can show pix of corpses being gloated over by pretty young army girls, of bloody and battered bodies - the result of torture - and of human beings being humiliated, abused and degraded ... and this to carry a warning that the nudity may offend." (Particularly when said nudity is fuzzed out in the pictures anyway.) Either that, or this is a way of subtly boosting the humiliation of the Iraqi people - "only the sight of your bodies offends us - not what's done to them". Or both. Bernie is right. It is a sick group that will find offense in the sight of a naked body but none in the degradation and torture of that body. The American media is careful to refer to the actions of their troops in Iraq as 'abuse' rather than 'torture' although it only takes a single digit IQ to know that if the prisoners were American and the troops Iraqi, the U.S. would be screaming bloody murder. One would have to presume from the warning accompanying these photos that ABC would have presented no warning at all to viewers if the Iraqi prisoners had all been fully clothed. In other words, so long as the prurient minds of the ABC news team warns people that they might actually see a bare ass on the screen, then there is no need to warn anyone about objects being shoved up that bare ass. Because either the ABC folks are not offended by brutality perpetrated on non-Americans, or they know the American people won't be. So sorry, Mr. Bush, you have been dethroned as the most worthless American alive; the ABC news team is even lower than you. I know the decent thing would be for me to encourage you to keep a stiff upper lip and try harder, but I have little doubt that you will regroup.