Victor Davis Hanson: Abu Ghraib

victorhanson.com ^ | May 3, 2004 | Victor Davis Hanson

[Tolik]

Is Abu Ghraib prison the work of perverted minds or merely very efficient intelligence procedures?

Hanson: I wrote about that for the Wall Street Journal (included on this webpage, read below). The causes are all there: individual roguery most of all, poor training, poor supervision, elements of our pathologies at home, stress, the fallout of a dirty war against killers and terrorists, knowledge that sexual intimidation, while horrific and disgusting, probably brought some intelligence coups that were felt to have saved lives. It is a mess that tars everyone who tries to discuss it dispassionately; thus congressmen talk at length and say nothing other than sanctimonious blather and platitudes. Real discussion, coupled with commitment to punish the guilty, would be both condemnatory and realistic, as it was in past wars.

[Tolik]

We who are appalled in our offices and newsrooms are not those who have had our faces blown off while delivering food in Humvees or are incinerated in SUVs full of medical supplies -- with the full understanding that there will be plenty of Iraqis to materialize to hack away at what is left of our charred corpses. War is hell, and those who do not endure it are not entirely aware of the demons that are unleashed, and thus should hold their moral outrage until the full account of the incident is investigated and adjudicated.

If a small number of soldiers has transgressed, then let us punish them severely, as well as the officers who either ordered or ignored such reprehensible behavior. But let us also accept that the reaction to this incident is indicative of larger moral asymmetries that are the burdens of the West when it goes to war, a culture that so often equates the understandable absence of perfection, either moral, political, or military, with abject failure -- a fact not lost on our enemies.

We have seen terrible things since September 11 -- monotonous public executions, taped decapitations, videos of brutalized hostages, diplomats gunned down, aid workers riddled with bullets, children's bodies blown apart by improvised explosive devices, nuts, bolts and rat poison added to suicide bombs -- most under either the sponsorship of some autocratic Middle Eastern governments or of terrorist cabals that could not exist without at least the tacit support of thousands in the Arab street.

So as we in America address the moral inadequacies of a handful of our soldiers, let those in the Middle East take heart from our own necessary and stern democratic inquiries and audits, and thus at last now apply the same standards of accountability to tens of thousands, far more culpable, of their own.

Victor Davis Hanson moral clarity huge BUMP  

[please freepmail me if you want or don't want to be pinged to Victor Davis Hanson articles]

If you want to bookmark his articles discussed at FR: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/k-victordavishanson/browse

His NRO archive: http://www.nationalreview.com/hanson/hanson-archive.asp

His blog: http://victorhanson.com/index.html     BIO: http://victorhanson.com/Author/index.html

Yes, he is listened by the Bush Administration; they like him maybe as much as we do: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1085464/posts?page=6#6

[lainde]

VDH moral clarity bump!

[metesky]

Excellent, as usual.

[alfa6]

Thanks Tolik

Morning Bumparoonie

Regards

alfa6 ;>}