Puh-leeze

Spare us the orchestrated outrage over the alleged abuses by a small number of American soldiers against Iraqi prisoners. Whatever happened a) was reported by honorable soldiers to their superiors and b) was investigated. We are certain that c) the incident will be adjudicated and d) the perpetrators punished severely, we hope. Guilt will fall on those who are judged guilty of crimes. That’s the way we do it.

We have different grounds for outrage:

Spare us the orchestrated outrage over the alleged abuses by a small number of American soldiers against Iraqi prisoners. Whatever happened a) was reported by honorable soldiers to their superiors and b) was investigated. We are certain that c) the incident will be adjudicated and d) the perpetrators punished severely, we hope. Guilt will fall on those who are judged guilty of crimes. That’s the way we do it.

We have different grounds for outrage:

CBS, and then the American press ran those pictures generally with carefully scripted and reasonably balanced text. Americans got the idea that whatever it was, it a) wasn’t government policy, b) upset a lot of government officials and c) would be punished.

Now, maybe it is possible that the American media thought the same careful attention to allegations as allegations would mark Arab press coverage. But we don’t think so.

As could have been and probably was anticipated, the same images are being replayed ad nauseum in the Arab/Moslem world with a different script. Millions of people, many illiterate and receiving only the censored views of dictatorial governments are being told that these photographs represent only a few of the regular abuses heaped upon pure and innocent Arabs by the brutal hordes of American soldiers. The stories are filled with the blood of martyrs created by maniacal GIs and the need for revenge. The incitement ginned up by these photographs may, in fact, create the rise of an Arab street that has been remarkably quiet thus far. Hmmmmmmmm…

A quick flash of 9-11 in a campaign ad was enough to cause orchestrated outrage over the abuse of images. In fact, there are almost NO images of 9-11 ever seen in the American media. Nor are there images of mass graves found in Iraq. American forensic specialists estimate more than 400,000 bodies, including women and children, are in those graves. Nor are there images of the tortured victims of Saddam. Those images that might incite American anger and make Americans understand the nature of the regimes we fight simply are not there. And the one that made it – the desecration of American bodies in Falluja – was followed by assorted mea culpas by editors who were told that they had offended Arab sensibilities by suggesting that Arabs went in for that sort of thing.

But images of Iraqis allegedly abused by American soldiers – no delicacy required. No respect for the right to privacy of those Iraqis. No mea culpas. Photos that incite our anger are self-censored; photos that incite anger against American soldiers in the field and American civilians abroad are widely published. Hmmmmmmmmm…

We don’t think government censorship is appropriate in this, or in most other cases. But America is at war and propaganda is part of the battle. In this case, the media probably knowingly allowed itself to be used by enemies of our country – their country. The highest journalistic ethic is objectivity, not neutrality. To knowingly incite the mob is not objective, nor even neutral. It is participation in the war on the wrong side.