Unk,
If we are to have any credibility with the suggestion that our brand of democracy is superior to any form of governance in place in the Arab world, we have to live by our principles and enforce our own values. Thus, the men and women responsible for whatever may have happened to the Iraqi prisoners must be swiftly and, more importantly, publicly punished.
And while I think that what must be done should carry a message that the Arab world should understand, I am pessimistic that punishing the transgressors in the appropriate manner will have the desired effect, at least initially. There are simply too many conspiracy-minded fools in the region.
I suppose that if I had been feed a ration of falsehoods for eons, had been brutalized by thugs and tyrants, had been intentionally kept uneducated, and had been fed a steady diet of "the Jooos did it" for my main meals, it would take a long stream of consistently good behavior on the part of the US and the West to change perceptions. One instance of improper behavior, such as the one being reported, does a hell of a lot of damage to any fragile credibility we might be building.
I am troubled that the Iraqis might focus on this one instance, which does not even begin to compare to Saddam's regime's abuses, to reinforce the notion that we are hypocritical thugs no different than Saddam and his ilk. |
