So, after truth, it seems that honor is the second casualty of war. War's seem to always conjure up the rhetoric of duty and honor. But, then "how," asked my friend Jeff, "can someone be honorable in a dishonorable situation." The photos of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners of war are stomach churning indeed. But, the sentiment is not new. An internal report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba describes incidents in which "detainees were beaten with a broom handle," "sodomized with a chemical light," and "perhaps a broom stick." A broom stick? Hmm . . . Sound familiar?
The culture of violence cannot hide for long underneath the medals of war. We would be poorly served to treat these incidents as radical lapses of judgment. These incidents are manifestations of a long-standing tradition of villainizing the "enemy" in order to motivate violence in the name of power. We see this pattern manifest in the behavior of American police officers in black neigborhoods. We even see the creation of villains at work in our policy debates about drugs and the death penalty. The logic of villainization dictates that the "enemy" must not be human. For how else could we be provoked to kill them. We fight for what is "right." We are "good." They, our enemy, are "evil." And so, what harm is there in pissing on evil. Or executing evil for that matter. At least that's how the logic goes.
So now what? The American people have been forced to look war in the face and see it for what it is: petty, degrading, and dehumanizing. What shall we do? Well, my suggestion is that anyone interested in firing Bush and the boyz should start emailing these pictures all over the country. We should put them on t-shirts. We should hang them in triptychs right between pictures of Jim Crow era lynchings and pictures of Abner Louima. We should stare at them every night to remember what is at stake in this next election.
// posted by brandon at
11:05 PM
