"I'm
probably not the only one up at this table that is more
outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment
[of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib]."
--Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla.
"I
would like to have seen a much higher level of outrage
throughout the world, but especially in the Arab world,
to [the murder of Nicholas Berg]."
--Secretary of State Colin Powell
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Outrage is a funny word. Perhaps this wasn't always
the case, but it seems to have more direction and purpose
than horror, nausea, or simply being appalled. Outrage
is anger — anger on behalf of something. So it
is particularly interesting, I think, that high-level
Republicans have begun throwing the word around so much
to tell us and the rest of the world what we should
be feeling.
Inhofe,
whose name I firmly believe will live in infamy as having
uttered one of the stupidest statements during a momentous
period in American history, speaks of his anger on behalf
of — what, exactly? The outrage over pictures
of American soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners is easy
to identify — anger at human rights abuses committed
by soldiers who were supposed to, in the disingenuous
words of their leader, be liberating Iraqis, not putting
leashes on them.
Does Inhofe
suggest we should be offended at people who oppose human
rights abuses?
Inhofe seems to be angry because Americans are demanding
to get to the bottom of who was responsible for ordering
American soldiers to engage in torture — or, as
the case increasingly seems to be, who was at the top.
Seymour Hersh's revelations in The New Yorker continue
this week with a piece stating that embattled Secretary
of Defense Donald Rumsfeld approved a carte blanche
application of the techniques used in the Guantanamo
Bay facility housing prisoners alleged to be Taliban
and al-Qaida fighters — prisoners that Rumsfeld
seems to believe fall outside the bounds of the Geneva
Convention's protections. Hersh states that Rumsfeld
unilaterally approved using techniques of sexual humiliation
specifically to interrogate prisoners.
In Inhofe's
view, however, the "real" outrage is questioning
whether these appalling atrocities were committed with
the sanction or even by the order of military higher-ups.
Wanting to ensure that those responsible for such acts
do not continue their transgressions, even receive accolades
of a job superbly done, is the outrage. Refusing to
accept radical conservative party line that the pictures
of Abu Ghraib were the product of homosexuals, feminists,
or women in the military is an intolerable affront to
the dignity of white men standing up against homosexuals,
feminists and women in the military.
On the opposite
side of the equation, Powell expressed near outrage
at the lack of outrage over the murder of an American.
To be clear, there have been plenty of condemnations
of the crime by Arab leaders. Secretary General of the
Arab League Amr Mousa appeared on CNN and stated that
"decent people" cannot tolerate such an act.
But apparently, a statement saying that the murder was
reprehensible is not enough. Powell went on to say "Arab
leaders need to look at what's happening in their own
societies. They need to reform their own societies."
That part of the statement, to my mind, makes Powell's
view even more appalling than Inhofe's brand of posturing
intolerance. American authorities believe that the man
on video beheading Berg is Abu Musab Zarqawi, a member
of al-Qaida from Jordan.
Is it fair
to take the acts of a known terrorist and say his misdeeds
demand that "Arab leaders" recognize a fault
within their entire society? Did Powell look at the
Oklahoma City bombing and decree that America must take
a look at reform to make up for Timothy McVeigh? Which
generates more outrage, a police officer who commits
murder while on duty as an effectuation of government
policy, or an evil criminal who commits murder for his
own private motives? Which is more dangerous to a free
society? Which should get the biggest headlines?
A fairer
question would be whether representatives of a government,
in that country's service, can be taken to indicate
anything about the state of their society — if
soldiers in a nation's army, who allege they were acting
under orders of their superiors and of different divisions
of the military, who commit horrendous transgressions
beyond the bounds of human decency, could possibly demonstrate
that something has gone seriously wrong in the leadership
of that nation.
I would
say that a failure to deal swiftly to find and punish
those responsible would destroy all credibility of the
United States, but by this point I think destroying
our moral credibility is akin to threatening to bomb
Afghanistan into the stone age — what would be
the change? Statements that paint all Arab countries
with the same tarred brush used for individual terrorists
simply plays into the idea of America as Western aggressor,
declaring a holy crusade against Muslim infidels. It
is now within the realm of farce for the Bush administration
to maintain its claim — manufactured when the
weapons of mass destruction lie was exposed —
to the title of “liberator,” or to say Americans
fought for the human rights of Iraqis or Afghans.
As new information
about the planning of attacks on Iraq continues to pulse
out like a hemorrhaging wound, it appears that the ultimate
target in Iraq was not safety from terrorism, either.
Zarqawi, the very man who later would murder Berg, was
in a camp in a Kurdish area of Iraq in the months leading
up to the start of bombing, and the White House knew
it. Powell pointed to a picture of the camp —
not in an area controlled by Saddam Hussein, but technically
within Iraq's borders — during his now-embarrassing
war-shill production at the United Nations, the shameful
negative of Dean Acheson's performance before the Cuban
Missile Crisis.
Three times
the Pentagon proposed a strike to wipe out the terrorist
camp, and Zarqawi with it. And three times the White
House refused to approve the attack, because, to quote
the NBC article from March that broke the story, "[T]he
administration feared [that] destroying the terrorist
camp in Iraq could undercut its case for war against
Saddam."
That, my
faithful reader, should inspire outrage. The fact that
the Bush White House so callously ignored an opportunity
to eliminate a tangible threat — a leader and
his followers who plotted to use ricin to attack Europe,
who were responsible for hundreds of deaths in Iraq,
who would later be responsible for one particularly
monstrous death of an American — should make every
American, including Inhofe, realize that this administration
does not have our best interests in mind.
Bush's handlers
have destroyed American credibility abroad. They have
contributed to the threats against Americans by simultaneously
failing to take constructive steps to protect Americans
and embarking on a new and terrifying foreign policy
inspiring cultural wars and, in all probability, new
terrorists every day. They at best tolerate and at worst
order human rights abuses of men and women Americans
purportedly fought and continue to die for.
But when
presented with repeated opportunities to take on an
actual threat that they claim to have in their crosshairs,
they put Bush's re-election ahead of the safety of American
troops and citizens. Caught in a digital photo with
the torturer's whip in their hands, they conceal, lie,
and then blame the photographer. That is an outrage.
