May 04, 2004
Fallujah excuses nothing
Juan Cole points out the flawed logic in the argument that the Fallujah mercenary killings somehow justify creating hundreds or thousands of Iraqi victims of American violence:
The four dead American commandos at Fallujah, who were not uniformed military, have already occasioned a brutal siege of the city and over 600 Iraqi deaths, some proportion of them civilian. Shall they now also excuse the torture of dozens of Iraqis at Abu Ghuraib? And this, months after the fact? Is this Iraq enterprise an occasion for endless serial revenge, or an attempt to share democratic values with a beleaguered population all too used to torture and oppression? In the sordid calculus of race, how many Iraqi lives and psyches exactly are worth four American ones?The issue of hypocrisy is also important here. The rabble of Fallujah never pledged that they were committing violence in order to end torture and establish democracy. George W. Bush boasted repeatedly that "there are no more torture chambers" in Iraq.
I am not only outraged that the US military committed these crimes, but I am extremely alarmed that the images coming out of Abu Ghuraib have damaged US credibility in Iraq beyond repair. Anyone tempted to make light of this issue or dismiss it with feeble and inappropriatecomparisons would be making a serious error of judgment.
Juan posts daily updates on Iraq.
Posted by Norwood at May 4, 2004 07:02 AM