I tuned in the Moron Report (question time) and tuned off after about 5 minutes (it seems 5 minutes is currently my maximum threshold for BBC political broadcasting).
The matter which made me switch off in disgust this time was that someone poured scorn on George W Bush for addressing US troops and saying they'd been doing a fantastic job. There was a tidal wave of applause from the morons in the audience (ever watched question time? It's a total joke).
These people sicken me. That they are prepared to poo-poo the achievements of thousands of servicemen who have done a fantastic job in liberating Iraq, particularly in the delicate zones where al-Sadr's wilting militia have attempted insurgencies, because a dozen or so reprobates committed atrocities is only indicative of an internal bias against American troops.
I live in the UK, I know what people here think and the average joe on the street thinks that US forces are a bunch of ill-trained grunts. Abu Ghraib has given them pretense, however false it might be, to slander the entire of the US military in allowing them to unleash their own prejudices without fear of scrutiny and they have grasped it eagerly.
The Times letters to the editor on the subject are similarly grating:
We should stand with our ally, shoulder to shoulder, cowed in shame and despair. Freedom and democracy? What a lie.
The liberal forces in the United Kingdom have rallied round the Abu Ghraib abuse as a means to differentiate the UK from the US. There have been calls for Tony Blair to disassociate himself from US foreign policy in the Middle East. I take solace in the fact that the man is smart enough to recognize the entirety of what is at stake but it saddens me to see many other pundits in the press, fall by the wayside.
I read one such article a few days ago, when the Abu Ghraib abuses were first coming to light. A Times columnist withdrew her support because she felt that the entire war, although of noble nature had been mangled by US incompetence. Whilst that would be ample rationale for such a recision of support, it isn't supported by the evidence available.
I too had similar doubts until I read an email from the front.
The problem of such a withdrawal of support is that the variables upon which it is based are not existent, rather they are phantoms of a media which seeks to paint failure, discord and chaos. I cannot deny that the situation on the ground is grave, however it is being dealt with, and with remarkable successes to report (for instance the impending fall of the radical cleric al-Sadr).
However the new matter which claws at the conscience of supporters is that in the abuse scandal we have let slip the moral necessity for intervention. That in these isolated cases we have dropped the baton of decency and as a result have failed to bring about the change we sought to implement.
Although I will not deign to downplay the importance of the scandal, I will rail against the awesome idiocy that such an assertion requires. The actions of a few undisciplined troops do not evidence a concerted and systematic scheme to torture prisoners. The punishment and court marshaling of those troops is not indicative of some institutionalized brutality. So why then will some insist that we have failed?
The most profound impact of the abuse has been upon the arab nations of the middle east, not upon the Iraqis themselves. The people of Iraq haven't leapt to revolt, they haven't risen up in armed revolution - and lord knows there are plenty of people willing to supply the means and wherewithal to do so. As Omar and Ali noted, the reaction is scarcely that provoked by the killing of Hamas leaders. We haven't failed them. The US servicemen in Iraq haven't failed them. A dozen perverted idiots have and whilst we cannot disregard our culpability in allowing the abuses to go on, to suggest some epic misdeed is martyrdom and self-indulgence on the part of the liberal left from which I now feel estranged.
It will be rather comical when al-Sadr folds and the massive gains the marines are making in Fallujah become apparent. In both those instances the media have tied themselves in knots to portray coalition forces as stuck and hopeless. However regarding the abuse they haven't needed to do anything - it appears that a great many people are capable of synthesizing a massive spread of torture and abuse throughout the US army's ranks in Iraq using only their minds. The only people who can undo those knots are the people who tied them in the first place, it remains to be seen if any have the mental apparatus or the will to do so in this atmosphere of vietnam-esque defeatism.
Later
John
Posted by John Swaine at May 14, 2004 04:19 AM