Sinking deeper into the mire, 2004

The latest new of prisoner abuses in Iraq , while horrifying, will unlikely be the last “un-American” act which will surface and we will fail to want to own up to. While our current administration, and those who, failing to speak out against it and so silently condone its actions, consistently shout out to the world that our message is one of peace and freedom and democracy, the world, like us, tends to judge nations not by their rhetoric, but by what it sees that nation do and what results may come of its actions. For despite the lack of weapons of mass destruction, have we not continually justified our presence in Iraq by citing the worst behavior of its former government? Do many of us not also rage silently against the Islamic world, judging it by the worst behavior of its worst fanatics?
It shames me deeply that some of our men and women, sworn to uphold and defend the constitution of the United States of America and the “inalienable rights” that we fought our revolutionary war to gain for all men, would commit so callous and hateful acts on other human beings, especially those who are so completely powerless as prisoners of war. Let us not forget, too, those detainees that our government is holding outside of the borders of our beloved nation, so that they do not have to grant those same rights to them. There can be no doubt that the offenders involved in the specific cases, and not the administration, are personally responsible for those despicable acts, but Americans who truly love the ideals that this great country was founded on should remember that the vision of the greates of our leaders was one which sought to improve the quality of life of all people. In Vietnam we got involved to help win a Civil war, in hopes of achieving democracy, and the quality of life that comes with it. The current situation in Iraq is not the same; we weren’t invited, we aren’t opposing an organized army of a relatively equal super-power as we saw in the USSR during Vietnam, and we have no clear objective, militarily speaking, that our troops can rely upon. If we try to imagine applying our own self-righteous judgment of actions and not intent to ourselves, how could we not see that the actions of our government are contrary to what it is saying. From the Whitehouse we constantly hear about damage control and how bad these images are going to affect the view towards us of the rest of the world, and we continually see the current administration using marketing techniques in its dissemination of information about its actions to us, its own citizens.