Getting Tough — the Last Refuge of the Incompetent
Posted by
Kevin
So, apparently, Abu Gharib is okay, because it means we are getting tough, and it means that we are showing those dirty Arabs a thing or two. Of all the defenses of the Administration, this is perhaps the most pathetic. Never mind the complete and utter lack of morality and human decency. It’s the complete and utter stupidity of the contention that leaps out at me.
Prisoner abuse is not a sign of toughness, its a sign of weakness. It is an admission that the society you have structured is so weak, so rotten, so absolutely and utterly devoid of strength that the slightest push will send it crumbling to the ground to shatter into a million useless pieces. There is a reason that torture is usually reserved to repressive regimes — because without repression, those regimes could not stand. Saddam wasn’t strong because he had a 12,000 man bodyguard and rape rooms — he had a 12,000 man bodyguard and rape rooms because he was weak.
And now the United States has said the exact same thing. The torture scandal clearly tells the world that the US’s ideals and army are useless for building a friendly — much less democratic — Iraq. Because we have to rely on systematic torture, the Arab street knows that we are failing. Torture is an admission of weakness. The pictures of Abu Gharib aren’t going to scare anyone, they are going to encourage people. Not only will it infuriate the Iraqis, it will tell the resistance that the United States is failing.
No, if the United States were winning, if the United States were strong, we would not have had to risk our moral and political standing in the world — our greatest strengths — in order to maintain control in Iraq. There are two lessons the Arab street will learn from the torture scandal, and neither will frighten the forces of repression: the United States is lying when it talks of human decency and democracy, and the United Sates is weak.
