Torture in Iraq

Pictures of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi prisoners have now been broadcast by the Arab media. This follows up the documentation of such abuse at Abu Ghraib, as cataloged by the U.S. Army and reported in The New Yorker. The report found several instances of “sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses” at Abu Ghraib. The acts include:

Breaking chemical lights and pouring the phosphoric liquid on detainees; pouring cold water on naked detainees; beating detainees with a broom handle and a chair; threatening male detainees with rape; allowing a military police guard to stitch the wound of a detainee who was injured after being slammed against the wall in his cell; sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps a broom stick, and using military working dogs to frighten and intimidate detainees with threats of attack, and in one instance actually biting a detainee.

British troops are facing similar allegations. Both Tony Blair and George W. Bush have expressed “disgust” at the acts. The Associated Press reports on the anger in the Arab world:

Egypt’s Akhbar el-Yom newspaper splashed photographs of the U.S. soldiers posing by naked, hooded inmates on page one with the banner headline “The Scandal.” Al-Wafd, an opposition paper, displayed similar photos beneath the headline, “The Shame!”…. “Shame on America. How can they convince us now that it is the bastion of democracy, freedoms and human rights? Why do we blame our dictators then?” asked Mustafa Saad, who was reading morning papers in a downtown Cairo cafe. Mohammed Hassan Taha, an editor at Nile Sports News Television, said Arabs should not allow the matter to pass quietly. “This is not humiliation of Iraqis, it is humiliation of all Arabs,” Taha said while buying Akhbar el-Yom at a newsstand.

No question, these reports are a stain on America’s image to the world. I share the disgust and revulsion that Glenn Reynolds and Jonah Goldberg have expressed on this issue. Here’s the thing, though — I feel a similar involuntary revulsion at reading press reports on the reaction of “the Arab street” to these pictures. Does anyone think that any of the Arabs interviewed for this story displayed even the slightest hint of rage or shame at the Arabs who burned four American civilian contractors in Fallujah in March? I’m not even remotely suggesting that this redeems anything done by U.S. soldiers in Abu Ghraib. And tactically, this will obviously inflame Arab resentments. But spare me the righteous indignation of the Arab street. UPDATE: Lots of interesting reactions to this post. I take Andrew Lazarus’ point that Muslim clerics in Fallujah did in fact condemn the desecration of the American corpses — whether that sentiment was widespread across the Arab street remains unclear. This commenter correctly points out what I had tried to say in the post: “[T]his is not moral tit for tat. This a grave political setback.” However, I think MD got what I was trying to say:

how is pointing out hypocrisy the same as excusing a crime? The post says nothing about ‘tit for tat.’ It speaks to a hypocrisy that would condemn the barbaric treatment of Iraqi prisoners in this instance but stay silent in the face of human rights abuses committed by non-Americans.

ANOTHER UPDATE: Matthew Yglesias, Brad DeLong, and especially PaulB in the comments raise some trenchant and valid objections to the tone/content of my post (though Brad is stretching my position by more than a little bit — Tacitus explains the distinction I was trying to raise better than I). This may have been one of those times in which I let my “mild nationalism” (as Matt put it) get the better of me and, as a result, compose a post with too much truculence and too little penitence in it. So, let’s close this with a clear statement — the actions at Abu Ghraib were inexcusable and despicable acts that are repugnant in and of themselves. They needlessly inflame an already inflamed Arab street, and knock us down a peg in the eyes of other countries and their citizens.