Not good
It’s hard not to be discouraged about the information coming out from the Taguba Report, as well as the additional pictures and private correspondence suggesting that the pattern of prisoner abuse was wider than originally thought. Josh Marshall links to this Sy Hersh quote last night on O’Reilly: First of all, it’s going to get ...
It's hard not to be discouraged about the information coming out from the Taguba Report, as well as the additional pictures and private correspondence suggesting that the pattern of prisoner abuse was wider than originally thought. Josh Marshall links to this Sy Hersh quote last night on O'Reilly:
It’s hard not to be discouraged about the information coming out from the Taguba Report, as well as the additional pictures and private correspondence suggesting that the pattern of prisoner abuse was wider than originally thought. Josh Marshall links to this Sy Hersh quote last night on O’Reilly:
First of all, it’s going to get much worse. This kind of stuff was much more widespread. I can tell you just from the phone calls I’ve had in the last 24 hours, even more, there are other photos out there. There are many more photos even inside that unit. There are videotapes of stuff that you wouldn’t want to mention on national television that was done. There was a lot of problems. There was a special women’s section. There were young boys in there. There were things done to young boys that were videotaped. It’s much worse. And the Maj. Gen. Taguba was very tough about it. He said this place was riddled with violent, awful actions against prisoners.
On top of all this, the White House’s official “I want it publicly known that I’m displeased with Rumsfeld but I’m not actually going to say it or do anything about it but leak it to the press” policy is, as Jacob Levy observes, truly bizarre. You can say, as Victor Davis Hanson did, that at least the U.S. is now coming to grips with the problem — and that the system worked in exposing these abuses. Glenn Reynolds and Tacitus offer their useful perspectives of what to do now. Me? I’ve moved beyond denial and anger and into depression. It’s not good any time Matthew Yglesias and Ramesh Ponnuru agree that things are bad. As Phil Carter put it:
We are advancing an idea of Western liberalism (small ‘l’) against an ideal of Islamic radicalism…. To win this war, we must be seen as the guys wearing the white hats. Suffice to say, these images utterly destroy that effort, and will make it very hard to convince foreign nations and nationals of our commitment to the rule of law, and to Western liberal ideals.
Daniel W. Drezner is a professor of international politics at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University and co-host of the Space the Nation podcast. Twitter: @dandrezner
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