"I and others held the 'west' as a beacon of freedom and liberty not just to be admired, but emulated. Evidently I am wrong," writes a bitter Mahmood in comments following his post "How the efforts of 6 destroy those of 130,000":
I am not comparing the American or British with him, nor will I ever, because I thought the "west" collectively had higher morals than savages like Saddam or any of quite a few in this area of the world who join him in this description . . . This time however, it was supposedly the highest trained, feared and respected armies of the world who perpetrated crimes which in some circles is being condoned as immature pranks. Or worse, compared lightly as this is nothing, the previous administration has done worse. As if these are valid excuses for the inhumanity demonstrated in these situations.
There are no excuses for the beastly behavior on display in those pictures, and we feel certain that -- beyond the usual suspects of far left and right -- most Americans share Mahmood's heartbreak and disgust. Rather than give up on the promise of liberty and justice, however, we are encouraged by our profound belief that all those responsible -- both actual perpetrators and the superiors responsible for their behavior -- will indeed be brought to justice for all the world to see. We would call Mahmood's attention to the words of Iraqi blogger Omar of Iraq the Model cited in the previous post:
The crime was a step backwards, but the way it’s being dealt with is -- in my opinion -- a step forwards on the way to strengthen the trust between the coalition and the Iraqis because this will help putting an end to many of the conspiracy theory . . . ideas that many Iraqis have in their minds, and this will tell Iraqis that the Americans are not hiding facts about their soldiers' behavior here, and once they feel that something wrong is happening they will move to correct it.
Comments