Escalation

[adderslj]

You know, we'd just worked ourselves into a nice self-flagellation frenzy over how EVIL we are for the way some people have treated Iraqi prisoners, and then the Islamic Extremists comes along and do something so much more horrible that our guys end up looking like petty children.

Anyone proud to be a member of the human race right now? I thought not.

(Yes. I watched the video. It was horrible, disturbing, sickening. We can't afford to hide from this.)

Comments

[fraserspeirs.livejournal.com]

This is the 'beheading' video? I haven't seen it, but even thinking about it is pretty chilling.

Where do we go from here? This execution isn't something that hasn't been done before. It hardly stands to reason that Abu Ghraib was the straw that broke the camel's back, despite the claims.

[adders.livejournal.com]

You're right, of course. It's almost certaily political opportunism, rather than true revenge for the event that happened in the prison.

It's a really media-savvy move, waiting for the furore to just start to die down, and then re-igniting it with this act.

[maliszew.livejournal.com]

Stuff like this makes me question the prevailing thesis that al-Qaeda is all that smart. I mean, the firestorm over Abu Ghraib was dying down, but it had done a good job of besmirching the coalition's goals and intentions. Then along come these nutcases screaming "God is great" while they behead an unarmed Jewish American in front of a video camera. Only the most relativistic among us could maintain anything like moral equivalence about these two very different acts. That video is, at least in America, serving as a reminder of what's at stake and how the bad guys really are.

[adders.livejournal.com]

That's interesting, but does bear out some difference between our different sides of the Atlantic. Over here, it is being construed as another example of the terrible things that the invasion of Iraq has brought on.

I suspect Tony Blair has more to fear from this than George Bush.

[maliszew.livejournal.com]

I suspect Tony Blair has more to fear from this than George Bush.

That was always true, wasn't it?

(And it's a shame)

[adders.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Blair has gambled pretty much everything on Iraq.

[maliszew.livejournal.com]

I've always found this fact very strange. People can easily dismiss Bush as some kind of idiotic warmonger, but Blair? The two men are so different politically and personally. That Blair decided to stake his premiership on the war has always been a reassurance to me. Why would he do that if he didn't believe the Iraq endeavor was both necessary and worth the risks?

[adders.livejournal.com]

Well, the prevailing view on this side of the Atlantic is that he's convinced himself that Britain's future lies alongside America and we should support the US in everything. Of course, the fact that this isn't always true at international political level is conveniently ignored.

Now, the Archbishop of Centerbury, who has actually met and discussed this with Blair, says that he thinks that Blair is doing what he believes to be right. Given that the ABoC opposes the war, I'm inclined to trust his judgement on this.

[maliszew.livejournal.com]

Well, the prevailing view on this side of the Atlantic is that he's convinced himself that Britain's future lies alongside America and we should support the US in everything. Of course, the fact that this isn't always true at international political level is conveniently ignored.

That's interesting. The prevalent conspiracy theory in the US is that Blair supported Bush in exchange for Bush's support for greater UK integration into the EU, which Blair is seen to want. Why Bush's endorsement would actually help in this regard is never adequately explained.

Given that the ABoC opposes the war, I'm inclined to trust his judgement on this.

That sounds right to me, I think.

[jfs.livejournal.com]

The prevalent conspiracy theory in the US is that Blair supported Bush in exchange for Bush's support for greater UK integration into the EU, which Blair is seen to want. Why Bush's endorsement would actually help in this regard is never adequately explained.

I'd not heard that theory before, but I could see how it works, if you consider it more like Blair saying to Bush "you won't stop being friends with me if I start being friends with them, will you?"

(Simplistic, I know, but I do think at times that politics is just the playground writ large.)

[doctorcaligari.livejournal.com]

Well, unfortunately, it's apparently not at all unlikely that some of the not-yet-released U.S. photos and videos depict murder (I suspect they probably have instances of rape at the very least), since murder and rape are among the accusations being investigated.

But leaving that aside -- personally, as an American, I find getting into the whole "which is worse, sexual abuse by Americans or murders by extreme Islamicists" debate unhelpful. The point is, that's *not* what we're supposed to be doing over there.

There's absolutely no question in my mind that al-Qaeda and other fanatic groups who fall into that general mindset are the bad guys, and must be stopped. They really *don't* need to keep providing brutal, sadistic, horrifying reminders in the form of videotaped beheading murders, or mass murder of people in America or Spain or Saudi Arabia, in order to keep that fact clear in my mind. Perhaps there are other more forgetful sorts who have more trouble with the concept, but I'm not among them.

But none of that changes the fact that what the U.S. MPs (and anybody who may have been egging them on) did at Abu Ghraib was bad, evil, sickening, against Geneva Convention and just wrong, wrong, wrong. And since the whole case for the U.S. being over there kind of rests on the premise that we're supposed to be better than al-Qaeda and better than Saddam, things like this are a real problem. There's just no getting around it.

[adders.livejournal.com]

No disagreement from me - my point was general despair at the depths to which humanity as a whole will sink, not a particular finger-pointing exercise.

[doctorcaligari.livejournal.com]

Fair enough.