A response to Bush Administration Sanctions Torture and Terrorism:  "Good" vs. "Evil":

A correspondent forwarded the following message to me on June 17, 2004:

Rob's reply
Being a busy kind of guy, I didn't respond to this until March 28, 2005:

>> Do YOU care about Arab outrage? <<

Yes, because it impels them to continue terrorizing us. If you want more Americans to die, keep stoking Islamic hatred.

Similarly, if you want bees to sting you or wolves to bite you, stick a hand into their midst and strike them. Try not to act surprised when the inevitable response occurs.

The American misdeeds in Abu Ghraib are just that stupid.

>> Arabs are "outraged" over the humiliation of Iraqi prisoners at the hands of a few American servicemen. <<

A few American servicemen who were following the orders of their superiors. In fact, Rumsfeld and company authorized illegal tactics in Afghanistan's prisons. Rumsfeld's own memo documents that. It's probable that he and other officials authorized the same techniques in Iraq as well.

>> Where were these "outraged" Arabs when necrophiliacs in Fallujah mutilated four American soldiers <<

Two wrongs don't make a right—a moral truism this person apparently hasn't learned.

Americans are supposedly following the American standard, not the Arab standard. If we don't live up to our own standards, what does it matter if Arabs are outraged? Americans should be outraged by our military's failures in Abu Ghraib, and a majority of them are.

The Bush administration knew about the prison abuses since last November, at least, and did nothing to stop them. Again, what does it matter what Arabs think about that? Americans have every right to be outraged that our elected officials are allowing violations of the Geneva Conventions to occur. It reduces us to the same level as the terrorists we supposedly abhor.

We've killed tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis. Some estimate as many as 100,000. And they've mutiliated or beheaded a handful of Americans. The outrage is proportional to these numbers.

Let's suppose the actual numbers are 30,000 vs. 30 dead. Based on these numbers, the Iraqis have the moral right to protest a thousand times more vociferously than we have. And that's roughly what has happened. They haven't protested the few American deaths because they have a thousand times as many Iraqi deaths to protest.

To reiterate, for every dead American contractor, there are roughly 1,000 dead Iraqi men, women, and children who had nothing to do with terrorism. Who were victims of terrorism themselves, in fact, at the hands of Saddam Hussein. Now they're dead victims of terrorism because we killed them for no good reason.

We killed them because Bush wanted revenge for his daddy, contracts for his business buddies, and reelection for his Republicans. Iraqis have every moral reason in the world to be outraged over this. Thousands dead because Bush went to war based on evidence he made up.

Again, he's sent many more people to their deaths than the terrorists killed on 9/11. If this writer has an answer for this, let's hear it. He doesn't, of course, because it's a cold hard fact.

This moral calculation doesn't even take into account all the practical costs of Bush's folly. $200 million-plus spent on nothing except undoing the chaos we created. A decrease in our civil rights. An increase in terrorist acts since 9/11. Using the government's own figures, the world is measurably LESS safe since Bush launched his war of revenge.

>> Where were these "outraged" Arabs when "palestinians" mutilated and dragged the bodies of two IDF soldiers in Ramallah? <<

They were probably too busy mourning their dead from misguided Israeli missiles. After all, the Israelis have killed more Palestinians than the other way around—by a factor of two or three to one.

>> Where were these "outraged" Arabs when 19 Muslims blew up the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on 9/11/01? <<

Many Arabs did express shock and outrage at the 9/11 attacks. The world was united in support of the United States. The Bush administration has squandered this unity by invading an Arab country that had nothing to do with 9/11. We shouldn't be surprised that Iraqis are fighting back after we've occupied their country, killed their women and children, destroyed their infrastructure, and imprisoned them on false pretenses. (Seventy to ninety percent of the prisoners in Abu Ghraib aren't guilty of anything, according to the people who know.)

>> Where were these "outraged" Arabs when Muslims continue to slaughter Sudanese Christians? <<

Where's the Bush administration's outrage? Why isn't it doing something about the slaughter? Bush supposedly invaded Iraq to free people from death and tyranny—that's the latest excuse he invented, anyway. Why isn't he invading Sudan for the same reason?

>> Where were these "outraged" Arabs when Muslims blew up Pan Am Flight 103? <<

Probably in the same place as "outraged" Americans when the US blew up Iran Air flight 655 in the first Gulf War.

>> Where were these "outraged" Arabs when 300,000 Iraqi's bodies were found in mass graves? <<

They were probably complaining about how Reagan and Bush Sr. allowed US corporations to supply Saddam Hussein with the arms and chemicals he needed to kill those Iraqis. After all, if you unleash a mad dog and it kills someone, who's ultimately responsible? The mad dog or you?

>> Where was their indignation, folks? You know where? NOWHERE. <<

Wrong, but how would this whiner know? He probably watches Fox News and thinks Saddam was behind 9/11. He also probably thinks the world is united behind the US except for the Arabs. Wrong again: Our Caucasian brethren in Western Europe also think we were wrong to invade a country that had nothing to do with 9/11.

The entire world, not just the Arab world, is united against us for declaring our right to invade and kill wherever we want whenever we feel like it. Only a simpleton like George W. Bush could take the worldwide approval after 9/11 and turn it into worldwide disapproval.

>> It's time for those who DO know the difference between right and wrong to tell the world that these "outraged" idiots do not warrant any sympathy. <<

Wrong is killing people for no good reason. The US has now killed more innocent people in Afghanistan and Iraq than Islamic terrorists have killed in the last 50 years. That makes the US more wrong.

>> We're waiting for these "outraged" Arabs to get up the honesty and courage to be disgusted BY THEIR OWN people for the disgusting crimes they have committed against others. <<

I worry most about our conduct, not theirs. Because our conduct is our responsibility just like their conduct is theirs.

I'm waiting for "outraged" Americans to get up the honesty and courage to be disgusted by our own people for the disgusting crimes we have committed against others. Crimes like overthrowing democratically elected governments or supporting ruthless dictators (e.g., Saddam) as they murdered their own people.

>> Then we'll take their outrage to heart. <<

"Then"? The majority of US citizens think Bush fabricated the reasons for invading Iraq. They think the war was wrong and 1,500 Americans have died for no reason.

Here, I'll simplify it for this person. The Islamic terrorists who killed 3,000 innocent people on 9/11 were wrong. The American militarists who have killed tens of thousands of innocent people are more wrong. The more you kill, the wronger you are.

Thus endeth today's lesson in morality.

Rob

Related links
Prison abuse shows America's values
Terrorism:  "good" vs. "evil"
America's cultural mindset

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