I just heard the interruptor maximus Chris Matthews say that Abu Ghraib has engendered "centuries of hate" towards America. He was breathing heavily with a former spook, Robert Baer, who suggested that we won't "get over this in our lifetimes."
This need by asshole anti-Bush partisans to beat up on this country's military and leadership week after week over Abu Ghraib is absolutely depraved. The self-abuse is beyond all reason. "Centuries of hate" over what? Sexually humiliating a small group of prisoners is a greater crime than decades of filling mass graves and debasing Iraqi society? The stupidity of a few soldiers now trumps all of that?
Enough of the hyperbolic declarations and ridiculous "understandings" of Muslim sensibilities. Isn't it somehow condescending to reinforce this notion of cultural immutability ---as though Iraqis are incapable of ultimately seeing these acts in their proper prespective as aberrant? As though they lack the intellectual and emotional maturity to accept the true insignificance of those crimes for their society as a whole?
True freedom and popular representation for Iraq will lift the stain of Abu Ghraib. Stop acting as though we have irrevocably damaged our chances to liberate them from real terror.