Outrage
This is to Senator Jim Inhofe of Oklahoma, who was “more outraged at the outrage” against Iraqi prisoner abuse:
Dear Sir,
I understand your feelings. They are present in my 4-year-old when he feel he has been wronged. America is a great nation. America is a civilized nation. As such, we live be certain rules. We hold life, liberty, dignity, and other principles in high regard. We believe we have high moral standards. We believe in a presumption of innocence. We do not act like savages and treat other peoples as objects for our own amusement. We do not, in general, condone sodomizing prisoners. When we reduce ourselves to the level of savagery shown in the Iraqi prison abuse photos, we disgrace ourselves and our principles.
If a nation as great as America cannot show restraint, cannot show respect, cannot show dignity and concern, how can we expect others to do so? You are not judged by your greatest acts, but by your most base. It is hard to get more base than what we have done in Iraq. We are not treating the Iraqis as equals, but as objects. As far as I know, we have not actually constructed any death camps, but is this behavior much different than that shown by the National Socialists in pre-WWII Germany? Do you consider the Iraqis to be an inferior race, somehow not worthy of the international laws that protect others?
If, as the Red Cross states, our own military intelligence estimates are that 70 to 90 percent of the Iraqis detained were “arrested by mistake”, then you are condoning the abuse and torture of innocent civilians. What exactly is the difference between you and any of Saddam’s thugs? Between you and Hitler’s followers? The only difference I see is that you are part of the group that is currently in power, and the regimes of Saddam Hussein and Adolph Hitler have toppled. If you are outraged by the outrage, you are either not paying attention, or are of the same evil as those you claim we are protecting Iraq and the world from. Either way, you have shamed yourself, you have shamed the people of Oklahoma, and you have shamed America.
