Abu Ghraib is playing out as we might have expected. A few non-coms, at the bottom of the hierarchy, are going to jail or will. The only high-ranking officer demoted is a woman from the National Guard. The White House attorney who scorned the Geneva Accords was promoted to the Justice Department. The Secretary of Defense and his top Pentagon aides, who encouraged the outrages in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, continue to man their posts.
As an American, I shake my head sadly at this terrible evidence that we, too, can torture. Can rationalize torture. Can find reasons of state to justify our inhumanity to other men.
I’m sure many Americans share my disappointment, but hardly all.
A lot of Americans believe Abu Ghraib is OK because of 9/11. Many blame the "liberal press" for reporting it.
I react as I do because I'm a skeptic, burdened by History’s huge, repeated cruelties in the name of God and truth and the good. And worse yet, the knowledge I am capable of it, too.
They react as people of faith. Their faith goes to the nation, the flag, the armed forces, their morality, sometimes their religion.
I offer this as something to ponder the next time the Pope or John Leo or an idiot neighbor explains that "relativism" is a great danger.
PS Journalism is born of 18th century rationalism, which honors skepticism.
That is the source of some of the distrust of the press these days – in this age of faith, believers are reacting against stories based on skepticism. Not the only reason, of course.