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Honolulu Lite Charles Memminger |
Iraqi prison abuses
hurt us, not themAt about the same time a Hawaii soldier was killed in Iraq, my next-door neighbor, a reservist helicopter mechanic, shipped out to Afghanistan, leaving behind a wife and two small children.
I'd bet now that there's no one in Hawaii who isn't personally involved in this war on terror, either because a family member has been dispatched to the theaters of battle or because they know a neighbor, friend or a former high school or college classmate who has. The degree of separation between those who are fighting this war and the rest of us is extraordinarily narrow.
Of course, the rest of us are supposed to be on "alert," but, frankly, I've forgotten what color alert we're in and even what that color would mean. In these days where the attention span of most people is the length of a moderate yawn, you can't keep people on alert indefinitely. (I'm on alert. I'm on alert. I'm on ... Oh, look! "American Idol" is on tonight! And there's a puppy in the back yard. What was I doing? I was on ... on ... on ... Oh yeah! -- on my way to Blockbuster to rent "Kill Bill Vol. 2.")
And because the fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan has become so personal, we all felt revulsion, a sick feeling in the pit of our stomach, when we saw pictures of our people abusing Iraqi prisoners.
I guess we are supposed to worry that the Arab world, which merely hated us before, now REALLY hates us and that on the so-called "Arab Street," Americans are considered hypocrites and thugs, no better at protecting human rights than Saddam Hussein.
I DON'T CARE what the Arabs think. Radical Islamic fundamentalists have always hated Americans. We've always been infidels, people who do not believe in a true god. No amount of good deeds by Americans is ever going to change that.
What makes me sick to my stomach is that while our family members, neighbors and friends are fighting and dying for a righteous cause -- freedom and human rights for oppressed people in two countries -- a handful of idiots were betraying their country by abusing and humiliating the Iraqi prisoners in their charge.
Make no mistake. Only a few idiots are involved. But they're still our idiots. Forget the "Arab Street," these jerks should have worried about what "Main Street" would think about their detestable actions. And Bishop Street. And Kamehameha Highway. And Lilipuna Loop.
Disgust turns to anger as you wonder, What in the hell could these American prison guards have been thinking? What kind of pathological ignorance was involved here?
Ironically, the most righteous thing America can now do is not build free nations and destroy al-Qaida, but see that those Americans involved in abusing Iraqi prisoners face swift justice -- not to remind the Arabs and the rest of the world that we are better than that despicable episode, but to remind ourselves. Our neighbors, friends and family members on the front lines deserve no less.
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Charles Memminger, winner of National Society of Newspaper Columnists awards, appears Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays. E-mail cmemminger@starbulletin.com