Pay no Attention to the Atrocity behind the Curtain

Perhaps I'm being a bit cynical. I was listening to Rush while driving around at lunch a bit and caught bits and pieces of a discussion about Abu Ghraib. And he posed, indirectly, an interesting question; who should we be madder at, those who performed the torture or those who recorded it (leaving aside for a moment the fact that they were largely the same individuals).

In other words would it have been better if the torture had occurred without being revealed to the world.

That appears to be Diana West's opinion, and she throws in a little media conspiracy to back her argument up.

". . . Abu Ghraib is, more than anything else, the fulfillment of the media dream, the Vietnam they think they never had (or had a very long time ago), the aberration to obsess about, the disgrace to exult in and the opportunity -- and this is key -- to shift the political landscape. That is why 30-some instances of abuse at Abu Ghraib, which range from acts resembling extreme fraternity hazing to actual sexual assault, have sucked all the oxygen from the conflict's urgent questions of life and death, truth and falsehood, and civilization and barbarism.

But isn't Abu Ghraib just such an urgent question? No. The humiliations and assaults perpetrated by a "handful" -- and how the media hate that non-collective word -- of American servicemen and women are already against both our laws and our sense of decency. There is nothing here to settle (but please -- no more women in combat theaters). Criminals will be punished. That is why this is not a Big Story, at the top of the president's list, the focal point of the world."

Short story; there's nothing there, but the media is determined to imagine something up for themselves. In order to win the argument over Vietnam. Simple enough, if she's correct that this was a handful of monsters who were acting largely on their own. The story changes a bit once you question whether or not they thought they were supposed to be doing this. Once you wonder if they had orders that led them to believe that this was an appropriate way to act. Once you wonder about the role civilian contractors were playing in this scenario.

But if you think about that kind of stuff at all, than obviously Diana West's article hasn't had the desired effect.