Diana West has an article today on the reporting on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and how it contrasts with reports on Saddam's torture chambers. I think the argument goes some like this.
1. Saddam's torture chambers were far worse than what we did.
2. The media has spent considerably more time on the Abu Ghraib prison scandal than they have reporting on recently released videos of Saddam's torture (which, apparently, included Saddam feading a prisoner to his dogs.
3. Therefore the Media is a bunch of traitorous hypocrites for which hanging is too good.
There are a few ways to puncture this argument.
1. This is a weak argument which is why it is up front, but it is a factual argument. You can't show pictures of a dog eating a man on TV. You can show pictures of a dog threatening a man on TV. This accounts for a percentage of it.
2. This is, in fact, old news. Those few who need to be reminded that Saddam Hussein was a monster probably aren't the sort to be convinced by these pictures ("You mean you actually believed that film was real? Look at teh watch on the third soldier over--see it's reflection? When you blow up that image it clearly shows a smiling Dick Cheney.")
3. More to the point, we aren't competing with Saddam Hussein. I don't hold the American government or the American Military to the standard of Saddam Hussein. I expect us to be better than him, and not just a little better. Instead I hold our government and military to the standard set by their past performance.
4. The American people are responsible for Abu Ghraib; they are not responsible for Saddam's tortures. This argument can be taken to far, but we need to know what our governmental and military officials are doing because they represent us. Saddam Hussein does not.
So I think Abu Ghraib is a more important story than Saddam's torture chambers. But that's just me.
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