I appreciate the imagery the White House is trying to emphasize, but there’s something about Bush’s hospital visit today that strikes me as discomforting.
Bush visited with a group of Iraqis whose hands were viciously amputated by Saddam Hussein’s brutal regime. Each of the victims lost their hands while they were prisoners in the Abu Ghraib prison. Fortunately, these same prisoners are now in the United States receiving prosthetic hands donated by a foundation in Texas.
Approaching one of the Iraqis, Bush took the man’s prosthetic hand into his own and said, “I’m honored to shake the hand… of this great Iraqi citizen.”
Obviously, this is a photo-op with a message. I’m not trying to belittle the horrible suffering these men had to endure, but today’s hospital visit wasn’t about them as much as it was about Bush. By its own admission, the White House is re-launching another public relations effort in trying to boost public support for the war and Bush’s handling of it.
The message we’re supposed to take from today’s hospital appearance wasn’t exactly subtle, but it wasn’t exactly inspiring, either. Saddam tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib, cutting off prisoners’ hands with little or no anesthesia. On the other hand, we tortured prisoners at Abu Ghraib, but most of them lived and we now deserve credit for being really nice to Saddam’s victims.
So, the point Bush wants to emphasize seems to be that we’re no matter how bad we are, Saddam was worse.
This isn’t working.
It’s become a common talking point for the GOP and Joe Lieberman — no matter what, our torture can’t compare to Saddam’s torture. As Sen. James Inhofe (Lunatic-Okla.) recently said:
“I would guess that these prisoners wake up every morning thanking Allah that Saddam Hussein is not in charge of these prisons.”
Proponents, especially Inhofe, consistently fail to realize the moral bankruptcy upon which such arguments are predicated.
We are not supposed to be on the same moral plane as Saddam “Butcher of Baghdad” Hussein. To put us there, as the conservatives do, is an insult to all of us and to American ideals.
The Gadflyer’s Paul Waldman had a good take on this yesterday, explaining that the conservatives are “defining morality down.”
To listen to some on the right, it would appear that Saddam’s crimes offer a kind of get-out-of-jail free card for Americans, so long as they stop short of the truly horrific torture that marked the Iraqi dictator’s rule. So it’s OK to take a prisoner, strip him naked, deprive him of sleep, handcuff him in a “stress position” for hours on end, beat him, set dogs upon him, and photograph him in preparation for blackmail — so long as you don’t cut his fingers off.
So this is what it has come to. The administration and its allies have given us a new motto for the occupation of Iraq: “America: Not Quite As Bad As Saddam Hussein.”
[…]
So what are we to make of the new conservative argument, that the tactics of America’s enemies define the standard of moral conduct to which we must adhere? Though it may come in greatest volume from radio blowhards and troglodyte legislators, the administration has gotten into the act as well with its reminders of Saddam’s brutality. If God is on America’s side, divine favor didn’t stop our government from casting off inconvenient principles in a descent toward the morality of those we condemn. If all that remains is that we aren’t quite as awful as Saddam or Bin Laden, then the cost of this war will be measured in more than dollars and lives.
I wonder how many photo-ops Bush will have to attend before he realizes how offensive his implicit message is.