The Abu Ghraib photos and the anti-Muslim “free speech” fraud

[bemildred]

The release of more horrifying photographs and videos from Abu Ghraib prison sheds a revealing light on the hypocritical and genuinely sinister character of the supposed “free speech” campaign surrounding the publication of anti-Muslim cartoons in the European and international press.

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Salon’s Mark Benjamin explains that the material includes an investigative report summarizing the contents, which reads in part: “A review of all the computer media... revealed a total of 1,325 images of suspected detainee abuse, 93 video files of suspected detainee abuse, 660 images of adult pornography, 546 images of suspected dead Iraqi detainees, 29 images of soldiers in simulated sexual acts, 20 images of a soldier with a Swastika drawn between his eyes, 37 images of Military Working dogs being used in abuse of detainees and 125 images of questionable acts.”

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What was it New York Times columnist David Brooks wrote last week, in response to the protests over the racist Danish cartoons? “We in the West were born into a world that reflects the legacy of Socrates and the agora... We believe in progress and in personal growth. By swimming in this flurry of perspectives, by facing unpleasant facts, we try to come closer and closer to understanding... Our mind-set is progressive and rational. Your mind-set is pre-Enlightenment and mythological.”

Brooks simply put the most unctuous face on the argument, repeated endlessly in the media and the political establishment over the past few weeks, that an insuperable chasm separates “Western values” and the fanatical, barbaric Muslim world. Fred Barnes of the right-wing Weekly Standard was more blunt, informing viewers on the Fox News Channel that the cartoon controversy “tells us that our enemy... is not just Al Qaeda... That Muslims all over Europe and all over the world are certainly enemies of Western civilization... We see the Muslims’ contempt for democracy, for freedom of speech, for freedom of the press, and particularly, for freedom of religion.”

WSWS

[Trevelyan]

1. This arguement in true IMO, the wingers on AOL Messageboard really went

wild in seeing this rioting as a justification for anything done to Arabs. And will be used instead of the change to the Euro to attack Iran unless there are some very brave patriots in the Pentagon who are finally fed up with the abuse of our military in following the horrific PNAC plan of neverending war on the world.

[Ediacara]

2. I'm not sure I get the point of this article

Can one not be simultaneously appaled at Abu Ghraib; and also perplexed that one racist cartoon drawn by one artist can create protests condemning an entire nation?

[bemildred]

3. I can understand being fuddled by it, it doesn't make much sense.

But it's hardly new or unique to Islam; arousing the mob over
some trivial blather is a technique old as the hills. "I come to
bury Caesar, not to praise him" etc. etc. The interesting question
is why are both there both European and Islamic "leaders" anxious
to wake up to mob right now? It's worrisome.

[Briar]

4. I think the article has a lot of targets

but at heart it points out that "freedom of speech" (presented as a fundamental index of the West's superiority over barbaric Islam by the publishers of the cartoons and their defenders) is licensed when the victim is a demonised "other" and suppressed when the dignity of the State is threatened.

Where I think it errs is in supposing people would be shocked by the Abu Ghraib pictures. Many won't. Not all, of course - there are poeple of genuinely compassion and integrity out there, but many will see them (as they see the invasion itself, and Guantanamo, and the torture flights, and all the other abuses of international law committed by this government) as "pay-back" and take deep and sadistic satisfaction in them. I don't think we should underestimate the extent to which islam is now hated in the west and the permission this gives our governments to act as they like in the name of revenge.

[bemildred]

5. Yes, your 1st paragraph has it exactly right.

"Freedom of speech" has always offered only the most modest protections even in so called "advanced" societies. If they want to shut you up bad enough, ways will be found.