The Great Satan

The current issue of National Review advocates
that the US adopt Saddam Hussein`s policies toward
Iraqis. Nothing less will subdue them, says the
conservative publication. To beat them, National
Review says, we must become like them.

No sooner said than done. The US has appointed Saddam
Hussein`s Republican Guard General, Jasim Muhammed Saleh
to deal with the Fallajuh insurgency. And, judging from
news reports and photographs of tortured Iraqis, the US
has put Saddam Hussein himself back in charge of the
notorious prison, Abu Ghraib.

US prestige will never recover from the photos of

Americans abusing Iraqi detainees. With no Iraqi
weapons of mass destruction, with no terrorist link
between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden, President
Bush`s last remaining excuse for his invasion of Iraq
was his boast that the torture prisons have been closed.

In his war propaganda, President Bush portrays
America as a morally superior country whose innate
virtue is the reason we are in Iraq. America alone is
willing to tax its citizens and send its sons to die in
order to bring freedom and democracy to other lands.
Bush describes our mission as one in which our troops
are dying and we are spending hundreds of billions of
dollars not to acquire a colony or to control the oil,
but to liberate Iraqi women and to make Iraqis safe from
torture.

With the US now guilty of war crimes as defined by

Article 3 of the Geneva Convention, our
sanctimonious president will never again be able to wear
American virtue on his sleeve without the entire world
laughing in his face.

The US military is making a big show of dealing with
the Saddam Hussein imitators in its ranks, but the
sickening fact is that both the US government and the
American media sat on the story for one month, keeping
it a secret until the photos began circulating
independently.

The

neocons, whose war this is, were quick to say that
the US should be judged by what it proclaims, not by
what it does. What`s a little torture after all,
compared to building freedom and democracy?

It was ten minutes into the news hour on the day the
story broke before the Ministry of Propaganda, a.k.a.
Fox News, could bring itself to mention, fleetingly, the
torture story. Americans who rely on Fox News for their
understanding of the war must be scratching their heads.

By showing the

true nature of the US occupation, the photos may
have broken the rush to wider war and the return to

military conscription. Polls released at the end of
April show that a majority of Americans had soured on
the war prior to the torture story. The photograhic
evidence that US troops are committing atrocities will
further reduce support for the war.

The impact on the Muslim world will be different. For
decades extremists have called the US “the Great Satan.”
The US invasion and violent occupation of Iraq have
given credibility to this characterization of America.
Our Middle Eastern puppets are sending us frantic
signals that unprecedented hatred of America is
endangering the stability of their countries. One thing
is certain: the photographs showing a female US soldier

laughing at the sexual humiliation of Muslim men
will not make Americans safer.

COPYRIGHT CREATORS
SYNDICATE, INC.

Paul
Craig Roberts was Associate Editor of the WSJ editorial
page, 1978-80, and columnist for “Political Economy.”
During 1981-82 he was Assistant Secretary of the
Treasury for Economic Policy. He is the author of



Supply-Side Revolution: An Insider`s Account of
Policymaking in Washington.