ON BEING CHEATED
I feel it, and I wonder if you do so as well.
I feel, in some strange way, the stupid, obscene actions of a few individuals in the current prison scandals in Iraq and, vaguely, are of more concern to me than I like for them to be. After all, those individuals represent us as a nation to millions of people around the world. They conducts reflects upon us.
In this past few weeks, I have had this feeling of having been, both cheated and humiliated by the thoughtless actions of these few people many of whom wear the uniform which marks them as being one of us - a guise I would gladly wear again if the occasion demanded that I do so. Their strangely immature and evil-oriented conduct leaves me with a teasing idea that we at home might have found some way to have prevented such a lapse of basic morality rules as the prison excesses bring so vividly into our daily lives.
A great many Americans have a somewhat odd concept of patriotism. It is not to be noised about with horns or cymbals and paraded on display for others to see. It is aroused only when America is made to appear be weak, irresolute, unsteady, or ruthless. One of the better ways to arouse patriotic feeling in the Punted States is to make the nation appear to be potential subject for ridicule or satire.
Do not feel any guilt because of this feeling that the lewd conduct of those charged with guarding the captives. I realize there are plenty of people around who still think it logical to exact information by the use of threats of physical violence. - some or them severe and permanent. When information is extracted through violent threats and torture, it is, far too often, inaccurate because victims will say anything they feel they think are they are expected to say. It is a losing proposition regardless of how elaborate cover-up schemes may be devised. I have heard this view expressed often in recent weeks and it seems valid to me.
We might, as some suggest, contend that we all share some of the reponsability for such conditions because we have opposed or failed to support various portions of our defense budgets which you widely educated the mass of the national military-age population. One of the common criticisms of the National Selective Service idea was that it drew up the so=-called Ã?ƒ‚“dregsÃ?ƒ‚” of our society in so faeducaionalal averages were concerned.. That resulted in a military force which was markedly ignorant. The present system of depending on volunteers and on National Guard systems as the sole source of replacements should be somewhat higher educational levels.
If we bear any blame for such weaknesses it appears to all such educational insufficiencies. Take that thinking a bit deeper and we become someone to blame for all sorts of meanness and depravity. That portion of blame we might be said to share all started back way back in our neglect of general educational needs for all citizens many years ago. It is not of recent vintage.
It, perhaps,, may well be that we need a brisk kick in the pants from time-to-time just to remind us that such unseemly conduct is a part of civilian life may well seep into military as well.
a.l.m. June 4, 2004 [c573wds]
