Moral defeat

By Abdel-Alim Mohamed

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What happened in Abu Ghraib and other prisons in Iraq was not the action of a lunatic fringe, of an undisciplined few, of runaway sadists. The sexual abuse, the slight to human dignity, the terrorising of inmates are crimes for which those high up the US chain of command must be held accountable. The acts of torture and humiliation, collective and systematic as they were, were committed with the knowledge of military intelligence, the CIA and the Pentagon. The crimes are punishable under international law as well as under the statutes of the International Criminal Court. More importantly, they are signs of the moral decay of the world's sole superpower.

For a country that speaks so eloquently of democracy and human rights in other regions, that boasts of the freedom and progress it is bringing to Iraq, the horror of Abu Ghraib is a more than a disciplinary lapse, a military footnote, a glitch in a smooth working system. It is a moral defeat of unthinkable dimension, a crime with infinite political, let alone legal, consequences.

Superpowers need credibility to perform, for global leadership cannot be sustained on smart bombs alone. Superpowers need a semblance of probity, a reputation for fair play if they want to maintain their credibility. Superpowers have to inspire confidence, entice emulation and offer guidance. This is exactly where the Americans have failed. Instead of winning hearts and minds, they have made further enemies. The evidence that these crimes have been committed has been provided by digital cameras, in a timely, irrefutable and damning manner. Will digital cameras do to George Bush what Watergate once did to Nixon?

This week's Soapbox speaker is deputy director of Al-Ahram's Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.