Images are powerful. The cross—play between the pictures of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib, on the one hand, and the horrific beheading of Nick Berg, on the other, is only the beginning, however. Lee Harris, in a characteristically brilliant essay at Tech Central Station, looks ahead to the images which will soon be coming to the attention of the American public: American soldiers being tried in Iraq for crimes against Iraqi prisoners, with howling mobs of Iraqis in full—throated anger protesting the injuries against their honor.

Harris notes that the abstractions of the effort to 'bring to justice'  the barbarians, whose outrages have been seared into our minds, are far less powerful than the images themselves. When Americans see their own soldiers, those who have given up so much to defend us, are the only ones being visibly brought to justice, they will not be happy. Nor will the critics in the Arab world be appeased. The trials will be a lose/lose proposition.

When the average American sees images of other average Americans on trial in Iraq, howled and screamed at by mobs of Iraqis, whose side you do think he will be on —— the side of the Iraqis or the side of men and women whose only difference from himself is that they were assigned to a miserable job in a hellhole of a prison in the midst of a war that isn't quite a war, fighting an enemy who isn't quite an enemy.

Harris then moves in on the really important idea: that Americans are being given more and more reasons to hate our enemies, and to define our enemies very, very broadly.

The enemy's compelling images show what we are fighting against in Iraq; but there are no equally compelling images that show us what we are fighting for —— an "image gap" that is already causing many well wishers of the administration to question a policy in which we are endlessly willing to help a people who refuses to offer us even a single image of themselves caught in the act of displaying friendliness toward us —— a people who, on the contrary, take every photo opportunity given to them to show how much and how deeply they hate us; and who, when not given such an opportunity by us, are quite able to make one for themselves.

Once again, the communications short—circuit caused by political correctness is leading in a very dangerous direction —— one which will be a surprise to all of those who live in the world of official public pronouncements:

Right now the Middle American psyche is being overwhelmed with reasons to hate the entire Arab world; and yet the Bush administration insists that we are in Iraq to help the Arabs. Unfortunately, the administration seems to be completely unaware of how sick and tired of Arabs the average American has become, unaware because it is politically incorrect to express such sentiments of outright hostility: but what is politically incorrect to express is all too often the motive force behind those sudden and spontaneous movements of the popular psyche that only seemed to come from nowhere because they came from a place unfamiliar to most pundits and paid prophets, namely, the gut level feelings of the average guy.
 
Many Americans simply wish the Arabs would go away; others wish to blow them away —— and wish to blow them away not because they see this step as inevitable and tragic, but because they rejoice at the prospect of getting them back for what they have done to us. Most normal Americans today just don't care any more about the Arabs and their welfare, or about their humiliation, or about their historical grievances, simply because all the images that come to us from their world horrify and appall us, including the disturbing images of Americans doing things that no normal American would ever dream of doing to other people back at home, if only because they would never be given the opportunity.
 
This is how most normal Americans now feel, but they dare not express it in public. But make no mistake, this feeling will be expressed —— somehow, somewhere: a fact of which our leaders and the world must be made aware before it occurs.

Harris is too polite to state the obvious. Sooner or later, mad Islamicist attacks on Americans will create unbearable political pressure to respond massively, with all the tools in the possession of the most powerful military machinery ever imagined. It may be a suitcase bomb, a dirty bomb, a huge dam collapsed, or some other horrific attack. The details don't matter. But the American public will demand —— and likely get —— a response which will not please those who provoked it.

The world be changed forever.

Posted by Thomas  05 13 04