chelidon

This AP story -- "Judge: Public Has Right to See Abuse Photos" (Wash Post, free registration may be required, etc) is going to turn out to be important, if the government doesn't overturn the ruling on appeal:

NEW YORK -- A federal judge has told the government it will have to release additional pictures of detainee abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison, civil rights lawyers said.

Judge Alvin Hellerstein, finding the public has a right to see the pictures, told the government Thursday he will sign an order requiring it to release them to the American Civil Liberties Union, the lawyers said.

Reports and papers are one thing -- graphic pictures beamed nightly around the world on CNN are entirely another. If even one of these photos has the iconic power of some of the images from the Vietnam War that affected public opinion so strongly, it will have a huge impact, and unfortunately, not a good one for the United States. Besides affecting popular sentiment in this country, it may also further inflame anti-American sentiments around the world, but we did earn that by our conduct. Every choice has consequences, and we'll be paying for this one, in dollars as well as more important currencies, for decades to come.

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From:

christeos-pir.livejournal.com

And it's not just a matter of making the US look bad. TV coverage of the Vietnam Conflict stirred up emotions at home and abroad, but did not, AFAIK, catalyze random acts of violence against innocent American civilians the way that these may.

Mind you, I'm not advocating censorship, just pointing out that the potential impact is very different than 25 - 30 years ago.

From:

chelidon.livejournal.com

I'm wondering if the potential impact is different mainly because of the increased penetration of television news media around the world, so pictures travel faster and further, and have a larger immediate audience. Certainly human nature, for instance, has not changed since the Vietnam era, nor do I think we're that much more greatly hated around the world since then.

So if you're not calling for censorship, what do you think about the push to release these photos? Seems to me they either come out or they don't.

From:

christeos-pir.livejournal.com

I don't think it's the penetration of the media so much as the changing face of geopolitics and of the guerilla nature of those who will take this most to heart. I also disagree that we're not more hated than before.

In "the Sixties," most of those arrayed against the US were communists of various stripes. It was a political issue, and while many in Europe and other places opposed America's embroilment in Vietnam, they were for the most part fairly non-fanatical. Certainly we were in little danger of waves of suicide bombers from Parisian Maoists, or of Welsh pub-owners machinegunning busses of retired American tourists.

Since that time, several things have changed. For one, history in some ways snowballs, so that this is seen as not just another example of the US being imperialistic, but of the US being imperialistic yet again, and important distinction, I think. Second, this is not just a political issue involving a perceived American intervention into a civil war somewhere in a corner of SE Asia*, but one of a perceived American attack on the Islamic religion and peoples -- a people who have historically (at least since Salah al-Din's time) been only too willing to fight back. Thirdly, and related to the other two points, those who see themselves as having to stand up against the US are (a) much more numerous than those of the 60's, (b) much more willing to take violent action, against ANY target of opportunity, even at the cost of their own lives, and (c) able to connect, even if only tenuously, with others who are only too happy to provide support in terms of logistics, intelligence and command.

In brief: it's one thing to piss off a few thousand college students while their parents condemn the US in speeches and articles. It's another to turn potentially several million against us in a holy war, of whom even a relatively small percentage represents significant numbers, and who are willing to take the fight to American targets of opportunity, including civilians (in defiance of Qur'anic edicts, IMO), at any cost.

And no, I don't believe in censorship. But I wouldn't want to be a tourist or even an aid worker, much less a clerk in an embassy, in Jakarta or Ramallah if they are published.

* I mean no disrespect to the peoples of Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, etc. I'm talking about world perceptions at the time.

From:

chelidon.livejournal.com

You have a point about the difference between religious ideologies and political ones, but remember that in a number of countries post-WWII, Communism was as much a faith, with its catechisms, prayerbooks and doctrine, as any formal religion today. I daresay the Vietcong's nationalism and fervor was no less than a modern-day Moslem guerilla for being based on Marx instead of Muhammed. And there were certainly those of the Communist belief who had the same kind of pan-national dreams as the pan-Arabs today. One key difference, though, is that Communism was inevitably something recent, and imported, whereas Islam is a multi-generational tradition in many parts of the world, so it could be argued that its ability to motivate, it's depth of resonance, goes far deeper, particularly with many in the uneducated classes.

Tactics have changed, but is the world really that different? The wave of politically-oriented hijackings in the 1970s differed from today mainly because nobody had yet thought of flying the plane into a building instead of using the holding of the passengers and plane to get publicity, make a statement and extort money. And was the Arab world less angry, less opposed to Israel and U.S. policy, now, than it was, say, around the time of the Seven-Day War, etc? I think not. One difference, though, is that most of the governments themselves have muted their opposition, it's gone underground, so it's not states, but individuals and more shadowy groups, some of course supported in various ways by states, that are the prime threats to the U.S. and our allies.

The length of oppostiion to U.S. policy is also a good point, since we didn't really get deeply involved in widespread neocolonialism until after WWII. There have been a few more generations (in parts of the world where grudges build over decades and centuries), for resentment to deepen.

From:

christeos-pir.livejournal.com

But we were talking about the Vietnam Conflict vs today, not the 70's. However, you bring up a few points that are in congruence with my argument (that the world's a dodgier place than it was), such as "nobody thought of this before" -- well, they have now, so the cat's out of the bag. I wouldn't say that current opposition by fanatical Muslims is more underground than the lonely cells of stuent activists or Carlos the Jackal, but that they are more widespread, better organized, and better funded, as well as learning all the time from what has worked and what hasn't.

I don't mean to turn this into a "if you print one picture the fertilizer will hit the air-moving device all over the world" scenario. I just think that the global situation is much more likely to involve casualties, particularly non-combatants, in the surge of anti-American sentiment. Even at the height of the Cultural Revolution, the most I witnessed in anti-American activity was slogans and speeches about America being a paper tiger. Oh, and one Aussie who got mad at me for setting off firecrackers in my driveway and told me to "take them bloody things to 'Veet-Nam'" as he put it. (I think he was mad because the baby was trying to sleep. His daughter was kinda cute but too young for me.)

> we didn't really get deeply involved in widespread neocolonialism until after WWII

I'm not sure that's true. The real wave of expansionism began in TR's time: Cuba, Mexico, the Philippines, Hawaii... That's after the whole Westward Ho, Manifest Destiny thing, of course.

I note too that it's popular to paint American as imperialist and colonialist, but we have NEVER had the kind of imperialism and colonialism of England, German, Spain, France, Italy, China, Japan, etc. Interventionist, yes. Colonialist? Check again.

Where people have grudges and resentment it's generally NOT been over American expansionism, but over specific interventions... and, of course, US support for Israel's right to exist.

From:

chelidon.livejournal.com

But we were talking about the Vietnam Conflict vs today, not the 70's

Saigon fell almost exactly 30 years ago (April 30, 1975), no? Many of the most iconic and opinion-turning images that came out of Vietnam came from the 70's.

I think that there has been some substantial shifts in tactics and organization, but I'm not sure it's as drastic as you seem to believe. State-sponsored terrorism was all the rage in the 60's and 70's, and there were powerful states (U.S.S.R. and the U.S., to name two ;>) who poured a lot of money into a whole range of terrorist, revolutionary and counter-revolutionary groups. I suspect the money then flowed even more freely than today.

One concrete difference, though, has to do with increased lethality of explosives, making it possible for a car-bonber or suicide-bomber, or IED-builder, for instance, to do far more damage than previously.

I'd argue that certainly, we had colonial aspirations prior to WWII (I grew up in Hawaii, so was well-educated in the U.S.-interests-sponsored coup there which replaced the legitimate local monarchy with control by U.S. business interests...) But it was done generally for specific strategic reasons or targets pf opportunity, not as a widespread policy, if only because we were not then the dominant power we became post-WWII, and we didn't necessarily see ourselves as contending on the global chessboard against another expansionist hegemonic power. Now, within the borders of the U.S., I'd agree with you completely -- we were clearly a colonial, expansionist power within our own geographic borders, and on the edges of them, particularly with Mexico...

We may have different definitions in mind for the word "neocolonialism." No, we don't have the kind of classic old-style imperialist colonialism that other nations did in prior centuries, but I think it could be argued that many of our actions in the last 50 years could be considered a form, or at least a descendent, of colonialism.

Bottom-line, at the moment, we are indeed hated deeply in number of regions of the world, and that's a problem, particularly for Americans overseas. As well as a reaction to specific American policy, I tend to also see it as a naturally-limiting factor which occurs at the same rate as we have become increasingly powerful and used that power, the "opposite and equal reaction," if you will, or the yin within the yang, etc. Everything contains and plants the seeds of its own destruction.