And so it happens. American soldiers are caught on camera performing acts of barbaric cruelty. Not only so, but acts within the same old haunts as frequented by the Butcher of Baghdad himself, Saddam Hussein. The prison, Abu Ghraib, was infamous for its torture cells under the previous regime. Bush's most powerful rhetoric in favour of the war had been to stop the torture. Now, in the same prison, American soldiers are doing the same thing.
And so it happens. An American civilian is brutally and sadistically decapitated, and the murder is recorded on video tape and published on the internet. There may be no direct link between these two news stories but the cycle of violence - of crime leading to hate leading to crime - has become vicious.
American news channels duly report the outrages with sad astonishment. Time magazine describes the deflation in the sense of American moral superiority. CNN's web pages give links that implicitly discuss the political fallout for President Bush in this election year. Your 'average American'? I have yet to have any American initiate a conversation with me about the appalling news. Perhaps they simply have other things to think about. Perhaps it's beginning to remind them of Vietnam.
