Since September 11, America appears to be motivated solely by revenge. The problem is that this revenge in many cases is both racist and without a particular object. Americans want someone to pay for the suffering or murder of innocents. If the recipient of our revenge is also innocent, the usual justification one hears is along the lines of "Look what they did to us on September 11!" To many Americans, the attacks of September 11 weren't perpetrated by Al Qaeda, instead, they were perpetrated by Arabs or more specifically Muslims.
The calls to revenge are stirring again. And this time, they are reaching deeper and are about to create a very dangerous tip in national identity and awareness. Already we can hear the outrage by some Americans about how the abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq do not compare to the brutality of Nick Berg's horrific murder. And they are beginning to lash out at those who feel shamed by the prison abuses and who feel that the American military owes the Iraqis contrition.
Nick Berg's murderers did not need any images of abuse by American MP's to justify their barbaric act. It was simply an excuse to inflame and taunt the American Occupation and American people. Mr. Berg's murderers are not innocent Iraqi citizens. They are terrorists. Not insurgents, not Iraqis but true terrorists.
The danger here is that the real victims will be innocent Iraqi citizens if American anger is permitted to take over the objectives of our occupation in Iraq.
America does owe the Iraqi citizens an apology. There is absolutely no comparison here. Nick Berg's beheading and the Abu Ghraib abuses are not related. Mr. Berg was murdered by lawless terrorists in a most cowardly display of brutality. Iraqis were humiliated and tortured by figures of authority in an American military-run prison. The authority-subject models are so disparate in these two situations that they defy comparison.
What is really telling here is the outrage being expressed by Iraqis and many Muslims throughout the world by this savage and brutal killing. Even Lebanon's Shi'ite Hezbollah has denounced this act. While they may not agree with America's objectives, they have decried this execution as being aberrant to the laws of Islam. These are truer followers of Islam.
What Al Qaeda has been able to bank on is the fury with which we Americans react to any violence against us. They know by now that America overreacts, hurling back the ball of engagement with more enthusiasm and anger after each incident. Al Qaeda's grand objective is to keep feeding the perceived American-Arab rift and bring the great uprising closer and closer. Each time we act in revenge, we begin to alienate even more Arabs or Muslim people who have otherwise envied us, but wished us no harm.
If we try to compare the humiliation of the Iraqi citizens with the brutality and inhumanity of Al Qaeda, we are feeding the flames of Al Qaeda's objective. Al Qaeda does not speak for the citizens of Iraq. Not yet. Apologize for the abuses of Abu Ghraib and commit enough military manpower and planning to end the lawlessness in Iraq that has taken over ever since the U.S. created the power vacuum a little over a year ago. Only a comprehensive strategy can provide the stability needed to separate the citizens from the true enemies of all.
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