Iraq issues roundup

Postrel quotes from an Op-Ed by Charles Freund. Excerpts:

Zarqawi's ghouls in this video don't merely behead Berg, as most accounts indicate. Beheading suggests a quick severing and a quick death.

What Zarqawi's friends do is butcher Berg — there's no other word for it. They don't use a sword or an ax; they use a knife. You can hear Berg screaming as Zarqawi's gang hacks at his neck and then pulls at his head until it comes off his body. They then hold his bleeding head in front of the camera. The tape is appalling not only for its utter bloodthirstiness but also for the total absence of simple human empathy.

Elemental empathy is a primary measure of civilization. The shame that Americans felt at the Abu Ghraib images is rooted in such empathy. Even in the dehumanizing context of warfare, which strains the empathy of all its participants, this is savagery.

But if this is a moment of comparative atrocity, the issue becomes whether the Zarqawi horror is capable of having any effect on the Abu Ghraib matter. The probable answer is that although the murder tape obviously doesn't make pictures of prisoner abuse any less disgusting or shameful, it does offer many of those who feel disgust and shame a different context in which to perceive those images.

The Abu Ghraib pictures reveal American soldiers humiliating their prisoners in a sadistic manner (in some images, the Americans are actually smirking). It's a painful sight because it is cruel on its own terms (we don't even know whether the terrorized individuals are actually guilty of anything) and because we regard such sadism as unworthy of our image of ourselves. By contrast, Zarqawi intentionally videotapes and distributes his bloody atrocity; the literal slaughter of an innocent is offered as an example of his righteousness. For Zarqawi, the question of unworthiness simply never enters the calculation; that the action is inhuman is its point.

Shameless brutality of this degree has the power to transform the shame of Zarqawi's enemies. Zarqawi has reminded his enemies that, unlike him, they are at least capable of shame.

Zarqawi's righteous snuff movie is an act of lunacy, a gift to his enemies, and, one hopes, an unwitting suicide note.

Appreciate Freund's perspective. The Abu Ghraib needs to be investigated as well as any other abuse reports but the total media frenzy and moral equivalence attitude among critics of the Iraq effort is just wrong and frustrating.

Instapundit does what he does best and pulls together links in this case about arguing for early elections as the best move in Iraq. Here is some of the things Kaus had to say:

The militias are growing stronger. The Iraqis are growing angrier (which in turn fuels the first trend). How does it help to wait, then? Wait until the militias are numerous and organized enough to really prevent or pervert elections? Wait until anti-American demagogues like Sadr have 80% popularity instead of 45%? Wouldn't it be better to have Iraqis go to the polls right now, before the militias fill the "vacuum" and take control? Why would an interim government picked by the United Nations and "composed of technocrats" be better than a government picked by speeded-up ration-card balloting? Who are these apolitical technocrats who will suddenly emerge as compelling, popular anti-American champions?
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Nor does Zakaria (or anybody else I've seen) deal with the possibility of rolling elections held in more secure areas first. More fundamentally, although Zakaria raises the specter of civil war, he never explains why it would inevitably be so terrible if nationwide democracy were preceded by a period in which various ethnic groups controlled different regions (by the rough popular assent of the people in those regions) and jockeyed for national power. Is a Sistani-controlled Shiite government in Southern Iraq going to be a staging ground for Al Qaeda? More than a unified democratic Iraqi government? (I honestly don't know the answer to that. I'm asking.)

Head of Iraq Governing Council killed in a suicide car bombing in Baghdad. Just dreadful. Iraqi fanatics killing dedicated Iraqis who want to take responsibility for their own country. Our job must be to turn over the country to loyal Iraqis who want to help their country rebuild and prevent the tiny number but dangerous fringe lunatics who just want to disrupt things and seize power for themselves.