iraqi Prisoner Abuse and the Simulacra of Leadership

The Gutless Pacifist talks about the abuse of iraqi prisoners and asks How high up does it go?

There are many troubling political issues coming out of both the reports of abuse in iraq and earlier reports of abuse at Guantanamo Bay (which are looking increasingly accurate). But what is even more troubling to me is the larger moral issue that each of us who are Americans may be in part responsible for these atrocities. For it is we who have allowed a culture of death and violence to develop.

Meanwhile, a report on the abuses by Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba is chilling in its detailing of physical and psychologial torture reportedly taking place at the U.S.-run Abu Ghraib Prison in Baghdad.

Joshua Micah Marshall's Talking Points Memo is keeping close tabs on developments and reactions in Washington, including the President's:

The disasters now facing the country in iraq -- some in slow motion, others by quick violence -- aren't just happening on the president's watch. They are happening in a real sense, really in the deepest sense, because of him -- because of his attention to the simulacra of leadership rather than the real thing, which is more difficult and demanding, both personally and morally.

Don't miss Marshall's thoughtful comparison of President Bush to a bad C.E.O..

The other essential reading on all this is Seymour Hersh's New Yorker article on the torture at Abu Ghraib.