Ingenuous?

I was somewhat bemused, Bush, to say the least, to hear your Rice announce that the Newsweek article about the reputed disrespect for the Koran by American prison guards--the story that led to riots in Afghanistan and Pakistan--had "done a lot of harm" to America's reputation in the Muslim world. It would surely be a grave infringement of journalistic propriety if it turns out that the story was innacurate, as now seems to be the case, given Newsweek's retraction. It's curious, though, isn't it, that the story was leaked by a "government official"? And it does conveniently provide someone else to blame for the "harm" done to our reputation in the Middle East.

I mean, pardon my cynicism yet again, but what on earth could add one iota to the harm already done by your administration's policies over there? The faulty intelligence and false accusations that excused your preremptory attack on Saddam's Iraq? (I notice with some satisfaction that Paul Krugman, in his New York Times column earlier this week, took the trouble to draw attention to those leaked minutes from 10 Downing Street--the ones that proved beyond a doubt that your mind, Bush, was made up long before you led us to believe; and that the "WMD" were no more than the pretext you had cooked up to muster the political support you needed. Why is it that this damning document has hardly merited more than passing attention in the American media?) How about your failure to anticipate the post-invasion sectarian animosities and the insurrection? The failure to prepare not only for the security of the Iraqi people, but for the provision of basic necessities like electricity and water? Were these not equally the cause of "harm" to America's reputation?

Or how about your administration's adamant refusal to hold itself accountable for the scandals at Abu Ghraib--and quite possibly elsewhere? And your eagerness to exonerate all but the lowliest of military ranks? Or the slaughter of thousands of innocent men, women, and children in our bombing raids and under the rain of our shells and mortars? Not to mention, on a broader scale, the apparent unconcern, for your entire first term in office, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which is seen by most in the Middle East as being the root cause of Arab discontent and the rallying cry of the terrorists?

So far as the Koran is concerned: as I understand from the news media I tune into, there are many stories other than Newsweek's currently abroad in the Muslim world about the disrespect with which it is treated by American soldiers and American prison guards. And almost more important than whether they are true or not is the fact that they are widely believed. In fact, it seems that many regular people--not merely terrorists, then, and not merely "insurgents"--are ready to believe the worst they hear about Americans, and it is our country's words and actions, sadly, that support them in their belief.

Isn't it, then, just the slightest bit ingenuous for your people to be heaping abuse on Newsweek, as though that magazine bore the entire responsibility for the "harm" done to our country's reputation? Are your critics, here and in the Middle East, approaching the truth when they suspect that the magazine's retraction comes in part at least as the result of intense pressure from your heavy executive and political fire? That the story was, in fact, an accurate one? The saddest thing for me, Bush--given our country's recent record of self-serving deception, lies, false intelligence, miscalculations, misunderstanding of deeply-rooted cultural and religious lore, and even torture--is that I myself am ready to believe it to be true.