Mark Phillips: The American Question
5/11/04: Change the subject.
Shocking images of tortured prisoners have become the dominant
narrative
through which many Americans understand the War on Islam.
Yesterday's gruesome video of
executed
American Nicholas Berg may change that.
Conservative blogmeister
Andrew Sullivan
writes:
In fact,
of course, the Berg beheading does a grim but salutary service. In the midst of
our own deserved self-criticism, we are suddenly reminded of the larger stakes,
the wider war, why we are in Iraq in the first place.
"Service" is perhaps an unfortunate word. But Sullivan's point seems
reasonable from the point of view of the War of Images. The incompetence and
failure of American policy in Iraq were on full display, so shocking
and so unavoidable that many well-meaning Americans who'd mistakenly supported the
war were shaken in that deeply visceral way which leads to change. The Berg video
could undo that, reinforcing the previously-dominant narrative of good versus evil
which the right-wing PR machine has been so careful to foster.
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