Posthuman Blues

I'm pleased to no end that the senseless torture and murder of Iraqi POWs is infecting front pages everywhere. The governing assumptions in our dealings with the Mid-East are defined by an unspoken, condescending certainty that the Arab world is something rather less than human. The West has always trained itself to think of Arabs as somewhat barbaric characters -- uncouth "B"-movie villains whose claim to civilization is little more than a PR facade. Maintaining this stereotype was definitely the agenda behind the Saving Private Lynch drama. The public was expected to blanch at the notion of a God-fearing white girl in the clutches of psychopathically misogynistic dark-skinned rapists.

Now the rules have been upturned. Suddenly we're forced to stare at a reflection of ourselves that is so unshakeably ugly that our most entrenched misconceptions require revision.

We are the monsters. We are the sadists, the brutes, the savages.

We are the Evil-Doers.