The headline blazoned across this morning's Boston Herald, staring out from the newsboxes as I walked to work, calls Iraqis "Savages".
And of course the actions, the possible mutilation of American soldiers, that brought on this trumpet blast also serve to reduce the humanity of the victims.
In light of a welling anger among some Americans toward Iraqis, an anger at what appears to be a lack of appropriate gratitude, we're going to see more of this from our side. Much more and worse.
The diehard, bigscreen hawks, so eager to follow a banner to war - any banner and any war as long as you could watch it on CNN - never did have the courage of their convictions. They just wanted their proxies to break something, to show that unprovoked might can sometimes make right - when "right" is an action movie. Though they speak about fortitude and determination, these emotions are too slow, too thoughtful, too cool. Anger, its hot lusty rush, its demand that something be done now, is their only true emotion. Action must supercede thought, precede thought and so preclude it.
In the blindness of their persistent rage they will seek to break yet another thing: America's will. Through the coming winter, the drumbeat will begin to sound, louder and more persistent: "Fuck them. If this is how they repay us for liberating them, if they don't - by god - thank us for saving them, then let them rot, let them kill each other. Bring the boys home."
Posted by Martial