It will get worse.
But how to make the Iraq S&M story go away? The Bush administration would have to ignore it. This is now absolutely impossible. Abu Ghraib is another round in the classic case study of the Bush administration vs world public opinion (the most famous previous round was certainly February 15, 2003, when more than 10 million people around the world demonstrated in the streets against the preemptive war on Iraq). It was world opinion uproar over Abu Ghraib that forced Bush to go public and in an extra-mild way denounce the Pentagon. Mainstream US media were not willing to go all the way with such an embarrassing story in time of war.
Bush going public meant the official go-ahead for the porno deluge. One more historical irony: Bush couldn't care less for world opinion ("focus groups", in his own words) and America's image in the world, but it is world opinion that now has backed him into a very tight corner. The only strategy left - repeated ad nauseam by White House, Pentagon and neo-con think-tanks ("we should not abandon the oppressed throughout the Middle East", etc) is to proclaim one's shock - and disgusted awe.
But it all comes back full circle: Who will be offered as the proverbial sacrificial lamb (or wolf) so corporate media may declare this scandal officially over? Until then, it's the war of the snuff videos.
Pepe Escobar/Asia Times May.13.04
