Of course there has been a lot of talk about Michael Berg’s failure to play rah-rah guy in the killing of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaeda in Iraq. Zarqawi, you may recall, claimed responsibility for many terrible acts and is believed to have caused the deaths of thousands, most of them innocent civilians. Among the thousands was Mr. Berg’s son, who was brutally beheaded by Zarqawi’s organization, if not Zarqawi himself.
Far from wanting to dance around the fire with Mr. Zarqawi’s head on a pitchfork, Mr. Berg expressed regret at his death and showed concern for his family. Then he went on to critique U.S. policy in Iraq and argue, with statistics no less, that George Bush is worse than Saddam Hussein, or at best morally equal.
As you can imagine, heads exploded in dank basements throughout the heartland. Roy at Alicublog, as usual, provides a nice example of unadulterated Christian and Conservative morality on the subject. Mr. Berg’s murdered son, as you can well imagine, must be waiting in heaven to kick his father’s sorry as down to hell.
But I have seen less comment about the actual interview that caused all the outrage. What Mr. Berg has to say is interesting on many levels. In addition to regret and condolences for the mass murderer and his family, he points out that violence so often breeds violence and that it’s not unusual for revenge to be cyclical.
CNN: You know, you talked about the fact that he's become a political figure. Are you concerned that he becomes a martyr and a hero and, in fact, invigorates the insurgency in Iraq?
BERG: Now, take someone who in 1991, who maybe had their family killed by an American bomb, their support system whisked away from them, someone who, instead of being 59, as I was when Nick died, was 5-years-old or 10-years-old. And then if I were that person, might I not learn how to fly a plane into a building or strap a bag of bombs to my back?
That's what is happening every time we kill an Iraqi, every time we kill anyone, we are creating a large number of people who are going to want vengeance. And, you know, when are we ever going to learn that that doesn't work?
Of course we can’t expect any intelligent analyis from the right wing hotheads on Fox, talk radio or the internets, but it’s sad that the tame media rarely makes that point. Besides the fact that it’s historically obvious that killing begets revenge, particularly in the middle east, they need look no farther than the overwhelming reaction to 9/11. Americans wanted revenge. And look what it’s gotten us -- more killing, more enemies, more lies, less freedom, more danger.
Mr. Berg goes on to compare/contrast Saddam Hussein with George W. Bush
BERG: Well, you know, I'm not saying Saddam Hussein was a good man, but he's no worse than George Bush. Saddam Hussein didn't pull the trigger, didn't commit the rapes. Neither did George Bush. But both men are responsible for them under their reigns of terror.
I don't buy that. Iraq did not have al Qaeda in it. Al Qaeda supposedly killed my son. Under Saddam Hussein, no al Qaeda. Under George Bush, al Qaeda.
Under Saddam Hussein, relative stability. Under George Bush, instability.
Under Saddam Hussein, about 30,000 deaths a year. Under George Bush, about 60,000 deaths a year.
I don't get it. Why is it better to have George Bush the king of Iraq rather than Saddam Hussein?
It is in no way surprising that the news media and right blogistan have concentrated on Mr. Berg’s failure to rejoice in the death of his son’s killer and ignore his reasons for taking those positions. Neither is it surprising that after making those statements, he didn’t get a lot of airplay. You know that had he used his CNN interview to call for the violent deaths of every Muslim who had ever thought a bad thought about the US of A, he would have been the featured guest on every talk show and book publishers would be in a bidding war for his memoirs.
And finally, note how the CNN correspondent argues with him about his position.
O'BRIEN: There's an alternate reading, which would say at some point, Iraqis will say the insurgency is not OK -- that they'll be inspired by the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi in the sense of he was turned in, for example, we believe by his own No. 2, No. 3 leadership in his ranks.
And, that's actually them saying we do not want this kind of violence in our country. Experts whom we've spoken to this morning have said this is a critical moment where Iraqis need to figure out which direction the country is going to go. That would be an alternate reading to the scenario you're pointing to.
O'BRIEN: There's a theory that a struggle for democracy, you know...
O'BRIEN: There's a theory that as they try to form some kind of government, that it's going to be brutal, it's going to be bloody, there's going to be loss, and that's the history of many countries -- and that's just what a lot of people pay for what they believe will be better than what they had under Saddam Hussein.
Don’t get me wrong. I am not criticizing the correspondent for asking those questions. That is what journalists are supposed to do: take an adversarial position in order to get people to explain their actions and beliefs.
It’s just that you know O’Brien would not have played the good journalist had Berg been rejoicing in revenge. She would not have questioned whether revenge begets revenge and whether or not our thirst for it is creating more terrorists. Nor would she have talked about the “theory” that what we’re doing in Iraq has nothing to do with democracy or that it may actually be counterproductive to the establishment of democracy, not just in Iraq but throughout the world. And she definitely would not have asked him to comment on whether George W. Bush is the moral equivalent of Saddam and provided statistics to bolster that argument.
The practice of adversarial journalism, which is what journalism is supposed to be, is only permitted when the adversary is not spouting the conventional nationalistic wisdom. Otherwise it’s a one-way ticket to a different profession.
A few notes on this post:
1. The Wikipedia entry about Zarqawi is wrong when it says he is was a long time member of al-Quaeda. I suspect that is due to some kind of Wikipedia editors battle between administration flacks and normal decent academics. Hell, it's probably the tip of the iceberg. Republican operatives are probably scouring Wikipedia to make the facts appear to justify their failures.
2. The headline is part of a quote by Josh Billings: "There is no revenge so complete as forgiveness."
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