Holding off on commenting on the “Friends” series finale, since I don’t want to spoil it for anyone who taped it and haven’t watched it yet or else Tivo’d it. On one note though: the clip show that was on before the series finale was absolutely hilarious, showing all the Friends’ best (re: funniest) moments. I like a good clip show, and that was a pretty good one – couldn’t stop laughing.
The Iraqi prisoner abuse news: the whole thing disgusts me, it really does. Pictures say a thousand words, and these pictures about the prison guards – they certainly have more than words to interpret. One thought: I was watching a little bit of the PBS documentary on Asian Americans, “Searching for Asian America,” the other night and they had a segment on Gary Locke, the Chinese-American governor of Washington state. They made an interesting point: Locke is in a position of preserving our “face” as Asian Americans, particularly when “face” is a big deal for Asian Americans. And, then, I realize that I can’t help but correlate that idea of “face” with this situation with the prison in Iraq – the American face has something to deal with here.
There’s the sense in the op-eds that America’s enemies would do this kind of human rights violations – and certainly worse. But, the reality (to me, anyway) is that it isn’t exactly just about America’s enemies but about America itself – what about measuring up to our own moral/democratic standards? What do we stand for, and why is it so easy to cross that line of rendering others as “other”? Have we as a people crossed that line? There’s no question that this news development shouldn’t represent all American troops or all Americans – but it will be seen that way, because it’s our face that’s out there.
As a lawyer, I wonder what is next; what will be the remedies or the procedures? Where is the law in this? Is it in this context at all, in the midst of war? Anthony Lewis’ op-ed in the NY Times kind of hit it home for me.
These are just opinions on my part; I may be wrong; maybe things will work out. Maybe.