Smear Campaign Against Troops Has Begun

We all need to take a deep breath here and ask the fundamental questions: who were those prisoners and under what circumstances were those pictures taken? Were these part of an interrogation process? In which case, we should ask if the interrogation was valuable: Did this prevent attacks against Americans and Iraqis?"

Or were these a few bored soldiers amusing themselves--in which case, yes, heads should roll.

The media furor and the tongue-lashing from the politicians and the Arab street has so far drowned out reports that some of the prisoners in those pictures were terrorists and elements of the Baathist regime--Saddam's torturers, whose own victims were never so lucky with publicity.

Apparently, they had also attacked American soldiers.

Assuming that the scandalous content shows nothing more than an unusual form of interrogation--as these things go, the tactics--hooding prisoners, leading them along on a leash, forcing them into sexual positions--appear to be relatively harmless.

The picture of one prisoner standing on a box, wearing a black hood, with wires leading from his extremities is far less shocking when it is revealed that those wires actually weren't plugged into an electrical source.

Were this Saddam's victim, he might have never survived the interrogation to tell his story. Even the outraged Arabs know that their own prisons today commit acts far worse than anything we have seen so far from the American-run Abu Ghraib.

Yes, the Pentagon must move quickly and decisively to ensure that the rule of law--particularly the Geneva Convention--is respected by every American soldier.

Yes, the several deaths that took place in American custody must also be fully investigated and those guilty of murder must be brought to justice.

But let's not forget that the American troops are in a war zone. The intelligence they gather will help them better serve and protect Iraqis and Americans and stabilize a nation that is under attack by a most complex taxonomy of enemies: terrorists, religious fanatics, former regime dead-enders.

This premature smear campaign against the troops by our own opportunistic journalists and politicians--many who are eager to sieze power in the coming elections--must give away to a more thoughtful, clear-headed analysis.

Failure to do so will play into the hands of all those who want America to fail in Iraq.