The racism behind the general American view of the world, and in particular of the Arab world, is so all-pervasive that Americans don't even notice it anymore. Think about this excerpt from an article by Virginia Tilley (and think about it in particular if you ever have the misfortune to read any of the anti-Muslim rantings of Daniel Pipes and his ilk):

"The irony here is that, if these photos had instead portrayed American soldiers abused in some Arab prison, screaming right-wing US media would have waved them as substantiating every racist claim of inherent Arab depravity. On Fox News, ranks of flunky intellectuals would have soberly propounded the social-psychological violence inherent in Muslim theology and the 'Arab mind'; tears of patriotic passion would have celebrated US military might as the golden force opposing the dark ferocity of the savage Arab masses. Feeble liberal protest - that it is wrong to extrapolate from one prison policy to a whole culture - would have been derided and silenced. And high-minded speeches would have emerged from the White House, mustering US patriotic zeal to combat these forces of evil which produced such an outrage. Yet when others launch similar stereotyping distortions of us, we claim the high ground: those ignorant savage Arabs, we sneer, with no conception of our culture. How gullible and backward they are, to fail to grasp the truth and be so enflamed. It must be al-Jazeera's fault."

Continue reading - More from Xymphora -

Update May 7 2004:
True to form, the horrible syndicated columnist, Charles Krauthammer (could you have a worse name than that?) wrote this, published in the Albuquerque Journal today --

Let's be clear. The things we have learned so far about Abu Ghraib are not, by far,
the worst atrocities committed in war. Indeed, they pale in comparison with what Arab insurgents have done to captured Westerners, and what Saddam Hussein did to his own people.

OMIGOD -- these photos, eg a uniformed American woman holding
a naked Arab man on a leash - are not just accidental, incidental, humorous or even voyeuristic digital capturing....There is more going on here than meets the eye. I did not want to see these photos. I don't want to see a "snuff film" of innocent Iraquis...but there has to be an explanation why these images have been staged and created and distributed. Why? the Congressional hearings today were by and large sycophantish ass-kissers condoning and congratulating Rummy for his "expert handling" of two very difficult wars and a large budget. the slime actually had the cojones to say that, "under other circumstances", such "effective methods of eliciting intelligence would have been considered a job well done." OMIGOD!

Update May 12 2004
This situation has gotten more and more bizarre, I feel - especially with the recent video
release of the Arab beheading of a 26-yr old from Philadelphia, info about photoshopped
cellphone pics and staged abuse - I don't know what is true anymore. Worse yet, the highest
hits I have gotten on this site (via Blogger stats) is incoming links on the words Ira-i
abu-e phot-s and I don't want this site found by people looking for those photos, like I
would post them. I think I will drop this subject and try to forget it, but please look at
this very strange link - to a psychic/mystic who channels St.Catherine and thinks God loves
condoleeza more than you and I and that the photos were all staged to discredit The Shrub.
Link Reaaaaallly weird stuff.