Depressed in Europe

Just got back from France and Italy. The food was awesome, the people interesting and the weather better than usual. But the usual subject of discussion–the United States and its foreign policy–proved more depressing than ever.

Abu Ghraib was the reason. But not why you might think.

When I mentioned the Iraq prison abuse scandal, people shrugged. “So you murdered maybe 25 people in prison,” one woman told me in Mantova, the setting for “Romeo and Juliet.” “So what? The U.S. kills thousands every year.”

Conservative Bush apologists, it seems, are correct. Abu Ghraib isn’t destroying our reputation overseas. Not at all. The truth is, our rep was already so atrocious before–due to the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq (both of which are equally despised abroad), our support of Israel in its genocidal campaign against the Palestinians, and years of hypocritical imperialistic misadventures from Kosovo to Somalia to Central Asia–that Abu Ghraib didn’t do anything to make it worse. Nothing could.

So maybe it is time for people like me to stop worrying about the torture of prisoners. Truth is, our rep has already hit rock bottom. This is no big deal by comparison.

It’s also true, of course, that the French and Italians read reports of abuse in U.S.-run Afghan and Iraqi gulags dating back several years. And they’ve also published far more graphic photos from Abu Ghraib than we’ve seen here.

But the bottom line is that Abu Ghraib has only shocked one constitutency: us.

Better late than never. I guess.