Primus Nomen

Ah, the first post. Many a journal, and many a blog, have started here and gone little further. Hopefully mine will be an exception--hopefully it won't meet the same fate as my previous journal attempts. Perhaps the fact it's public will help me keep going.

On the recent scandal over the horrific mistreatment of prisoners by US troops in Iraq: Though I love, respect, and support the President on most issues, I have to disagree with him here--the depraved character displayed by the soldiers at Abu Ghraib is in fact shared by most of the rest of the US military. I think most US soldiers are capable of this kind of atrocity, at least on some level. So are Iraqis. So are the British. So are the Spanish, and the Italians, and the Portugese, and the Japanese, and all of the other coalition members. The bottom line is that everyone is naturally susceptible to evil like this. By God's common grace, most of us are socially conditioned so that it's unconscionable and revolting. Given the stresses and trials of the Iraq war front, however, it's not particularly unsurprising that soldiers' natural inclination to evil should manifest itself in some way.

Let me be clear what I'm not saying. I'm not saying the troops' abuses are excusable. I'm not saying that those responsible for these things should not be identified and punished accordingly. I'm not saying Iraq is no better under American monsters than under the former monstrous regime. Few people with common sense and a moral orientation will fail to see the lie there.

What I am saying is simply this: evil is unsurprising. It's the normal inclination of the world. Whether it manifests itself in prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib or terrorists flying planes into buildings, we can be angered, saddened, disgusted, and terrified, but we really shouldn't be surprised. Nor should we delude ourselves by thinking it's the exception, that the rest of the US or the world is basically good.

Isn't that a cheery beginning? Email me and I'll tell you the other side of the coin--the good news.