“I have to disagree with you when you say that being more outraged by the outrage over the abuse than by the abuse itself is a ‘moral mistake.’ It certainly could be, but it isn’t obviously so.
“If the outrage over the abuse results in the US scaling back operations in Iraq, releasing dangerous prisoners, becoming timid about future operations, and taking other steps that result in the U.S. appearing to be bin Laden’s infamous ‘weak horse,’ then the outrage over the abuse has done more harm than good, and almost certainly does more harm than a few naked homoerotic pyramids and a man on a leash.
“Those responsible for these abuses will be punished in a manner consistent with due process, and I am confident that whatever wrongs were committed will be righted. But Congressional showboating, political posturing, and media hype all traveling under the banner of ‘outrage’ serve only to harm American objectives, soldiers, and civilians.
“Nothing excuses the way these prisoners were treated, but that’s in the past. The fact that American soldiers made terrible mistakes in the past is no justification for making worse mistakes in the future in an expression of ‘outrage.’”
My response: I certainly agree that some American soldiers’ misdeeds do not justify making mistakes now. To cut and run would indeed have worse human consequences than their misdeeds, but given the differences in intention behind the actions I would not call it a “worse mistake”; I wouldn’t compare the two as “mistakes” of the same kind. I would also say that if the abuse leads to exaggerated or misdirected outrage that then leads to cutting and running, the blame for that outcome has to be apportioned among the abusers and the outraged, not all attributed to the outraged. Finally, if the morality of actions is going to be evaluated wholly in terms of their consequences, then Inhofe’s comments still fail the test since it is quite predictable that they are not going to help the war effort.