BCT Editorial – 9/14/04

This page was last updated on September 25, 2004.

Memory hole; Editorial; Beaver County Times; September 14, 2004.

The subject editorial supports an upcoming exhibit at the Andy Warhol Museum entitled “Inconvenient Evidence: Iraqi Prisoner Photographs from Abu Ghraib” because “Americans need to look at those pictures so they can see the evil that ordinary people can do.”

I have no problem with such an exhibit, though some balance would be nice. Museum patrons will see mistreated – but relatively unharmed – prisoners, but will not see the decapitated corpses of innocent civilians courtesy of our enemies. Museum patrons will be treated to the worst behavior of a handful of miscreants, but won’t see good done by the 99.999% of our armed forces serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.

I agree we should not forget our past or our misdeeds. At the same time, we should not remember our past without context.