From Casablanca To Abu Ghraib
By Jill S. Farrell

Every generation seems to believe that it is simultaneously the most gifted and insightful generation while living in the worst of times. Without a firm respect for thousands of years of recorded history, mankind egotistically and blithely repeats the blunders and the horrors of the ages.

If Lot's wife could speak, she would point to our modern cultural fascination with porn and violence as the root of the shameful, Gomorrahesque incidents that occurred in Abu Ghraib Prison. Unfortunately, that very same fascination is also making for the most titillating sweeps ratings-driver any network could have asked for, so the sordid tale is unlikely to go away any time soon. Not that the situation should be ignored, but it is difficult to be convinced that the photos need to be as ubiquitous as they have been.

For the last forty or so years, in the name of "free speech" we have allowed our young people a lifetime of nearly unrelenting examples of bestial behavior. It isn't safe to hear or see the commercials, let alone the actual programming. With the Super Bowl extravaganza being the notably rare exception, for the most part, "anything goes." We have become woefully numb to the magazine racks at the grocery store and words to the tunes coming out of our radios. The dignity of the human person is fast becoming a blurred image lost in the mists of hedonism and time.

The young soldiers at Abu Ghraib have met the very standard that has been set for them by the "best" that our entertainment industry has offered them. This is the MTV generation... and one-foot-on-the-floor love scenes at the movies are but Baby Boomer childhood memories. Honor and dignity just don't have as big a role to play in our "how can we shock 'em today" society. It has been a long, sharp fall since Bogart and Bergman played in "Casablanca."

I am not suggesting that we step inside a time machine and travel backwards, but when looking for the culprits that inspired our military's humiliation, let's look a little closer to home. We have turned our socially engineered, oversexed, 20-something, co-ed military loose on the world and have the audacity to cry foul when, truth be known, they learned their behavior on our societal knee. We denounce those young soldiers for what they have done while sponsoring the instructional music, movies and "literature" that made it all possible.

While we're at it, let's not dismiss the role of government schools in this drama. In an effort not to endorse any particular culture or set of values, they have set forth their own amoral culture. In an enclosed universe where cucumbers play a larger role in education than the Ten Commandments, can we realistically expect a better result than we have recently been shown?

These soldiers undoubtedly need to be called to account for their choices as thinking (to use the term loosely), responsible individuals with a God-given ability to choose good over evil. Like the children of any dysfunctional family, they are without question casting a reflection back at the culture that has raised them. These young men and women are not necessarily representative of their entire generation. Indeed, many of today's young adults are as honorable as the best that any generation has had to offer. However, this group of soldiers are most certainly a dire warning indicating where a significant portion of our spring break-mosh pit-chemically altered youth is headed. Whatever else motivated them -- direct order or no -- they did not possess the strength of conscience or moral fiber to refuse to participate.

The only good that might be said to have come out of this shameful incident is just that -- shame. There is still reason to hope. The hammer of those photos seems to have tweaked the damaged-but-not-yet-dead reflex that is still our national conscience.

Jill S. Farrell is Director of Communications for the Free Congress Foundation.