On Wednesday, May 12, 2004, the Calgary Herald published an article entitled

All Americans are guilty of Iraq crimes

by Philip Kennicott of The Washington Post.

The article started as follows:
Among the corrosive lies a nation at war tells itself is that the glory -- the lofty goals announced beforehand, the victories, the liberation of the oppressed -- belongs to the country as a whole; but the failure -- the accidents, the uncounted civilian dead, the crimes and atrocities -- is always exceptional. Noble goals flow naturally from a noble people; the occasional act of barbarity is always the work of individuals, unaccountable, confusing and indigestible to the national conscience.

.....

The author argues that it not possible to blame just a handful of "bad apples" for all the negative phenomena. Armies are made of individuals. Individuals are the product of the society and its culture. The whole society of every country must be collectively responsible not only for its positive achievements but also for all the crimes commited by its individual citizens and soldiers.

And so one can conclude that it is the decision to wage war that results in such abuses and crime that occurred in the Abu Ghraib prison. No nation, however noble it considers itself, is imune to it. Therefore, war should not be used as an instrument of foreign policy. Period!

I wanted to post the full text of the above mentioned article because each article is posted on the newspaper's website for a mere two weeks. However Calgary Herald charges the full Cdn $250 for the permission to reprint an article of theirs!