You hear a lot of voices this week pointing out how much worse al Qaeda is than the United States. All we do is torture, abuse, and humiliate our captives. They cut heads off on videotape.

In absolute terms, out of context, that's true. But think about who we are and who we claim to be and contrast that with who the terrorists are and who they claim to be. Al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations have the explicit stated goal of wreaking a bloodbaths among their enemies for the political purpose of achieving a worldwide network of radical Islamic states. When they cut off Nicholas Berg's head, they were acting in accordance with their nature and goals. Their goals are repulsive, yes, but that they were capable of such a thing should surprise no one.

The United States, on the other hand, is a country that claims to champion democracy, to protect and defend the weak, and to value life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness above all else. The systemic torture at Abu Ghraib is jolting and horrifying precisely because it's so at odds with our stated goals and our own understanding of what we represent. Since when does America represent the values on display at Abu Ghraib?

I cannot argue that we're worse than al Qaeda. Clearly we are not, and that would be an absurd position to take. But if we think that makes what happened at Abu Ghraib acceptable, or that the outrage over it is outrageous (as toads like James Inhofe would have it), we're not only seriously deluding ourselves but we're descending a slippery slope into a morass of moral relativism.

If we're going to play the role of good guys in this conflict or any other, we should act like good guys. Anything less than exemplary conduct makes it too easy for the enemy to decry our behavior and recruit even more soldiers to their cause.

What would you have done if you were a soldier at Abu Ghraib? I've asked myself that, and I'm afraid the answer is that I probably would have gone along with the torture. I would have felt like shit, but it would have been hard not to participate.

I don't say this to excuse anyone's behavior. The soldiers who participated should be court-martialed swiftly and decisively. Heads should roll (figuratively) at all levels of the hierarchy that allowed and most likely encouraged the abuse. This includes Donald Rumsfeld, even if he was ignorant of what was going on. He shouldn't have been ignorant. There's no excuse.

But I've certainly felt the impulse to exercise cruelty in situations where someone else was helpless. It's a seductive temptation, and it's probably hardwired into our brains, as Philip Zimbardo demonstrated in his (in)famous Stanford Prison Experiment. For that reason if no other, there have to be quick, visible consequences for this sort of behavior. If we don't make those consequences absolutely clear, it's going to happen again.

Why? Because it's in our natures, no matter whose flag we wrap ourselves in.

I've been reading Against All Enemies by Richard Clarke. I knew that the conditions which gave birth to groups like al Qaeda were complex, but until I had a guide to step through it all I did not appreciate the degree to which the whole phenomenon was tangled up. The situation, the history, the players, the political climate—everything is so convoluted and bound up together that it's hard to hold in your head at once.

That's why it chafes so badly to hear people like George W. Bush respond to the question of why terrorists want to attack America with this answer: "They just hate freedom and democracy."

I'm sorry, but that's an answer you give to grade-schoolers, and even then you're insulting their intelligence. How can we let a president get away with not just being that stupid, but with addressing us as if we're that stupid? No wonder the rest of the world, even our allies, regard Americans as unschooled dolts. We are.

Reading about the careful, nuanced diplomacy that went on during the leadup to the first Iraq War, during the Bush I administration, only make the failings of the Bush II administration more appalling. Every time I hear Dubya's patronizing, vacant, ideological voice on the radio, I want to hit something.

Thank god I'm not working at Abu Ghraib.

I've been a loyal viewer of 24 for three seasons now. I've kept watching even when the program veered into ridiculous subplots and turns of character. I've always been a sucker for a cliffhanger (anyone else remember that great lost cheesy series from 1979, Cliffhangers?), and I haven't missed an episode yet.

But as much as I'm hooked on the show, I've become increasingly uncomfortable with the methods the heroes of the show use to achieve desirable ends. The good guys think nothing of using horrid psychological abuse and physical torture to extract information from captives. The methods are often sickening, but I have found myself cheering as, say, Jack Bauer shoots a prisoner and cuts off his head so he can ingratiate himself with a cabal of baddies. "Yep, he sure did what he had to do," I would say. "Sometimes that's just how it works."

That's the genius of 24, to tap into those vengeful, righteous, violent impulses and make them seem okay for a little while. Now, I have no trouble distinguishing dramatic television from reality. I am entertained by 24 even as I am horrified by similar occurances in the news. But I think I'm rapidly losing my taste for entertainment of that sort, at least as presented on Fox. I will still watch the final two episodes of 24 this season, eagerly, but I'm going to do my damnedest not to watch next season.

Jack Bauer has started to scare me.

(I had been thinking many of these half-coherent thoughts for days, intending to scribble them down, but hadn't taken the time. Then I read Charles Taylor's article "Payback Time" in today's Salon and suddenly it all came gushing out. You'll find many of the same sentiments there, better expressed.)