When U.S. officials pushed for war in Iraq claiming that Saddam Hussein posed an imminent threat, Berka believed them. Like many who grew up behind the Iron Curtain, he was inspired by President Bush’s call to liberate the Iraqi people from a brutal dictatorship.
Not anymore.
“In the last few months I have seen that I was wrong to support the war,” Berka, 36, said, sipping beer after work.
A tour guide from Prague, Berka is part of what Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld once called new Europe — the former Soviet satellite countries that have come to be regarded as America’s staunchest allies on the continent. The Czech, Polish and Hungarian governments not only sided diplomatically with Washington as part of Bush’s “coalition of the willing,” they committed troops to the cause.
But support for the United States, already damaged by the failure to find weapons of mass destruction and a seemingly ever-growing insurgency, has taken a particularly heavy blow from the photos and other revelations of abuse against Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison.
“The photos were the last straw,” said Berka. “When I saw those pictures, it was a signal to admit that I was wrong.”
Similar sentiments are being heard throughout this pro-American part of the world.
In Prague, Warsaw and Budapest, many say they were dismayed to see the United States — a beacon of freedom and democracy during their dark decades under Soviet domination — employing methods reminiscent of communist dictatorships.
[…]
“Abu Ghraib dented my belief in the perfection of America’s Army, but not in its democracy,” said Blazej Roguz, a 25-year-old resident of Katowice in southern Poland who still supports the war.
Describing the abuse scandal as “poisonous” for America’s image, Roguz said he was nevertheless impressed that the photos were made public and the matter is being investigated.
“They published them,” he said. “I liked that they didn’t try to whitewash the whole issue.”
Opponents of the war, like Berka in Prague, expressed similar hope in the United States’ ability to rectify the damage that has been done.
“My trust in America is still there,” he said. “The thing I always believed is that America has a good immune system — that it can correct and clean itself. This is a big test for the American democratic system.”
Yes it is.
These guys know that the one thing we have left is a free press and the ability to rise up as citizens and change the course of our policies. Whether we will have the wisdom to understand what is at stake is another thing. These people certainly do.