Those Iraqi prisoner pictures ("MUST READ")

Townhall ^ | May 5, 2004 | Cal Thomas

[FairOpinion]

Let's get the preliminaries out of the way first: If members of America's armed forces violated any rules and mistreated prisoners of war, they should be punished in accordance with accepted military law. That having been said, there are several other things that also need to be addressed.

First, we don't know the identity and intentions of these allegedly abused prisoners. Did they have and withhold information vital to the protection of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians? War is nasty business, and the rules don't always comport with a book of etiquette.

Second, Iraqis and insurgents from other countries have made sport of knocking off American and British troops by sniper fire and exploding devices. Newspapers recently carried the story of a young boy who shot and killed an American soldier. The American thought the child was a noncombatant. The boy bragged that he suspected as much and hid his rifle until the soldier turned away, whereupon he shot him and kept firing "until I saw smoke coming from his body." No doubt the boy will be considered a hero in some circles and never brought to justice.

Excerpt

[FairOpinion]

Normally I would put this into the editorial section, but considering the hullaballoo over those pictures, this is closest to a news item putting things in context, than the hysterical leftists hand wringing that is showing up as front page news in the media.

I hope the Admin Moderator will see it this way and leave it in the Front News section -- since even a lot of FReepers, thought well-intentioned, have trouble putting things in context, as this article is doing.

[F14 Pilot]

PING!

[ECM]

Cal Thomas bump!

[border bud]

I totally agree with you, and the article.

[CobaltBlue]

To paraphrase the President, either you are with the perpetrators of the abuse at Abu Ghraib, or you are against them. As for me, I am against them.

It was wrong. That's it, nothing more to say.

Period. End of message.

[bornintexas]

This is a very good article.

One only had to listen to the Swiftboat Vets the other day to be reminded that the actions of a few bad soldiers shouldn't be blamed on all.

I hope and pray that the American people will remember what happened to those vets and not allow the media/propaganda to overhype and turn them away from their support of those troops in Iraq, who are being blown away daily.

[Straight Vermonter]

First, we don't know the identity and intentions of these allegedly abused prisoners. Did they have and withhold information vital to the protection of American soldiers and Iraqi civilians? War is nasty business, and the rules don't always comport with a book of etiquette.

War fighting doesn't have to comport with a book of etiquette but it must comport with the Geneva Conventions. No amount of stories about Iraqi or Arab atrocities changes the fact that we must maintain a higher level of behavior. Otherwise we are little more than the savages we are fighting.

[Anti-Bubba182]

"Normally I would put this into the editorial section, but considering the hullaballoo over those pictures, this is closest to a news item putting things in context, than the hysterical leftists hand wringing that is showing up as front page news in the media....."

This is good also:

What the Press Won't Tell You About the Taguba Report

[jaykay]

Newspapers recently carried the story of a young boy who shot and killed an American soldier. The American thought the child was a noncombatant. The boy bragged that he suspected as much and hid his rifle until the soldier turned away, whereupon he shot him and kept firing "until I saw smoke coming from his body." No doubt the boy will be considered a hero in some circles and never brought to justice.

And if the soldier had spotted the gun in time and killed the boy terrorist, he would probably be in the stockade. Liberate Iraq from the Iraqis. Let Allah do the sorting.

[lainde]

Excellent article. Doesn't sound like he's putting much stock in "winning the hearts and minds" theory.

[lizma]

This is one of the great fallacies in dealing with such people: that what the West does influences how they think and their course of action.

I don't know if this is a fallacy. I've spoken to returning soldiers and Muslims I know here in this country who have said the opposite. I'm beginning to think the news we get may still be very much filtered through a liberal lens even if we read it a conservative site. I really don't know.

[Shery]

Good post.

[FairOpinion]

"War fighting doesn't have to comport with a book of etiquette but it must comport with the Geneva Conventions"

==

These are NOT repeat NOT POW-s. They are TERRORISTS. The Geneva Convention doesn't apply to terrorists.

And God forbid there should be a major attack on us or our soldiers by the terrorists and then later we find out, that some prisoners had that information, but our interrogators weren't allowed to use the techniques to extract the information, because that may have "humiliated" the terrorists.

[McGavin999]

I agree with him totally. I read a letter from a soldier tonight that was posted here. One of the things he was talking about is how mad they are at the soldiers who did this. He told a story of how they went through a neighborhood and were attacked with an IED. As he was pulling one wounded soldier from a flaming truck (they couldn't get the other soldier out and didn't know if he was dead or burning alive) he noticed they were in front of the school they had spent the last months rebuilding for the Iraqis and across from them were Iraqis including the children they refurbished the school for, cheering. They could have opened fire, but they didn't. THAT is control.

[TexanToTheCore]

It is a fallacy. The average Iraqi sees Americans as soldiers who build schools and hospitals, lay water lines and restore electricity. The majority of them seem to feel that the disparity between their normal view of our soldiers and the events at the prison points to a very few renegade soldiers. They seem to be impressed by the speed with which our military has acted to right these wrongs.

There are also a lot of them who feel that Saddam's people and Al Sadr's people deserve this treatment. They seem a bit more reasonable than many of our left-wingers.

[Durtrider]

After looking more closely at the pictures -- I have come to the conclusion that the guy on the bottom left of the human pyramid is the Ace of Spades his self!

If you think about it -- that pyramid may be considered stockpiled WMD's!

This entire episode has become way to political -- blame Bush and hang Rumsfield is the new mission du'jour from the left. It is time to point the humor at their folly instead of reacting to them which has always been the predictable role for the right.

[america-rules]

My blood pressure is going way to high right now !

[FairOpinion]

"It's US or THEM so what part don't you understand ?"

===

Your tag line says it all. Exactly right.

People still don't get it.

And worrying more about the terrorists' "rights" , than American lives, may well cost us many more innocent lives.

If the FBI would have arrested and tortured Moussaoui, instead of not even look at his computer, so as not to violate his "civil rights", 9-11 may have been prevented.

We don't know how many more attacks have been prevented, by getting terrorist prisoners to talk.

We do know, that Turkey recently arrested a bunch of terrorists and foiled a devastating attack planned for the NATO summit in June, which was planned to kill President Bush, Blair and the leaders of NATO countries. I bet Turkey didn't worry about whether or not they were "humiliating" the terrorists. And they got results.

Can you imagine if that attack hadn't been foiled?

[Dec31,1999]

Had our soldiers executed the prisoners upon capture, we wouldn't be hearing any of this.

[NutCrackerBoy]

If there has been humiliation, it isn't the fault of the West. It is Muslims' fault. They took trillions of dollars in oil money, and instead of building a culture dedicated to elevating their people, including women, they have squandered it on agendas and adventures that had the opposite result. Like communism, which blamed the West for its failure to produce a better life for people forced to live under that system, Arab dictatorships must have an external enemy to keep people from blaming their leaders for the misery they have created. -Cal Thomas

We didn't have the choice to isolate. The actions in Iraq are upping the ante. Notice the Saudi prince sharpened his rhetoric against Zionism. Desperation.