Posted on 05/10/2004 3:54:35 PM PDT by IronJack
Amen. Thanks IJ......to distraction, and maybe to the jeopardy of our troops.
The nation's enemies have been handed a propaganda coup that they will milk for decades. There's no use denying it. Nor does it make sense to deny that those repulsive photos will be in the public domain and a part of American history forever, in a certain sense forever sullying the shining city on a hill.
At first I was too. But consider the source ...
The Left has a very limited repertoire. They can always be trusted to fall back on some historic success that was at best an anomaly.
Dontcha know ... Generalizations only work AGAINST us, never in our favor.
Well, I'm glad you're so easily convinced. I'm not. I'm not sure what is "abusive" about strip-searching enemy combatants. I don't know what constitutes a "scandal" when an investigation was launched immediately upon hearing the allegations.
And as for the mileage our enemies will get, so what? These aren't people who liked us anyway, and never will. If we served wine with the prisoners' meals, they'd hate us because it wasn't chilled properly. Why degrade yourself to curry favor with those who hate you?
And if those hateful images are to be part of America's legacy, how about the images of smoke-smudged soldiers handing out flowers to adoring schoolchildren, or Army nurses treating wounded civilians? How about a "before" and "after" of Abu Ghraib, you know, as it was under the previous management?
To hell with our enemies. Foreign and domestic.
We're signatories to the Geneva Conventions. Anytime prisoners are treated outside those standards it is abuse. Forgive me but it's highly disingenuous to contend that these were "strip-searches," as if these people were naked during some kind of in-processing routine. Nor were they naked because the MPs were "following orders" (an obviously self-serving charge that I will believe only when I see hard evidence for it). They were naked because they were being humiliated for sport by incredibly undisciplined, foolish and sadistic American MPs.
I don't know what constitutes a "scandal" when an investigation was launched immediately upon hearing the allegations.
A scandal exists when American soldiers in uniform in a war zone film one another blatantly violating the Geneva Conventions, grinning like bozos all the while.
Is Iraq?
Anytime prisoners are treated outside those standards it is abuse.
What provision of the Geneva Accords did we violate in taking pictures of naked prisoners? Different time, different war. And if this is the worst "abuse" our prisoners need fear, then they've got it pretty easy, compared to most other jailers.
Forgive me but it's highly disingenuous to contend that these were "strip-searches," as if these people were naked during some kind of in-processing routine. Nor were they naked because the MPs were "following orders" (an obviously self-serving charge that I will believe only when I see hard evidence for it). They were naked because they were being humiliated for sport by incredibly undisciplined, foolish and sadistic American MPs.
And you know this because ...?
A scandal exists when American soldiers in uniform in a war zone film one another blatantly violating the Geneva Conventions, grinning like bozos all the while.
An impropriety, yes. A distraction, yes. An ugly, forgettable incident, okay. But a "scandal?" Only if you and people like you buy into that designation. I don't.
President Clinton receiving blowjobs in the White House with a 21 year old intern to whom he was not married, lying about it to the American people on camera (complete with finger pointing), being found guilty of lying under oath, i.e., perjury, and being impeached, yet remaining in office.
That the press did not see all this as an embarrassment to our nation, but does see the actions of a few demented soldiers half-way around the world as such, is no surprise. What happened to their line, "It's only sex, and every one does it, and can't we just move on?"
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