His son paid the price for his comments, going from Democratic primary frontrunner to fourth place finisher in the course of a week.
I was not aware of this regarding Rwanda. Don't send John Bolton to the U.N. Send the United States Marines.
Call or write Senator Durbin reminding him that our soldiers are there to serve their country by guarding the prisoners of war, and that they do a pretty good job.
Dick Durbin, U.S. Senator
Durbin
332 Dirksen Senate Bldg.
Washington, DC 20510
Primary Phone: (202) 224-2152
Fax: (202) 228-0400
E-Mail: Dick Durbin, Durbin
Durbin has proven himself unfit for office and needs to be forcibly removed by the proper authorities if he doesn't step down. It remains to be seen if he requires institutionalization, but we are a compassionate people and I feel he needs to be evaluated before committed permanently.
Describes some parts of Shy-Town in July.
One measure of a civilized society is that words mean something: "Soviet" and "Nazi" and "Pol Pot" cannot equate to Guantanamo unless you've become utterly unmoored from reality. Spot the odd one out: 1) mass starvation; 2) gas chambers; 3) mountains of skulls; 4) lousy infidel pop music turned up to full volume. One of these is not the same as the others, and Durbin doesn't have the excuse that he's some airhead celeb or an Ivy League professor. He's the second-ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Don't they have an insanity clause?
"Yes, folks, American soldiers are Nazis and American prison camps are gulags: don't take our word for it, Senator Bigshot says so."
Lets face it,60 years ago Durbin would have been impeached and jailed for his remarks.The remarks are literally unreasonable as well as an attack on America's efforts in the WOT.What this says about how America has changed is the most disturbing thing about the whole Durbin affair.
Durbin slanders his own country
June 19, 2005
BY MARK STEYN SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
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Throughout the last campaign season, senior Democrats had a standard line in their speeches, usually delivered with righteous anger, about how "nobody has a right to question my patriotism!" Given that nobody was questioning their patriotism, it seemed an odd thing to harp on about. But, aware of their touchiness on the subject, I hasten to add that in what follows I am not questioning Dick Durbin's patriotism, at least not for the first couple of paragraphs. Instead, I'll begin by questioning his sanity.
Last Tuesday, Senator Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, quoted a report of U.S. "atrocities" at Guantanamo and then added:
"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings."
Er, well, your average low-wattage senator might. But I wouldn't. The "atrocities" he enumerated -- "Not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room" -- are not characteristic of the Nazis, the Soviets or Pol Pot, and, at the end, the body count in Gitmo was a lot lower. That's to say, it was zero, which would have been counted a poor day's work in Auschwitz or Siberia or the killing fields of Cambodia.
But give Durbin credit. Every third-rate hack on every European newspaper can do the Americans-are-Nazis schtick. Amnesty International has already declared Guantanamo the "gulag of our times." But I do believe the senator is the first to compare the U.S. armed forces with the blood-drenched thugs of Pol Pot's Khmer Rouge. Way to go, senator! If you had a dime for every crackpot Web site that takes up your thoughtful historical comparison, you'd be able to retire to the Caribbean and spend the rest of your days torturing yourself with hot weather and loud music, as well as inappropriately provocative women and insufficient choice of hors d'oeuvres and all the other shameful atrocities committed at Guantanamo.
Just for the record, some 15 million to 30 million Soviets died in the gulag; some 6 million Jews died in the Nazi camps; some 2 million Cambodians -- one third of the population -- died in the killing fields. Nobody's died in Gitmo, not even from having Christina Aguilera played to them excessively loudly. The comparison is deranged, and deeply insulting not just to the U.S. military but to the millions of relatives of those dead Russians, Jews and Cambodians, who, unlike Durbin, know what real atrocities are. Had Durbin said, "Why, these atrocities are so terrible you would almost believe it was an account of the activities of my distinguished colleague Robert C. Byrd's fellow Klansmen," that would have been a little closer to the ballpark but still way out.
One measure of a civilized society is that words mean something: "Soviet" and "Nazi" and "Pol Pot" cannot equate to Guantanamo unless you've become utterly unmoored from reality. Spot the odd one out: 1) mass starvation; 2) gas chambers; 3) mountains of skulls; 4) lousy infidel pop music turned up to full volume. One of these is not the same as the others, and Durbin doesn't have the excuse that he's some airhead celeb or an Ivy League professor. He's the second-ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee. Don't they have an insanity clause?
Now let us turn to the ranking Democrat, the big cheese on the committee, Patrick Leahy of Vermont. Leahy thinks Gitmo needs to be closed down and argues as follows:
"America was once very rightly viewed as a leader in human rights and the rule of law, but Guantanamo has drained our leadership, our credibility, and the world's good will for America at alarming rates."
So, until Guantanamo, America was "viewed as a leader in human rights"? Not in 2004, when Abu Ghraib was the atrocity du jour. Not in 2003, when every humanitarian organization on the planet was predicting the deaths of millions of Iraqis from cholera, dysentery and other diseases caused by America's "war for oil." Not in 2002, when the "human rights" lobby filled the streets of Vancouver and London and Rome and Sydney to protest the Bushitler's plans to end the benign reign of good King Saddam. Not the weekend before 9/11 when the human rights grandees of the U.N. "anti-racism" conference met in South Africa to demand America pay reparations for the Rwandan genocide and to cheer Robert Mugabe to the rafters for calling on Britain and America to "apologize unreservedly for their crimes against humanity." If you close Gitmo tomorrow, the world's anti-Americans will look around and within 48 hours alight on something else for Gulag of the Week.
And this is where it's time to question Durbin's patriotism. As Leahy implicitly acknowledges, Guantanamo is about "image" and "perception" -- about how others see America. If this one small camp of a few hundred people has "drained the world's good will," whose fault is that?
The senator from Illinois' comparisons are as tired as they're grotesque. They add nothing useful to the debate. But around the planet, folks naturally figure that, if only 100 people out of nearly 300 million get to be senators, the position must be a big deal. Hence, headlines in the Arab world like "U.S. Senator Stands By Nazi Remark." That's al-Jazeera, where the senator from al-Inois is now a big hero -- for slandering his own country, for confirming the lurid propaganda of his country's enemies. Yes, folks, American soldiers are Nazis and American prison camps are gulags: don't take our word for it, Senator Bigshot says so.
This isn't a Republican vs Democrat thing; it's about senior Democrats who are so over-invested in their hatred of a passing administration that they've signed on to the nuttiest slurs of the lunatic fringe. It would be heartening to think that Durbin will himself now be subjected to some serious torture. Not real torture, of course; I don't mean using Pol Pot techniques and playing the Celine Dion Christmas album really loud to him. But he should at least be made a little uncomfortable over what he's done -- in a time of war, make an inflammatory libel against his country's military that has no value whatsoever except to America's enemies. Shame on him, and shame on those fellow senators and Democrats who by their refusal to condemn him endorse his slander.
Steyn ping
Bump!
It is so obvious what is going on here. Durbin and his ilk are trying to do to our military, and our country, what was done to us during the Vietnam war.
They are slandering our troops, just as they did in Vietnam.
Remember our baby killing murderous troops (reminiscent of Ghengis Khan) slashing and burning those peaceful North Vietnamese in the quaint little villages?
Remember our war criminal presidents, Johnson and Nixon, oh, yes, those war mongerers, hell bent on an imperialistic American foreign policy? It must have been for rice in those days, not oil.
Remember the daily drum beat of American losses and the daily death toll from Uncle Walter Cronkite? The quagmire lasted forever, until Uncle Walter declared that Vietnam was unwinnable, and we needed to get the hell out of there, and bring our baby killing troops home (to be shamed and spat upon.)
Remember newspaper editorial after editorial demanding an end to the war, and fat head senators and congresscritters, cutting off the funding?
Remember the scenes at the embassy in Saigon, desperate people trying to get aboard our helicopters to freedom?
Remember the millions who were killed in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos when we left?
This is what the democRATS want - AGAIN!! They will do anything and say anything to tear our country apart, again, and they don't give a damn. Political power is everything to them.
Don't let this happen. We owe our precious troops, past, present and future, so much more. We owe our children some semblence of this country that was left to us by our brave parents.
God have mercy on our troops,and our country,
(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)
LOL
This whole essay is excellent. Something needs to happen to Durbin for this, politically or socially. He has to lose his position or his office, or both. Illinois needs to rally against him. The Senate needs to censure him.
But I do have two contrary thoughts, both very serious:
1. I do not see how Durbin can rationally be punished, when Ted Kennedy got away with his appalling and outrageous remarks earlier. And
2. Being a Democrat means never experiencing consequences for your own actions.
So I greatly fear nothing will happen.
Wrong. I was questioning the Democrats' patriotism, still am.
If you can't question a Democrat's patriotism, what can you question?
Sounds like an apartment that I lived in once upon a time.
Victor Davis Hanson has a piece, posted on FR linked to Jewish World Review
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1423948/posts
and also linked on Real Clear Politics to the Chicago Tribune
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0506170274jun17,0,4330914.story?coll=chi-newsopinioncommentary-hed
ALLIES WHO TURN WARM, THEN COOL
He puts in perspective America's position in the world so clearly.
I recommend reading it as a companion piece to today's Mark Steyn - to get the memory of Durbin's words in true perspective.
To the 99 enablers in The United States Senate, you have the right to remain silent.
Keep the heat on Dickie Durbin! Censure or resignation!
You know, all those solders know exactly what is going on over here. They are well aware what is being said and by whom.
I wonder if the Democrats are delusional enough to think information isn't traveling to their ears and eyes in far-away lands?
Or do they not mind pissing off people who volunteer to kill evil-doers?
Just random thinking....