Posted on 05/07/2004 5:36:02 AM PDT by kcvl
Do you condone what these soldiers did? Do you believe they were just having good ole frat boy fun? Or do you believe they crossed a line?
What matters now is that the American soldiers who did this (and the leaders who either let them or permitted the environment to fester) have let the Presdient and the people of America down. The senior Army and OSD leaders who then tried to bottle this up share a great deal of the responsibility.
I feel for the good and honorable men and women who are putting their lives on the line over there only to have their Army sullied by this incident. And I pity the next American prisoners to be taken and the treatment that will now befall them.
Rummy owes apologies to a whole host of Americans, not just the Congress.
Terrific. Then they are the ones who look bad. People can see through this. Let me say this again. This whole episode will only hurt the side that cares more about politics than the real issue. It will not hurt the side that actually is honest and devoted to seeing crap like those pictures STOP.
And if you do want people to post, then don't make yourself such an easy target.
Case in point.
We need to keep in mind that there are at least two different kinds of apologies being discussed here, very different.
One kind is a sincere apology from the heart, for something that has happened to stain this country's honor. It has nothing to do with personal culpability of the apologizer. It's just saying all of America is truly sorry to find out about this. They personally are truly sorry to find out about this. Bush and Rummy would both like to give one of these, and they should.
Hell, I didn't even know about this scandal until CBS showed the pics and I apologize, to anyone in the world that thinks this is how America treats people, I apologize. It's not true. I am personally ashamed of what happened. However I am not guilty. If I had been in charge at that prison, it never would have happened. If I had been in charge with many degrees of separation between me and that prison, as with Rummy, I probably wouldn't have known about it while it occurred. But I would expect to hear about it by the next day. Soonest. And once I knew about it, it would have been the lead item the next morning with the President. IMHO.
Now the OTHER kind of apology is what the Democrats are screaming for. They smell political blood, they are desperately holding up their Kerry doll and they badly need something with which to smear Bush. What they want is an admission of personal culpability. They want Rummy, and then Bush, to do a perp walk ala Nixon and say "I'm a miserable failure" as a prelude to a crashing defeat at the polls. THIS IS WRONG. This is why Bush is reluctant to apologize for anything, because the media vultures and the Democratic scavengers are waiting for blood, waiting to blow up and magnify any sort of admission of any mistake.
Remember the last Bush press conference? That one reporter asked "Can you think of any mistakes you've made in office?" or something like that. Hundreds of media hyenas waited with baited breath, recorders at the ready, fingers on autodial to print next morning's headline scandal. They were hoping for "Maybe I wouldn't have gone into Iraq" which would have become BUSH ADMITS MISERABLE FAILURE ON IRAQ QUAGMIRE in the NY Times. They were bitterly disappointed.
So it is a prickly thing to apologize for one's country and yet not cave to the bloodlust of the bottom feeders. I wish Rummy well however this comes out.
He's also free to argue with you about it.
I am glad he is... there are a few people here who are in desparate need of a reminder about what right and wrong is.
Isn't he the same Congressman who thought sharks were swimming the path of the slaves ships?
IMO .. many are just frustrated on how the media is handling this .. and I agree the media will harp some more about this .. and I also agree that Bush and Rummy did nothing wrong .. they didn't cover anything up
And yes, I realize war is messy and at times things happen that shouldn't ...
But when that happens we should own up and correct the wrong.
Which is what they are doing .. those soldiers will be dealt with and the honor will be restored back to our military.
LOL! Awesome. The first ever totalitarian thread on Free Republic. Thanks for giving us your unimpeachable opinion on everything.
unarmed men in our power are another thing...
As for the "godless" terrorist, kill every last man of them.
As for unarmed men in our power and in our care... treat them according to our principles and our moral standards.
Base behavior doesn't make us victors...
I take it you don't like to see an instance of rationalization of the sort I described.
It's all very well to whine about Hillary, but she's a known enemy who we can oppose. The real danger is that the people on our side will go bad, and our position collapses. Can you not see that that is what's really at stake here?
Is torturing prisoners part of its job?
Abuse maybe, hazing maybe, shame maybe. What they did was not near to "torture."
OK, is abusing, hazing, and shaming prisoners part of the military's job?
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