Giving Aid & Comfort, Part 2.

What can one say? When it rains, it pours. And this last week, it has been mana from heaven for those who hate America.

If all the Jane Fonda’s, John Kerry’s, Osama Bin Laden’s and Saddam Hussein’s of the world had convened a meeting to devise a propaganda campaign to hurt America and her defenders, they could not, in their wildest dreams, have concocted anything as effective as Abu Ghraib Prison.

In a fit of blinding stupidity a handful of morons did what legions of Saddam Fehdayen could never do. They stained the reputation of the United States Army. They breathed life into tired lies. They provided un-imaginable aid to our enemies.

By humiliating and mistreating the prisoners under their care, these individuals (they ceased to be soldiers when they broke their oaths), placed every real soldier in Iraq in unnecessary danger. They forgot that the reason we strictly adhere to the Geneva Convention has little to do with compassion for the enemy, and everything to do with the survival of U.S. Soldiers unlucky enough to fall into enemy hands. Only by strict adherence to these rules ourselves do we retain the moral authority to demand reciprocal treatment for our POW’s.

Every new recruit learns about the Geneva Convention and The Laws of Land Warfare. Then they are taught the difference between lawful and un-lawful orders. They learn that not only can they disobey an unlawful order, but they are required to do so, and to report it to the appropriate chain-of-command at the earliest opportunity. They are even given little cards, with all these rules written down, so they can carry them around at all time and not forget them (and so you can give them to your captors should they claim ignorance of these rules).

Even John Kerry learned all this, (though he claims to have forgotten of it, before remembering it, after committing atrocities in Vietnam).

There is no excuse for this behavior. These individuals need to be punished, and to the maximum extent allowed.

Neither is there any excuse for the media feeding-frenzy over this story. The same papers, talking heads, and perplexed pundits that said we couldn’t handle the pictures of dead Americans hanging from bridge trusses in Falluja, have gleefully splashed pictures of Americans behaving badly across front pages and television screens all over the country. Media experts that censored 9/11 footage after the first painful weeks so we wouldn’t hate Muslims and start lynching them in the streets, busily fan the flames of hate for America in the muslim world (under the guise of “full disclosure”). The multi-culturalists who said that Islam should not be judged by the actions of a few “misguided” adherents of the “religion of peace”, now point to Abu Ghraib and say: “this is us.”

And John Kerry can once again blame it all on America’s “John Wayne culture.”

Neither is there any excuse for the language used and mischaracterizations of this incident. Atrocities! War Criminals! (Et tu Kerry?) Systemic abuse! Inhuman treatment! Cover-up! And so on down a rhetorical slippery-slope that has even included comparisons to the Nazi SS.

If what happened at Abu Ghraib is an atrocity, and the idiots responsible are Nazi war criminals, then I suggest that the fine gentlemen in charge of the Hague and the World Court start and immediate investigation of America’s college campuses--where similar acts occur every year during fraternity and sports hazing rituals. These prisoners were humiliated. In a few cases psychologically abused. And one or two may have been roughed up physically.

These things are wrong and those responsible and need to be punished, but they are certainly not atrocities. Murdering innocent civilians, then burning, desecrating and dragging their bodies through the streets before hanging them from a bridge truss--that’s an atrocity. There is no moral equivalency here. Regardless of what Al Jazeera says.

But our press, which has gone from being the fourth branch of our government (or fourth estate if you’re French), to an enemy fifth column behind our own lines, has chosen to equate these very different actions. Stupid G.I.s, they insinuate, are no different than Nazi executioners manning gas chambers, or Uday and Qusay Hussein.

And let’s not forget how we all found out about this. Not through the keen noses and sleuthing abilities of Dan Rather, Peter Jennings or Catie Couric. No. We know of all this because one soldier remembered what he was taught at basic training (that which Kerry forgot), and reported the abuse to his chain of command; a chain of command that took immediate action and opened a criminal investigation, which it dutifully reported to the press back in January (some cover-up).

Because we hold ourselves to higher standards than our enemies do themselves, President Bush has apologized to the world for the actions of a few. SecDef Rumsfeld even came before a senate committee and accepted full-responsibility for something he had could not have prevented and would never have condoned. That’s what honorable leaders to when their subordinates misbehave.

In doing so, they proved that the system works. The Army policed it’s own and those at the top took responsibility. Just the way it is supposed to.

For some though, that is not enough. Some insist that Rumsfeld resign disgrace, and have even started specious articles of impeachment. Many in the media are salivating at the prospect, if not writing their own drafts of impeachment for use in the anticipated hearings. But, if this is the right thing to do, then why don’t they insist on Senator John Kerry’s impeachment? After all, he has admitted to taking part in real war crimes and of shirking his duty as a commissioned naval officer to stop them. A question to be pondered.

Meanwhile, in a little bomb factory somewhere in Iraq or Afghanistan, a terrorist is grinning ear to-ear. The fight may not be lost after all....

Of course, his next lesson may come when he learns that American soldiers are no longer in the mood to take prisoners... Our enemies and those that support them may not like the final “lessons learned” at Abu Ghraib.

It doesn't require the Supreme Court.

It may not, but my point still stands, unfortunately. Find any judge willing to pass official judgement on Kerry for his crimes.

I am well versed in what constitutes treason and sedition (if not on who has jurisdiction). The problem is that this country simply lacks the backbone to prosecute it. A country that will protect flag burning as free speech will never convict a person of treason unless they're caught in the act of handing secrets to the enemy--and even then it's a crap shoot these days.

If the security rules for our intelligence and military committees of congress and the senate were to be enforced, half the politicians Washington would be in jail. Senator "Leaky" Leahey, for example earned his name well. He should be in jail, but the most they managed to do was shift him off the intelligence committee.

Who's going to prefer the charges who has the juice to make it stick?

Thank God we have a President who does not back down.

Yesterday he publicly supported Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and acknowledged that Rumsfeld is a great Secretary.

Unlike John Kerry, who turned on his own after leaving Vietnam, and Senator Ted Kennedy who deserted a drowning girl that he was responsible for, our President is a MAN OF CONVICTION AND DOESN'T TURN TAIL AND RUN WHEN THE GOING GETS ROUGH!

We are winning ~ the bad guys are losing ~ trolls, terrorists, democrats and the mainstream media are sad ~ very sad!

~~ Bush/Cheney 2004 ~~

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