Yawning Over Abu Ghraib

In a world besotted by toxic moral equivalence, it actually makes sense to equate the treatment of Iraqi prisoners with the brutality suffered at the hands of Saddam Hussein, or, as some have suggested, the Gestapo torturers of the Third Reich. But aside from its inflammatory properties, such a comparison has little use as a diagnostic tool or a logical yardstick for measuring the degree of the offense, at least anywhere in the real world.

These incidents, we’re led to believe, recall the tyranny of Saddam’s regime, and tarnish the moral credibility of the allied mission in Iraq. As though being the butt of a miscreant’s joke is the same as having your kneecaps ground off.

Trust the Left to make the comparison, regardless of how strained or specious. Can you imagine how trivial these charges are going to seem if the terrorists manage to explode a dirty bomb and 30,000 Americans die puking up their own intestines? That is the caliber of enemy we face. Yet we’re supposed to don sackcloth because a few homunculi got their feelings hurt???

How do you fight a war by empathizing with your enemy? How do you center his skull in your sights and blow his brains out when you feel his hopes and dreams and know he carries a picture of his sweetheart in his back pocket? It would be a wonderful world if he felt the same way about you, if he got you in his sights and lowered his weapon in appreciation of the horror he was about to commit. If that were to happen, there would be little reason for either of you to be there in the first place.

But there is a reason. You’re there because your target and a few thousand of his friends are willing to hijack airplanes and fly them into your buildings. They yearn to set off explosives in your train stations and poison your water. They would cheer if a suitcase nuke went off in the Chicago subway at rush hour and thousands of innocent commuters vaporized in a flash.

To prevent these horrors, you commit smaller horrors. You keep the sights on the target, and you squeeze the trigger slowly, just like your DI showed you in Basic. And the target’s head explodes in a pink shower of blood, brain, and bone. And one less enemy exists to threaten your way of life and the lives of innocent Americans.

But occasionally you don’t have to pull the trigger. Cowards quickly recognize the discretion that constitutes the major part of valor, and will often give up and live to fight another day. Then you - who only moments before were their executioners - become their caretakers.

Their presence puts a strain on your resources; you have to clothe and feed and shelter them, while your comrades are living in holes and eating whatever crumbs they can gather. You’re forced to listen to the insults and the defiance and the hypocrisy of people who have no honor. You suffer the outrage of their demands for decent treatment, as though the charred bodies dangling from a bridge like smoked beef are simply the ephemera of nightmares, not the work of the mewling wretches before you.

So maybe you’re a little brusque when you’re transporting a group of fetid whiners from the holding cells to the showers. Maybe you scoff when these “brave soldiers” cringe like schoolgirls at your guard dogs. Maybe you react to a rebellious loudmouth with a nightstick instead of Rogerian therapy. You let them stand naked a tad longer than they would have to, and you’re a trifle slow to respond to their demands for an extra blanket or a mint on their pillow. You’re a soldier not a stewardess, and these are murdering thugs, not guests at the Four Seasons.

Geneva Convention be damned. Under that same protocol, we would be well within our rights to summarily execute un-uniformed “militia.” We are certainly under no obligation to provide them with extraordinary service or carry out our duties with courtesy. We are not required to empathize.

What protection has the Geneva Convention accorded OUR fighting men and women? In Viet Nam, captured Americans were brutalized in unspeakable ways; the captors always found some justification for ignoring decency. Likewise in Gulf War I. Our prisoners were beaten, raped, in some cases murdered. And these were soldiers, not civvy-clad “noncombatants.” In another world, in cleaner times, such sideline shooters were known as “spies,” and were shot on the spot.

It is absurd to be hamstrung by polite conventions when prosecuting a war against savages. No, we don’t need to take our cues from Saddam. But I hardly think that poking fun at naked prisoners is the same as boiling a soccer team alive in battery acid. The world that has expressed such outrage at America’s indiscretions was oddly silent while Saddam was pulling his citizens’ eyes out with gimlets and Muqtada al-Sadr’s goons were dragging dismembered corpses through the streets. When that world begins to express the same level of discomfort with those atrocities as it does at the photos of naked Iraqis, it will earn some degree of credibility. When the imams and clerics of radical Islam begin demanding investigations into the wholesale slaughter of western contractors, they will show the same degree of integrity America has shown all along. And they will demonstrate their willingness to wage war according to rules of civilized behavior. That in turn will give them sounder ground from which to demand merciful treatment. But until that day, any treatment we give Iraqis beyond a bullet in the head comes from our grace alone. That we don’t line them all up and machine gun them is a tribute to our forbearance. The last thing these animals deserve is an apology.

I’ve seen umpires at Little League games abused worse than these prisoners. And all they did was make a bad call at second base. They didn’t behead anybody or make soup tureens of human skulls. How much sympathy am I supposed to have for a group of people who indulge the most savage and cowardly of human vices, then collapse at the first sign of resistance? How much high ground can a group claim when they readily slaughter innocents in ways that make Torquemada hurl? We’re supposed to believe that these barbarians are offended by their cavalier treatment, and that forcing them to march to the shower naked somehow bruises their fragile self-esteem?

In a more honest day and age, they would have needed fear no rough treatment; they would have been cut down where they cowered on the battlefield. The ultimate way to solve the mishandling of prisoners is to take no prisoners. Instead, these poltroons throw up their hands and demand protection under a protocol they steadfastly refuse to honor themselves.

“We should treat them well not for their sake but for our own,” it is argued. There seems to be a large group of folks more concerned about the PR implications of this molehill than about its moral (and legal) legitimacy. Am I to understand that our MPs are now to worry about whether these vermin have fuzzy bath slippers and a low-carb alternative at their dinner meal? Our soldiers are to devote tremendous energy and resources to ensuring the comfort of an ilk sworn to their eradication? What possible ethic binds us to such absurdity? What do we owe these detainees except a hot and a cot? Respect? For what!!??? Their grim determination as fighters? Their sense of honor and military integrity? The ultimate nobility of their cause?

Have you seen the Berg video? The charred meat, that used to be a person, swinging from a bridge in Fallujah? The shots of the Trade Center the morning of 9/11/2001? These are not images inclined to elicit respect from anyone except underclassmen at the De Sade School of Diplomacy. And unlike the photos from Abu Ghraib, these are not isolated, posed tableaus but slices of an all-too-commonplace reality frozen forever in a resin of horror. Yet we’re supposed to witness such depravity in silence, lest we inflame a pathological hatred against Arabs and Muslims. Worse yet, we’re supposed to suffer pangs of conscience when we see an Iraqi detainee cringing before an attack dog.

Maybe I’m alone in this, but I have to tell you, I DON’T CARE. I don’t care if Abdul is so scared he’s crapping his loincloth. I don’t care if Achmed sobs himself to sleep on the cold, dank floor of a fetid cell. I don’t care if he wakes every midnight from haunted dreams of a red-white-and-blue specter. I believe that these creatures should be accorded the bare minimum they need to survive: a relatively weather-proof roof over their heads, a bland, nutritious gruel thrice daily, and rags sufficient to keep our guards from having to stare at hairy naked bodies all day.

I don’t believe our jailers should be engaging in freelance electroshock or hobby proctology; such acts are beneath us. But we should not be prevented from such violence by any respect for our charges; they don’t deserve it. We should tolerate their pathetic existence only because wholesale murder and the torture of weaklings diminishes us as a people, kind of like throwing rocks at a limping mutt owes more to sadism than to power.

As to the PR impact of our “brutality,” I’m not particularly worried that the Abu Ghraib scrapbook may cost America its Miss Congeniality title. There isn’t a nation on earth - our Western allies included - that can dodge charges of wartime atrocities. The Brits had their Boers. The French had the Hugenots. The Spanish had the Incas, the Aztecs, and the Mayans. The Germans … well …

These “atrocities” weren’t limited to poking fun at some Catholic’s privates or tying some Jewish shopkeeper to a wall. Their offenses, where they didn’t leave piles of corpses, left broken bones, scarred faces, and missing limbs. They were truly tortures, not mere inconveniences magnified to scandal through the distorting lens of hypercritical media.

Propaganda is a powerful weapon during a time of war -- one might even say a weapon of mass destruction. It should be clear by now who is wielding that weapon and to what end.

What a rambling, racist screed from a sociopathic mind.

[blushing] Awwww. Thanks. I didn't know you cared.

Your disjointed hate ranges from the mischaracterization of conservatives to advocacy of torturing innoncent citizens because of where they live; i.e. Iraq.

I don't believe you'll find the word "conservative" in the piece at all, nor any reference to that ideology. And the only place I advocate torturing anyone in is your mind. I'M supposed to be the sociopath, remember?

In addition to that, you've incorporated every talking point we've heard from the war-machine, death-cultists for over three years now.

Hmmmm. Did you invent phrases like "war-machine death-cultists"? Or did you get them from your Wimps-R-Us newsletter?

You could of [sic] very well found a career working for Goebbels in WWII.

Couldn't. Al Gore and Ted Kennedy had the jobs locked up.

Now the question remains. Why are you sitting on you ass typing when you could be on the front lines.

We each do our part. I'm a little too old to be chasing sand fleas. So I lend my support where I can. Which means defusing idiots like you here at home.

Odd thing about these tough-talking keyboard warriors. Always do their fighting from the sanctity of their homes, anonymously.

Who's "fighting?" All I'm doing is telling the Left Wing to drop the Abu Ghraib story. It's yesterday's news. It's a tempest in a teapot. And it ain't gonna win you the election. Nice try though.

Your convictions are nothing but vacuous words.

While YOURS are recorded on police files in three states.

You need to hightail over there and get busy.

You need to smooch my brown eye.

I merely listed the actual catalog of US imperialism. It isn't clear to me how this is "innuendo, hyperbole and gibberish."

As I said, in plain terms, those "folks" who were the ice cream vendors or basmati rice farmers were certainly not the folks who beheaded Nick Berg. Their sons and nephews and brothers, outraged, inspiration to more jihadists.....soon more will pick up guns and RPGs and shoot at US forces in order to free their country from the Big Oil Bastards.

Regarding Nick Berg, we can make a case about the suspect photos: the white men wearing ski masks, white tennis shoes, bulletproof vests, just the Halloween tone of those costumes, they are US or other white operatives posing as "Arabs" in bad ninja outfits, not the usual apparel of Arab insurgents.....they, standing over a "Nick Berg" in US-issued orange jumpsuit, like that is standard issue from Arab terrorist groups as well.....I guess after 13 days of US captivity, the US Rulers simply handed him over to a "terrorist cell." Doctors had pointed out the video was a fraud, for what magic used prevents fresh blood from spurting out a freshly slashed jugular? Why did "Berg" not resist?

My empathy IS for the US troops who live in lousy conditions, getting irradiated and damaged by the US depleted-uranium killing fields (US troops will basically be tossed to the streets once they report their conditions, as was generally with Gulf Massacre I) these US troops who get something like 1 bottle of water a day, 1 MRE a day! "Support the troops" while we "lower tax" Republicans chop off some $14 billion in veteran's funds! I guess those wonderful tax cuts have to be paid for somehow.

So why is there no right-wing attack on Halliburton, Dick Cheney's profiteers, they who are supposedly contracted to feed the US troops, doing a very LOUSY job while making some obscene profits from Occupation Of Iraq?

I'll tell you why, rightists are still stuck on these John Wayne mindsets.

First of all, you are never to old to participate, given your zealotry. If you believe in your preachings, then let your actions show it. Men are judged, not on what they say, but what they do. Do something, tough guy. Off the cushiony chair. Get to the front lines and file reports back, if nothing else.

Secondly, you diffuse nothing. You simplistically attempt to divide the world into black and white, democrats and republicans. Reality is nothing so simple.

There has been no sea change in the direction in which our country has headed (increasing leftist socialism, totalitarian big gov't) in the decades of my life; 1950's through the 2000's. This in spite of both D's and R's holding presidencies and majorities in the legislature.

To blame one of undifferentiated political parties, in your case the dems (left), and I quote-- "Trust the Left to make the comparison, regardless of how strained or specious"-- ignores the fact that others unaligned with the democratic party have also exposed the actions in which our military has tortured to death nearly 40 Iraqis, up to 90% of those held being innocent civilians.

Allow me to give you a basic primer on what conservatism actually stands for. Conservatism used to hold the principles which our Founding Fathers expoused. Non-intervention, avoidance of foreign entanglements and foreign wars, friendship and commerce with all the world community. A well armed citizenry; a strong capability of self-defense our our borders. Self-reliance, accountablity, responsibility. The Founding Fathers encouraged the population to rise against tyranny whenever their employed politicians engaged in such. Conservatism used to adhere to these principles and more.

You may wish to read the collected speeches and articles of Ron Paul- perhaps the only honest politician on the scene today- to learn more of what constitutes traditonal conservatism.

The rest of your response is unworthly of notice, it being nothing more than a compendium of more talking points, this time of a personal-attack nature, seen on every forum on the internet. You don't even attempt to differentiate yourself from the sheep in that regard.

I daresay you have no ground from which to lecture me on the nature of conservatism (a topic far, far beyond the scope or intent of this thread by the way). You may want to read Russell Kirk -- I suggest The Conservative Mind -- and any of the authors he cites before venturing into terrority you're obviously unfit to tread.

Like many mental midgets, you equate a political ideology -- Leftism -- with a political party -- the Democrats. While it's true you find fewer Leftists in Republican circles, Jim Jeffords, John McCain, Olympia Snowe, Arlen Specter, et. al. are proof that an "R" behind the name doesn't indicate ideology.

The Left is at the root of the anti-war resistance in this country. There are others who misguidedly oppose this war -- some for reasons as paranoiac as those seen elsewhere in this thread, others for your isolationist, pseudo-conservative motives.

But conservatism has never tolerated tyranny -- here or abroad. Thomas Jefferson, arguably one of America's first Burkean conservatives, didn't hesitate to engage the Barbary Pirates on "the shores of Tripoli." Last I looked, Tripoli wasn't on America's shores. So this Buchananist isolationism is no more conservative than Marxism.

This thread is not about conservatism. It is about the distortions of the media surrouding Abu Ghraib. It is about a phony moral equivalence drawn to condemn a few minor transgressions by coalition forces against a barbaric enemy that doesn't deserve our respect. And it's about the hysterical and fabricated over-reaction to this non-incident that simply plays into the hands of John Kerry and his Leftist cabal.

Stick to the topic or find someone else's rug to crap on.

What kills me is that the media and their enables don't tell you what kind of prisoner is in Abu Ghraib.

They aren't jaywalkers or shoplifters.

These are bomb throwers, the planters of I.E.D.'s, they are people who have their faces on a deck of cards signifying the 55 most wanted, and they are people who now that they are released present MORE of a threat to the lives of our soldiers than we presented to them inside a cell in Abu Ghraib.

Whatever we did to them...if it gave us the intel to save even ONE of my fellow soldiers...then their treatement was justified.

Our guide to how "horrible" the treatment of the prisoners REALLY was is the fact that most of the Iraqi people think the hand wringing in this country over the whole thing is overblown.

most of the Iraqi people think the hand wringing in this country over [Abu Ghraib] is overblown.

Considering the images and stories from Saddam's Garden of Sadistic Delights???!!!! I should HOPE so!

But to the armchair second-guessers and moral equivocators, the two regimes are the same. The utter insanity of the comparison astounds me. Until I remember how limited is the liberal capacity for subtle logical distinctions.

"...ignores the fact that others unaligned with the democratic party have also exposed the actions in which our military has tortured to death nearly 40 Iraqis, up to 90% of those held being innocent civilians."

Where is the proof to back this up?

Please show me...someone who just spent a year in Iraq and has actually BEEN in Abu Ghraib prison...the doccuments proving 90% of the people in the prison are innocent. If there had actually been 40 deaths at the hands of soldiers the media would have been all over it.

I DID file reports from the front lines and I can say without a doubt that your specious claims are nothing but a steaming pile of Bravo Sierra!

"Conservatism used to hold the principles which our Founding Fathers expoused. Non-intervention, avoidance of foreign entanglements and foreign wars, friendship and commerce with all the world community."

Nice try at defining your Liberaltarian beliefs by saying they are "Conservative" ideals.

Let me guess, next you'll be telling us that our standing army is illegal becasue the constitution says that congress can only fund the military for no more than two years at a time.

The fact that you point to RINO like Ron Paul to back up your beliefs shows that you are not a conservative as you claim...but an anarchy loving...Lyndon LaRouche supporting Libertarian. Again proving that the ONLY Libertarian with ANY common sense is Neal Boortz.

"You don't even attempt to differentiate yourself from the sheep in that regard."

Ah yes! When you can't think of anything else to say, accuse anyone who doesn't see the world through your narrow viewpoint of being a DemoRepubliCrat sheep!

Spare me.

"Indeed. "Smaller horrors" of Iraq committed by US troops in general when the USA massively targeted hospitals, schools, shelters, generators, sanitation systems while women and children were sanctioned in the process of killing millions of Iraqis since 1991. Of course, how could we forget the road blocks where thousands of innocent Iraqis have been slaughtered at checkpoints by US forces. The "common sense" rightists feign sympathy for US mercenaries who got caught and killed but where is their "common sense" sympathy for the Iraqi innocents?"

What the HELL are you smoking? Whatever it is you need to put the bong down for awhile and come back to reality.

I just spent a year in Iraq and NONE of what you jut claimed is going on ANYWHERE in the country.

I'll present you with the same...and STILL..unanswered challenge that the rest of your mentally vacant friends when they attepmt to pass of these kinds of mentally unstable ranting as fact.

Show me the proof.

Show me the doccuments and the reports to back up your delusional fantasies you're ranting about.

Show this soldier who just returned from Iraq wher ethese kinds of things happened and more importantly HOW they could have happened without those of us over there not hearing about them.

I hear the crickets chirping now.

Now, txradioguy. You're not being very sensitive to their liberal feelings. Don't you understand that these people hate America and it's only right to continue letting them hate Americans. They particularly hate you barbaric soldiers, committing atrocity every single chance you get.

You know your guilty, txradioguy. Now admit it. Just admit that you were happy with the pictures at Abu Ghraib. Admit that you were happy that these criminals were humiliated. Don't hold back. Admit it, atrocity man.

Even though you report the news-which is probably not close to the truth because President Bush has given you orders to only report good news from Iraq-you're just as guilty as every murder committed in Abu Ghraib prison. That's right. EVERY SINGLE MURDER! DO YOU HEAR ME! All of those innocent criminals slaughtered while you covered it up. Kept it off the news wire. JUST ADMIT THAT YOUR A LYING REPORTER COVERING UP THE BRUTAL ATROCITIES OF AMERICAN SOLDIERS AT EVERY TURN! :)

Seriously, I also want you to admit that your patriotic and wish to defend liberty by any means necessary. Admit that you minded that terrorists, now linked to Saddam Hussein, flying three planes into three civilian buildings killing thousands, forcing you into a war you didn't want. Admit that you held up your right hand, taking an oath to protect and defend the U.S. Constitution.

Once you admit that, I want you to admit to all of Free Republic, the United States of America, and those people lurking on this thread from other nations that you love the United States, and that defeating terrorism is the only way to ensure World Peace.

Admit to these people that by defeating the Soviet Union, President Ronald Reagan ushered in a peacetime period unheard of in American history. Admit to these people that you really want to liberate the Iraqi people from this oppressive regime to ensure stability to the Middle East, making an example of would-be dictators.

And finally, I want you to admit to everyone that you'd be willing to go back to Iraq for another year if it meant that the American people were safer, your loved ones were safer, and the Iraqi people were safer.

ADMIT IT ALL! RIGHT NOW! DON'T WAIT! I WANT TO HEAR IT! WE'RE ALL WAITING!

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