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Human rights groups silent on death of Americans
Townhall.com ^ | 21 June 2006 | Jeff Emanuel

Posted on 06/20/2006 10:35:13 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher

Two American soldiers, missing since an insurgent ambush at the checkpoint they were manning last Friday, were found dead Monday night on a street just south of Baghdad. An Iraqi General confirmed to the Associated Press that the soldiers’ bodies showed “signs of torture,” and that the men appeared to have been killed in a particularly “barbaric” way. This assertion appears to be backed up both by the fact that DNA tests were required to positively identify the remains, and by the claim of responsibility made by the self-titled new leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, who posted on an Islamist website that he “carried out the verdict of the Islamic court" for the death of terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi by “slaughtering” (a word most often employed when referring to beheadings) the two soldiers.

Privates First Class Kristian Menchaca and Thomas Tucker were members of the 101st Airborne Division (Air Assault)’s “Strike” Brigade, based at Fort Campbell, Kentucky. Both Menchaca and Tucker volunteered to be members of the US Army. Both volunteered to be infantrymen. Both knew, as do all members of the US Armed Forces, that they could end up in harm’s way as a result of their volunteering—doubly so since both initially enlisted well after the Iraq War (and postwar process) had begun. In a written statement, Tucker’s family said that their son had joined the military in part out of a desire to "do something positive.” They also released to the press the text of a message he left on their answering machine less than a week before his capture, in which he reaffirmed his commitment to, and belief in, his mission. "I'm defending my country," he said, and he asked his mother to be proud of him.

Interestingly silent on this and other atrocities carried out by the insurgents in Iraq are the “human rights” groups who seem to spend every day accusing the United States of torture, war crimes, and various human rights violations. UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan has called the Iraq war “illegal,” and John Pace, former UN chief of Human Rights for Iraq, has said that human rights conditions are “as bad now as they were under Saddam,” but was it America that filled mass graves with hundreds of thousands of murdered Iraqi civilians? Last month, Human Rights Watch again accused the US of “brutalizing Muslim suspects in the name of the war on terror,” but how many times have Americans strapped bombs to their own chests and purposely detonated themselves in a large crowd of civilians? Amnesty International’s website highlights America’s use of “torture or other cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment” against terrorist captives, but how many prisoners—Muslim or otherwise—have Americans brutally beheaded?

Despite the immediate attempts of the anti-war Left to make this murder of American soldiers into an election-year political issue, the gradually stabilizing situation on the ground—especially evidenced by the decreasing frequency of effective insurgent attacks, combined with the increasing desperation of their methods—almost inarguably proves that a turning point in Iraq has been reached. Zarqawi’s demise at the hands of Air Force pilots and joint Special Operations troops was the most obvious sign of this improvement, but the tide had been turning in the favor of freedom long before Al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq was finally caught.

Beyond providing intelligence which will enable us to more effectively counter the remnants of the insurgency, the information gleaned from Zarqawi’s safehouse has given us additional proof that the battle against the insurgency is being won—and that that has been the case for some time. Computer files recovered after the bombing show that Zarqawi had been growing more and more concerned about the "bleak situation" his insurgents were facing. "Time is beginning to be of service to the U.S. forces,” he wrote, “by allowing them to form and bolster the [Iraqi] National Guard, undertake big arrest operations, carry out a media campaign weakening the resistance's influence and presenting it as harmful to the people, creat[ing] division among [the insurgency’s] ranks." He was rapidly approaching the conclusion that the only way "to get out of this crisis” was “to entangle the American forces into another war,” such as one with Iran. These are not the words of a bold, invincible leader of an army of freedom fighters on the verge of defeating the world’s greatest military. They are not the words of a man simply in need of the West to “reach out” to him in an effort to “make an appeal to his human decency,” as many peace-at-any-cost proponents have claimed. Rather, these words reflect the increasingly desperate thoughts of a man who is struggling to avoid the fact that he must finally begin to come to terms with impending, and inevitable, defeat.

There is no question that these two murdered soldiers, and all others lost in Iraq and elsewhere in the world, are to be mourned. Both Kristian Menchaca and Tom Tucker left behind families, friends, and other loved ones. Given that fact, and the fact that, due to an overriding love of America and belief in its ideals, they volunteered to serve their country even though they fully understood that they might one day have to make this ultimate sacrifice, it is supremely important—even necessary—that, along with a loving family, they leave behind a grateful nation. America should recognize these men as examples of the myriad heroes which make up our all-volunteer military, and should realize that, without supporting the mission the troops are doing—and the cause for which they are volunteering to give their lives, should it come to that—it is not possible to support the troops themselves. The tide has turned in the battle to win the peace in postwar Iraq, and those who have stood on the sidelines for the past three years—or, worse, who have actively worked against the cause of freedom and democracy in that nation—are dangerously close to being remembered (if they are remembered at all) not for their support of human rights, but for their self-righteous fight against them—all in the name of their hatred of America, and of George W. Bush.


TOPICS: Constitution/Conservatism; Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Philosophy; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: amnestyinternational; antiamerican; humanrightswatch; iraq; massmurder; menchaca; terrorism; thomastucker; twofaces
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'Human rights' groups are showing themselves for what they are: left-wing, anti-American fronts!
1 posted on 06/20/2006 10:35:15 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher
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To: Aussie Dasher
Al Qaeda lied when they said they had captured them.

These lies will soon be exposed by the press... NPR reporters and such.

2 posted on 06/20/2006 10:40:13 PM PDT by SteveMcKing
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To: Aussie Dasher

"... The tide has turned in the battle to win the peace in postwar Iraq, and those who have stood on the sidelines for the past three years—or, worse, who have actively worked against the cause of freedom and democracy in that nation—are dangerously close to being remembered (if they are remembered at all) not for their support of human rights, but for their self-righteous fight against them—all in the name of their hatred of America, and of George W. Bush."

Yep. Judgment Day's a-comin. AQI's goin' down hard - and the human rights phonies can go suck eggs.


3 posted on 06/20/2006 10:40:45 PM PDT by karnage
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To: Aussie Dasher
We need to take the gloves off over there.
They want to capture and torture our people ? We should take
the ones we've caught out of the jails and line them up
50 - 125 at a time line them up against walls and shoot them.

Then drive tracks back & forth over the bodies. Further there should be zero mercy for any that oppose us , no prisoners.

If we do not play it tougher , it could get alot worse.
4 posted on 06/20/2006 10:41:59 PM PDT by LeoWindhorse
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To: Aussie Dasher
And you and the author expected **what**, exactly? Other than the standard behaviour of the left-wing, anti-American crowd?

Sheesh. Dogs pee on trees, and have for centuries, even perhaps millenia. The leftoids pee on America, and have done for decades. ''Showing themselves''? NOW??

Where ya been, mate?

5 posted on 06/20/2006 10:42:50 PM PDT by SAJ (x)
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To: Aussie Dasher
Human rights groups silent on death of Americans

Well, color me so surprised! /s

6 posted on 06/20/2006 10:43:14 PM PDT by Just Lori (To everything, there is a season.........Ecclesiastes, 3:1-8)
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To: Aussie Dasher

They're also showing themselves to be racists - holding Arabs and other Muslims to a MUCH lower standard of conduct than Westerners.


7 posted on 06/20/2006 10:44:07 PM PDT by PzLdr ("The Emperor is not as forgiving as I am" - Darth Vader)
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To: LeoWindhorse

Check out some of my postings on this matter. We're singing out of the same hymnbook brother. It'll either be Total War or Total Defeat and slavery to terrorists.


8 posted on 06/20/2006 10:47:45 PM PDT by pankot
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To: Aussie Dasher

They hate to admit that it'a a war. A$$holes.


9 posted on 06/20/2006 10:52:52 PM PDT by Dallas59
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To: SAJ

Yeah, I know. But well worth pointing out again and again and again.


10 posted on 06/20/2006 10:56:15 PM PDT by Aussie Dasher (The Great Ronald Reagan & John Paul II - Heaven's Dream Team!)
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To: SteveMcKing

Please go on. You have inside information??


11 posted on 06/20/2006 10:57:52 PM PDT by downtownconservative (Murtha is truly an EX-Marine...his motto, "nunquam fidelis")
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To: Aussie Dasher
The lying hypocrisy of the left wing human rights organizations is appalling.

I sometimes see some members of Amnesty International on the street recruiting, and unless I'm in a hurry, I always stop and lay into them about their disgusting slanted treatment of the US. In particular, I flay them over their Secretary General's comment that Guantánamo is the "gulag of our times." They're either ignorant of the matter or they try to defend it, at which point the fun begins.
12 posted on 06/20/2006 10:59:37 PM PDT by TheWasteLand
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To: downtownconservative
I just think it's safe to assume that Terry Gross will invite a panel of Harvard psychologists to speculate why Americans fell for the terrorist's lies on her very next segment of "Fresh Air".
13 posted on 06/20/2006 11:04:21 PM PDT by SteveMcKing
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To: Aussie Dasher

They are shameless in their hate.


14 posted on 06/20/2006 11:13:36 PM PDT by Atlantic Bridge (De omnibus dubitandum.)
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To: Aussie Dasher

The people who killed those soldiers are not members of the human race. They are animals.


15 posted on 06/20/2006 11:14:02 PM PDT by garbageseeker (Gentleman, you can't fight in here, this is the War Room - Dr. Strangelove)
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To: Aussie Dasher

Out of curiosity I looked at the Amnesty websites ( amnesty.org and amnestyusa.org ) to see if there was any mention in the news relating to this incident. Nope. Zip, Zero, Nada. However it was hard to avoid something relating to Club Gitmo and other "abuses related to the WOT"


16 posted on 06/20/2006 11:16:34 PM PDT by HarmlessLovableFuzzball
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To: Aussie Dasher

That's exactly what they are. They should be run out of town on a rail..


17 posted on 06/20/2006 11:18:54 PM PDT by sheik yerbouty ( Make America and the world a jihad free zone!)
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To: Aussie Dasher
Well, you see, um, the Yanqui Imperialist AmeriKKKAn stormtroopers pushed these innocent peasants to kill in this fashion. So you see, it's all the U.S.'s fault,,,and the JOOOOOSSSSS.

sarcasm
18 posted on 06/20/2006 11:19:44 PM PDT by kb2614 (Hell hath no fury than a bureaucrat scorned)
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To: LeoWindhorse
On an earlier post a FReeper came up with a good idea. The old Roman code of decimation. Every 10th man is executed. Might get a few good ones killed, but what the heck. The odds of getting the bad ones far out weigh some collateral damage. It certainly would be a great motivator too.
19 posted on 06/20/2006 11:39:15 PM PDT by skimask (People who care what you do don't matter.......People who matter don't care what you do.)
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To: Aussie Dasher

Both of you are right. The leftist "human rights" organizations have been anti-american for decades AND they are now being exposed easier and more often than ever before.

Their collective slip used to hang out - now all they have left is their birthday suit.

Can anyone say "shrinkage"?


20 posted on 06/20/2006 11:43:10 PM PDT by torchthemummy ("Patriotism...means looking out for yourself by looking out for your countryā€¯ - Calvin Coolidge)
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