Posted on 05/08/2004 9:01:04 PM PDT by new cruelty
Rush Limbaugh is a slow learner.
That might explain why he looked at the sadistic photos from the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and likened them to some college fraternity high jinks.
Boolah, mullah! Boolah, mullah!
Most reasonable people expressed disgust by the sight of the bound, nude, hooded men in American custody being forced to degrade themselves sexually.
And Limbaugh surely would have, too, if it had been under the previous administration.
But Limbaugh's a referee without a whistle these days. So here's how he excused the inexcusable:
"This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation, and we're going to ruin people's lives over it, and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time," he said on his radio show.
Limbaugh added: "I'm talking about people having a good time. These people, you ever heard of emotional release? You heard of need to blow some steam off?"
I knew he was an apologist. But I just figured that in light of his newfound expertise in the realm of investigatory zeal run amok -- something he claims to have learned the hard way in Palm Beach County -- he might have temporarily burst through the wall of his professional limitations.
But, like I said, Limbaugh is apparently a slow learner.
And yet, there's hope.
There used to be a time when he thought that the problem with drugs was that we weren't locking up the people who got caught. This was during the days when he thought the American Civil Liberties Union was a flaky impediment to justice and criminal defense lawyers were an evil bunch of liberal simps who were out to subvert the truth by freeing the guilty on procedural maneuvers.
He has been educated through experience in that regard.
Caught in cross hairs of justice
Ever since the Palm Beach County State Attorney's Office declined to respectfully turn a blind eye to Limbaugh's years of prescription drug abuse, he has become a champion of the drug addict caught in the cross hairs of justice. He talks of the pain of addiction, the need for treatment and the unfairness of prosecutors pursuing people with a personal problem.
If you go to Limbaugh's Web site these days, it's full of tales of horrific miscarriages of justice and calls to end investigatory techniques that we, as Americans, shouldn't stand for.
There are warnings about the "threat to the rule of law." Harassment we can't condone. And a horrible "fishing expedition" for information that should chill us to the core.
No, none of that is about the sadistic abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison.
It's all about Palm Beach County State Attorney Barry Krischer's having the nerve to document Limbaugh's drug abuse through the use of his medical records.
Oh, the horror!
From Limbaugh's bellowing, you'd think Krischer was breaking chemical lights and pouring the scorching phosphoric liquid over the naked talk-show host's... oh, never mind.
Besides, that's just "people having a good time."
All those naked Iraqis must be guilty of something, right? There can't be any innocent civilians rounded up by overzealous authorities. That never happens.
And as for the guilty -- well, the rights of people behind bars is just a left-wing abstraction.
For now. The slow learner better hope this isn't the next awakening in his education.
I'm just repeating what people who DO know about such things have said.
For instance, to the casual observer it is reasonable to think of the tomato as a vegetable.
But botanists tell us the tomato is a fruit.
I'll take their word for it since it is their specialty and they ought to know.
I think Torie is right, that what differentiates Arabs from Persians, Kurds, etc. is language and ancestry.
But it is suffucient for my purposes just to know that they are different.
Because they aren't, just as all Americans aren't Englishmen. Arabs, Kurds and Chaldeans are different ethnic groups who happen to live in the same nation, with the members of the one far outnumbering the other two.
You are correct. I heard that comment as well, turned to the radio and said, "You mean Iranians." It took him a little longer than I think it should have, but he eventually he said that he made a mistake and that it was the Iranians who weren't Arabs.
The guy's talking 3 hours a day. I cut him some slack w/the verbal mis-steps as long as he comes back and clears it up.
Back atcha 100%!
The same sanctimonious phony liberal Democrats and media -- who could have cared less about thousands of Iraqis poisoned, tortured, maimed and thrown into shredders by Saddam -- is suddenly morally outraged over this BS?
We haven't seen this kind of moral outrage from them since the Human Shields were soon to be dead Human Shields.
Take away the pictures, take away the videos, and it's just one more fragging-out incident out of a hundred -- in one more war.
No, nor do I try to pass myself off as one.
Certainly, but you can't compare what went on in these pictures with hiding behind women and children to pick off Americans who are trying to rebuild power stations and restore food distribution. Jihadists are learning the hard way that if you don't want to be subjected to degrading treatment, don't pick on Americans - not in New York, and not in Iraq.
If he did correct himself it certainly wasn't three minutes later.
He made the statement originally in order to discredit the premise of the article he was discussing, and I heard no correction.
But if you can post an excerpt of a transcript then I could be pursuaded otherwise.
That's a completely separate issue, and Rush is right about that. The outrage in this country is ludicrous, and only meant to hurt Bush in November, and achieve some of the anti-American, Blame America First crowd's agenda.
But I'm not a "dupe" and resent that - I heard Rush make the comments directly on his show, and what the MPs did was no Yale frat stunt, and Rush was wrong to phrase it in that manner. Perhaps it was one of the few times that he spoke before thinking things through, but he was still wrong to say it in that manner.
The Islamist terr perps have done much worse to their prisoners whom were American. So kill all the bastards, and that will not bother me one damn bit either. Put the fear into the Islamist pigs of ever crossing an American. make them fear the US, they will never like nor love us, so let them fear us. Fear is a healthy thing for the scum, make self preservation their top priority for the near future.
These are some of the most logical comments I have ever seen in this forum!!! The "poor Arab" abuse at Abu Ghraib would never have happened had we NOT TAKEN PRISONERS!! Ya know, watching "Band of Brothers" I found this out for the first time, that we most times did not take prisoners in WWII...logistics of housing them would have been difficult. NO PRISONERS should be our policy in Iraq...I think I will call my reps and suggest same on Monday (even though they are both liberal...I'll probably get hung-up on :-)).
The media back then wanted us to win.
Today? They celebrate every setback and scandal, don't they? But only as long as a GOP Prez is running things. B@stards.
This incident of "abuse" was an anomaly -- NOT the rule, but it's GOT to be expected.
In wartime we not only demonize an enemy, we de-humanize them. How then can we kill the enemy if we keep on thinking that they are a husband, a father, a brother?
American Forces were taught just that during WWII against both the "Japs" and the "Krauts."
Is abusing an enemy prisoner justifiable? Maybe. Is abusing them understandable? Yes.
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