Mark Steyn: Durbin slanders his own country

Chicago Sun Times ^ | June 19, 2005 | MARK STEYN

[ConservativeStLouisGuy]

....for posting the article in full!

FReegards, FRiend....

[Coop]

You have a great idea Coop.

Thanks, but I'm just encouraging the same idea put forth by many others, including Newt Gingrich.

[OESY]

This deserves emphasis:

So, until Guantanamo, America was "viewed as a leader in human rights"? Not in 2004, when Abu Ghraib was the atrocity du jour. Not in 2003, when every humanitarian organization on the planet was predicting the deaths of millions of Iraqis from cholera, dysentery and other diseases caused by America's "war for oil." Not in 2002, when the "human rights" lobby filled the streets of Vancouver and London and Rome and Sydney to protest the Bushitler's plans to end the benign reign of good King Saddam. Not the weekend before 9/11 when the human rights grandees of the U.N. "anti-racism" conference met in South Africa to demand America pay reparations for the Rwandan genocide and to cheer Robert Mugabe to the rafters for calling on Britain and America to "apologize unreservedly for their crimes against humanity." If you close Gitmo tomorrow, the world's anti-Americans will look around and within 48 hours alight on something else for Gulag of the Week.

And this is where it's time to question Durbin's patriotism. As Leahy implicitly acknowledges, Guantanamo is about "image" and "perception" -- about how others see America. If this one small camp of a few hundred people has "drained the world's good will," whose fault is that?

The senator from Illinois' comparisons are as tired as they're grotesque. They add nothing useful to the debate. But around the planet, folks naturally figure that, if only 100 people out of nearly 300 million get to be senators, the position must be a big deal. Hence, headlines in the Arab world like "U.S. Senator Stands By Nazi Remark." That's al-Jazeera, where the senator from al-Inois is now a big hero -- for slandering his own country, for confirming the lurid propaganda of his country's enemies....

[Stultis]

Last Tuesday, Senator Durbin, Democrat of Illinois, quoted a report of U.S. "atrocities" at Guantanamo and then added: "If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings."

Actually, no, Senator Dumbass. Unless I weren't listening carefully, I wouldn't have believed anything of the sort, and for an obvious reason. (Although apparently not obvious to an idiot or a reflexive America hater.) The description had the prisoner tied in a "fetal position."

Now, granted that one might experience considerable pain if kept in this position for a long time, the pain would be from MUSCLE CRAMPS fer crying out loud and not, for instance, from the dislocation of shoulders or the tearing of muscles and tendons. The later occurs when one is bound in certain ways with the arms and legs hyperextented BEHIND the body; the OPPOSITE of the "fetal position".

I challenge Senator Dumbass to thumb through the available photographic catalog of Nazi, Soviet and Cambodian interrogation atrocities and report the percentage of prisoners shown bound in a "fetal position".

Besides, besides the odiousness of his comparison, I disagree wholly and unapologetically with Senator Dumbass' entire sentiment. Frankly (and I suspect the overwhelming majority of Americans are with me on this) it doesn't bother me even a little that the "twentieth hijacker" spent a day or three bound on the floor, part of the time lying in his own excrement. If he'd actually been tortured, I'd have some pause, but the attitude adjusting, mentally disorienting discomfort measures the 'Rats call torture seem perfectly appropriate.

I'm only enraged that we've been driven by this nonsense to overcompensate to such an absurd degree. As I understand an interrogator nows needs specific approval from Rumsfeld to engage in "light pushing" or to thump a prisoner in the chest with his finger; and likewise to offer favors like chocolates. Interrogators have been stripped of sticks and carrots, and still the 'Rats and anti-American moonbats wail and moan.

Un-freakin'-believable.

[Caleb1411]

Ping

[GianniV]

I live in Illinois and it is NOT unbelieveable that Durbin is in the Senate. Illinois is the California of the midwest - going totally socialist/democrat. The corrupt democrats of Chicago have expanded their reach and ruined this state.

[blueknight]

I don't know what the process is in Illinois for recalling a senator but I would urge the citizens of Ill. to pursue it.

[goldstategop]

A follow up riposte to Mark Steyn: "I do not have one life to give up for my country"; Durbin's ilk today would say: "I wish my country would give up her independence so I can feel better about myself!"

(Denny Crane: "Sometimes you can only look for answers from God and failing that... and Fox News".)

[doug from upland]

TREASON SONG

[el_texicano]

Nahhhh, the Dem's don't wonder that, they seriously think they are gonna take back both houses of Congress...

If they don't get it back, they were obviously robbed, or the people are too stupid to recognize their obvious superiority.

They can't understand why their inherent right of rule is denied. They see themselves as the brightest, the smartest and that everyone should defer to them to tell them what to do/think.

They're elitist, arrogant and condescending.

And as for you...just how has your lovely self been doing my dear? Long time no see your erudite comments. U been kicking butt and taking names? ;->