an Administration official has gone and accused someone of being unAmerican. After the failure of the far Left to document virtually anyone on the Right or in the Administration challenging anyone's patriotism, or calling anyone "unAmerican," an Administration official has really done so, and actually used the word "unAmerican."
Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld called those miscreants who are accuse of abusing Iraqi prisoners in the al Ghraib (sp?) Prison, if the accusations are true, "unAmerican."
And I agree with him.
IF after the due process many of you feel so strongly about for murderers, rapist, etc., these soldiers are found guilty, then I think they should get the book thrown at them.
Today I heard of possible mistreatment leading to the death of prisoners, if guilty I think those soldiers should be held up on murder charges. However, I wouldn't send a soldier to prison for the rest of his/her life for making a prisoners stand on a box with a wire tied around his dick or making them strip and having a female soldier walk by and laugh at the size of their dicks! (Oh, and by the way I don't really give a rat's ass about their culture) Just make the penalty fit the crime, not the knee jerk reaction of the 60 Minutes crowd.
Furthermore, it appears that the military was taking action on these matters before the news broke on 60 Minutes. What possible good did 60 Minutes expect to come out of this for our guys overseas? The answer to that is NONE, their intent was to embarrass our military, our President and our policies. Along with their First Amendment Right shouldn't they have just a modicum of responsibility? Do you honestly believe that our Military policy allows for such mistreatment of prisoners? Once these issues are discovered the Military takes swift action, I know they did when I served.
I still wonder why the treatment of our people as POW's during this war has been so under reported or just plain ignored? The answer seems clear to me, it doesn't meet with CBS, ABC or NBC's agenda, which does not appear to me to be pro American.
... this has to get fixed (and fast). A bunch of heads will have to roll here and I hope the current administration will have the stones to do what is necessary. Rumsfield and the head of the CIA may have to go.
I think there are other scandals brewing here (what is happening with Afgan prisonors, treatment of enemy combatants in Cuba, sending prisonors to other countries where torture is more common, ... ). The gov is going to have to get out any problems here fast, fix them, and take the heat from both the left and right. Bush will probably have to dump the goatropers on the right that have told him the "war on terror" is different and he can ignore codes of internatioinal conduct.
Public safety, troop safety, and the larger goals of anything the US is doing in the middle east will get completely buried in this stupid, stupid behavior.
Harry, I'm disappointed that you are apparently choosing to take an isolated incident and attribute it more broadly. You say it has to be fixed, and that heads must roll, and then seem to use it as an excuse for condemning every high profile individual. "Rumfeld and the head of the CIA may have to go"?!?!! Only if they knew about and approved of the actions. Since they weren't policy, I doubt it.
And "other scandals brewing here"? You sound like an Amnesty International press release, and they spent more time condemning the American death penalty than Saddam's torture and rape rooms. There is no indication that anything like this is organized, and it's clear that it won't be tolerated. No one is defending this, and I'm disappointed that you would attempt to paint Conservatives as supporting it.
And by the way, it thus far appears that fewer were humiliated in this imbroglio than were killed with our tax dollars at Ruby Ridge and Waco. Did you likewise call for Janet Reno's heat to roll on the occasion of the murder of scores of Branch Davidian wackos in Waco?
... was wrong in the way she handled Waco. What you seem to miss is that this is a disaster in terms of how we are viewed internationally. It will also be a hit for the administration in the current election (although they can recover).
In business school, one of the professors taught us the "NY Times Rule" about private behavior and communications: to wit "never have your company do anything and never write anything that you wouldn't like to see on the front page of the NY Times" . In this case, substitute 60 Minutes for the NY Times.
You are certainly right that, in sum, the incidents will probably be isolated and our enemies have been far worse (I have not forgotton 9/11, Danny Pearl, or the Contractors in Falluga). It doesn't make us any more moral if we fuck up.
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Personally, it's clear that abhorrent acts were committed. What is ENTIRELY UNCLEAR, is whether these were a few low level miscreants, as the Administration is hurrying to claim, or whether an entire culture of torture and abuse had pervaded the command structure at Al Ghraib prison. Personally, I will wait until the dust settles before making up my own mind. But it seems clear that the Administration has quickly rushed into partial disclosure and cover up the rest mode. Which certainly will NOT help our credibility among other Arab nations if this is later found to be the case.
I DO believe that Cheney is a member of the administration. In fact, I'm pretty sure he runs it. Which is why Bush can't testify under oath without Cheney there to move Bush's lips for him. And the terms Cheney has used to condemn anti-war dissenters have included: "unpatriotic" and "giving aid and comfort to the enemy"
The difference might be that THESE "unAmericans" might very well have been following orders from their superiors. In all honesty, we do not yet know the details about this, only that the specific acts that were perpetrated are horrendous to all except Bribite, who voluntarily both inflicted and endured worse, by his own admission.
it shouldn't work for sdstud.
Perhaps Cheney has accused protesting bozos of "giving aid and comfort to the enemy," but I'm fairly certain that the word "unpatriotic" has never passed his lips. Which distinguishes him from John F'in Kerry, Weasley Clark, and other prominent Demoncrats.
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