jimsjournal
| I have to comment on this -- 05/14/04 |
jimsjournal | ||
|
My last entry was about how the political situation was just too discouraging and how it made me not want to discuss current events. There are so many issues on which I strongly disagree with Bush's position that the thought of voting for him is painful... except, of course, the thought of voting for Kerry. The prison scandal in Iraq -- the news about the abuse at Abu Ghraib -- is very upsetting. Christopher Hitchens, writing about this said "One of two things must necessarily be true. Either these goons were acting on someone's authority, in which case there is a layer of mid- to high-level people who think that they are not bound by the laws and codes and standing orders. Or they were acting on their own authority, in which case they are the equivalent of mutineers, deserters, or traitors in the field." I think that even if they are found to have been acting on their own, charges of total incompetence and dereliction of duty need to be pressed against their officers, including those with stars on their shoulders. I'm especially thinking of that dumbass general who was making the rounds last week attempting to say it wasn't her fault because she wasn't paying attention. At the very least she needs to be given a dishonorable discharge. And if the investigation shows this abuse was happening under orders, then the severest penalties should apply to those officers. (or, as Hitchens notes, "They test one's opinions about the wrongness of capital punishment" because the effects of their actions and the deaths they may cause are the equivalent of treason.) Last week -- for a brief moment or two -- my opinion of Kerry jumped up several notches when he issued a surprisingly statesmanlike statement -- but then it dropped instantly when I found out he was using pictures from Abu Ghraib for his fund-raising, claiming that people needed to contribute to his campaign so that this kind of abuse could be stopped. No, wait, think about what that implies. He is saying (without actually saying it out loud, of course) that this abuse is official United States policy. He is slandering the United States and every member of the United States military. Oh, but that's nothing new for him, is it? (No, I am not depending on three decade old memories when I say that; during the primary campaigns I read the full transcript of his testimony at the Viet Nam hearings.) I was nauseated by radio windbag Rush Limbaugh's comparison of the prisoner abuse to fraternity hazing and his statement that this was harmless "blowing off steam" for energetic young soldiers. (I prefer Hitchen's description of them as being "this bunch of giggling sadists.") Of course Limbaugh's verbal garbage was then matched by Senator Kennedy, the dissolute windbag from Massachusetts, who patriotically compared the United States to the regime of Saddam Hussein. Right-wing moonbat meets left-wing moonbat. And then al-Qaeda murdered Nick Berg on videotape and reminded us all of the kind of jihadist scum we are actually facing in Iraq. And, speaking of scum, I see that the British newspaper editor who had published fake photographs that had alleged to show British troops abusing Iraqis has lost his job. So far nothing like that has happened at the Boston Globe. (In case this story has not reached your area, the Globe carried a report -- complete with pictures -- that were supplied by local left-wing moonbat politicians who had, in turn, received them from an Islamic source -- except, of course, they were obvious staged fakes that had come from an Internet porn site. The Globe made a halfway apology for not having sufficiently blurred the explicit nature of the pictures, but made no apology for having published a slander of American troops. Oh, why yes, as a matter of fact, the Globe is owned by the New York Times.) The reality of the abuse at Abu Ghraib isn't bad enough for the "anti-war" left, they have to search for fake evidence to support their anti-American bias. And, say what you will about what a windbag Limbaugh may be -- and how knee-jerk obvious his dislike of the Clintons may be -- at no time did he ever advocate the assassination of President Clinton. Imagine the uproar if he had. And yet, that is exactly what Air America (the new "liberal alternative" radio network) did. Randi Rhodes -- one of their stars -- compared the Bush family to the Corleone family (in the Godfather) and President Bush to the character of Fredo, adding that "somebody ought to take him out fishing and -- " She then made the sound of a gun being fired. Then we have the "peace activists" who cheered the mutilation of the bodies of those four civilian contractors last month and who rejoice at every setback in Iraq and bemoan every success. However, they have reached new depths of depravity... They now have a site devoted to presenting information about the deaths of our troops in Iraq and holding a vote to select America's Dumbest Soldiers. (They even have a disclaimer: "By visiting this site you agree that you won't sue anyone, ever. If you find the contents on this site disturbing or offending - press alt+F4, shut down your computer and pray.") I suppose it doesn't really matter how many areas of disagreement I have with Bush... There really is no honorable alternative. | ||||
|