So apparently Sharon went before the world (side by side with the POTUS) with his plan before he'd gotten approval for it from his own (Likud) party.
So Bush stuck his (our) neck out for nothing!?!?! He pissed off the Arab world by siding with Israel defying 50 years of US policy for nothing?!?!
AAAARRRRGGH!
Meanwhile...
The pictures of the Iraqi detainees that came out last week have destroyed any remaining shred of credibility that we might have had with the Arab world.
Face it folks - the party's over. It probably was before this, but this was the final nail in the coffin.
Watched the testimony on CSPAN, and a few things struck me:
Rumsfeld went on and on about how he hadn't seen the photo's until yesterday [5/6/04](!), but said that "it was on January 13th, 2004, that the allegations first came to light, when reported up the chain of command in Iraq". Are you telling me that it took 3 1/2 months for explosive allegations like these to get far enough up the chain of command for him to have seen the pictures? I think that says more about the chain of command's views on the nature of the actions of their troops than anything else.
A few days later Senator James Inhofe during the Senate Armed Services Committee hearings made his unbelievably stupid
"outrage at the outrage" diatribe:
"I am also outraged that we have so many humanitarian do-gooders right now crawling all over these prisons looking for human rights violations while our troops, our heroes, are fighting and dying"
Humanitarian do-gooders crawling all over these prisons looking for human rights violations?
Gee they didn't have to look very hard, did they Senator?
I mean God forbid those damn "do-gooders" should be concerned with anything as trivial as human rights - I mean it's not like we're Americans or anything -oh, wait we are. But they're not, so who gives a sh*t? Is that it?
What was the reason we went there again? WMDS? No wait, that didn't work. To topple a brutal regime and liberate people who have been denied human rights? Yeah, that's it, that's the ticket. Wait -doesn't that make us humanitarian do-gooders though? No?
Wait -I think I get it now: you're only a "humanitarian do-gooder" if you criticize those who humiliate, torture, or murder in the name of "liberation"? No? Oh, I see because then you couldn't condemn the murder of Nick Berg. SO what is it?
GOT IT! You're only a "humanitarian do-gooder" if you criticize when WE torture and you're not a Republican. Right?
Moral relativism is the refuge of the ethically challenged.
In that vein:
I'm getting really tired of those in the right using the murder of Nick Berg as justification for the torture of prisoners in Iraq. I stupidly watched the unedited video of the killing after following a link that was posted on a Yahoo message board.
I can't begin to tell you how sick it left me. You hear of the crime on the news and hear the word "beheading" and conjure pictures of the guillotine or some "clean" act where a person's head is swiftly cut off with a scimitar or something. (forgive this detail - I feel it's important to impart the true nature of the act) This was a slow and difficult sawing off with a large kitchen-sized knife. I still feel dirty for having witnessed it. I wont link to it - if you really want to you can find it. But be forewarned, you can't see something like this and remain the same person.
That being said it is degenerate and contemptible for anyone to claim as those on the right have that this justifies our torture of the Abu Grahib prisoners. Never mind that this employs twisted logic - we tortured the prisoners first then they murdered Nick Berg which then makes our having tortured OK? Violence and brutality are just that, and violent acts never justify one another, they just create more.
Fortunately, this idea is not a new one:
Matthew 5:38-48
Unfortunately it is one that has yet to flourish.
Thursday, May 13, 2004
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