In recent weeks we have all seen the pictures of prisoner being "tortured" in Iraq.
These pictures have caused a lot of anger and disgust from people in America and people around the world.
I for one am going to reserve judgment till more info is made public. These pics for one don't meet my definition of torture. Torture is beating, electrodes connected to genitals, hung in various painful positions, cutting off of body parts, feeding people to grinders feet first, you know the kind of stuff Saddam did to his own people. The kind of stuff done to American troops by the North Vietnamese, The North Koreans, the Japanese, the Germans and Saddam's Armies not so long ago.
Being hooked to wires that are not electrified and made to stand on a bucket is not torture. Being placed in sexual poses is not torture. It could be part of a campaign meant to mentally exhaust these prisoners in order to get information from them. There are reports that this treatment was ordered by the CIA.
Oh, it's definitely humiliating. But torture it is not.
The Arab press has been saying that we are as bad as Saddam or the same as Saddam and his armies.
I don't really understand that either, a year ago Saddam and his armies were valiant and honorable holy warriors in the Arab press. Now to say we are as bad as they were. When did Saddam and his henchmen become bad?
Some in the Arab world are saying (again) that America is evil, all Americans are evil. Let's think about that a minute, do a little comparison.
Under Saddam's regime, Prisoners were tortured, and it was considered normal. In Saddam's prisons the guards who did this would have been promoted. Well maybe not, this "torture" may not have been good enough to earn a promotion.
In the American Army this is unacceptable and the soldiers are under arrest, probably will do prison time. Yeah, we are as bad a Saddam.
Let's think about if these were Iraqi Army doing this to American Soldiers. AlJazeera would be running the pictures praising the brave holy warriors who captured these crusader soldiers. Pictures of them with guns held to their heads would be on every Arab Newspaper cover. Muslims the world over would be dancing in the streets, giving candy to their children. You only have to think back to the group of soldiers captured along with Private Jessica Linch to prove that statement. Remember Shoshona Johnson, a mechanic, looking with fear into AlJazeera's camera lense? Remember the pictures of the corpses of our soldiers each with neat little bullet holes in the center of their foreheads?
But today we see some Iraqi prisoners, Alqueada for all we know, being humiliated. Not injured, just humiliated. AlJazeera runs the pictures and very Muslim on the planet is all upset at the "terrible way" these prisoners are being treated. Meanwhile back here in the US the entire population is appalled and calling for an investigation, for these guards to be punished, run out of the service.
THERE"S YOUR DIFFERENCE! We look at enemy prisoners being humiliated and we want the guards punished. The Muslim world looks at our prisoners being mistreated and dances in the streets.
Yep, us Americans are evil alright.
We need to stop worrying about what opinions Arabs hold for us and just do what is right. The Arab press especially AlJaCrappa are going to say bad things about us no matter what we do.
And speaking of which I find myself worrying that we are being too genteel in Iraq. We hesitate before we shoot at people if they are hiding in a Mosque, or we just don't fire back because we might not be seen in a positive light if we damage a Mosque.
If somebody is shooting at American soldiers from a Mosque, bomb it! When enemy combatants hide in a Mosque and use it as protection so they can kill people THEY have desecrated that Mosque. It is no longer a Mosque, it is an enemy fortification.
What the Arab press or the Arab street says about is irrelevant, because they would say the same thing if we ran around giving candy to children.
And of course our Anti-American press (CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, The New York Times, all those) will follow suit.
