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5/11/04 Redefining "Brutality" Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., in a recent speech alluded to the recent revelations of alleged abuse of Iraqi detainees in the Abu Ghraib prison by saying that Saddam's torture chambers are back in operation. Such an outrageous distortion should not have to be rebutted, but the mainstream media are too obtusely left-wing, and in such denial about it, that it will not occur to them to attempt to characterize his comments for what they are. After all, they are falling all over themselves to capitalize on the rare opportunity to try to revive the peace movement of the 1960's by painting our mission in Iraq as a careless and misbegotten joyride presided over by an out-of-control cowboy. The truth is that, like the whole overblown flap over the pictures of abuse in an Iraqi prison, Kennedy's comments stem from the single most self-destructive urge foisted on our society by liberalism. It tried to let communism take over the world, tried to lose the cold war through unilateral disarmament, and let terrorism develop to such a fever pitch that even if we play the game perfectly from now on, we will still suffer huge losses before we win the war. Terrorists have been emboldened by our liberal weakness for three or four decades, and the recent flap demonstrates why. While we wring our hands, overwhelmed by guilt over the excesses of a few guards in one prison in Iraq, and wallow in self-pity hoping somehow we can restore the good opinion (what good opinion, after all?) of the liberal "hate America first" crowd in Europe (actually, they hate the Jews first, and America only second--no wonder they find themselves siding with Arabs and terrorists all the time), the Islamic brutes go on slaughtering innocents, torturing and mutilating Americans, and celebrating the executions of babies and pregnant women. Some in the media have characterized the pictures as representing "brutality" and "torture." But what do those words mean? If we call it "torture" to sodomize a man who, if he had remained free, would be engaged in the slaughter of dozens of innocent women and children, and would be laughing in our faces if we weren't "torturing" him, what do we call it when Islamic cowards invoke the name of their so-called god while slowly cutting the head off of a man who is begging for his life? If we call it "brutality" to strip naked and humiliate or intimidate a man who, if he were free, would be trying to bring painful death to tens of thousands of innocent people, what do we call it when Palestinian war criminals trap a pregnant woman and her four daughters in a car and callously shoot each girl in the head and then shoot the woman's belly as if she were carrying some kind of vermin (oh, I forgot, their religious leaders routinely sanction the idea that Jews are lower than pigs, dogs, monkeys, and rats). If we call what we saw in those pictures "brutality" and "torture," then we have no words left to appropriately describe what those words used to describe. There is a better way. See the pictures for what they are: evidence that some of our guards were a bit overzealous and committed acts regarded by our military and the Geneva accords as against the rules. If actual sodomy occurred, that is a crime by any standard, but it does not qualify as brutality when the man would have done far worse to his captors had their positions been reversed. That leaves us with the nearly adequate words "brutality" to describe the subhuman acts of our enemies and the enemies of Israel, every single one of whom is a war criminal rivaling the worst of the Nazis executed after Nuremburg, when they kill innocent women and children at worship or at leisure, and "torture" to describe the cowardly and brutal execution of a helpless, innocent man in retaliation (so they implausibly claim) for far milder mistreatment of guilty men in Abu Ghraib months ago. If you see a picture of a man being intimidated or humiliated or even sodomized by our troops, which is a violation of the rules on our side, put next to it in your mind the picture of roadside bombs dismembering our troops, of mobs in Fallujah mutilating our dead, of brutal terrorists shredding women and children with bombs or bullets, of cowards cutting off the heads of innocent American citizens. If you still feel outraged at our troops' behavior, then call yourself a leftist and vote for John Kerry, who will bargain for much more of this brutality on the other side by handcuffing our own forces and further emboldening the brutes. If, in perspective, you decide it is appropriately left to courts martial to make the determinations of degrees of culpability for the relatively minor infractions by our troops, then add your weight to the forces more determined to take the fight to the enemy. Let's win this war. Modified: 09/10/2004 |
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