"Battle not with monsters, lest ye become a monster." --Friedrich Nietzsche

[jazzfish]

I'd like to say that I am shocked -- shocked -- that rubinpdf, ceaseless guardian of our nation's moral compass that he is, hasn't had anything to say on the subject of Abu Ghraid, but since it doesn't involve any wrongdoing on the part of the left, I'm not, not really.

I'd love to hear him and the rest of my Republican acquaintances defend this one, though. (Or maybe I can save them the trouble. In the words of the Fafblog [as advertised, the world's only source for Fafblog], "The activities that occurred at Abu Ghuraib prison are not to be compared to those of Saddam Hussein's rape rooms and torture chambers. After all, those were rape rooms and torture chambers. These were merely rooms in which rape occurred, and chambers in which individuals were tortured.")

Comments

[rubinpdf.livejournal.com]

I was out of town at a wedding as you already know...

The acts were/are deplorable and are not defendable, and those responsible should be punished. But by no means should the entire military be derided for acts of several sick individuals.

Perhaps while you're deriding the entire military, you'd like to defend those left-wing assholes that call Pat Tillman (http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2004/football/nfl/04/23/tillman.killed/) "A G.I. Joe guy who got what was coming to him ..." (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,118917,00.html)

[jazzfish]

Actually, I didn't know. I knew you were out of town for the weekend. I assumed that you'd come back on Sunday night to go to work on Monday.

"Those responsible." Who's responsible? The six guys who got ratted out? Maybe their CO? Maybe Donald "didn't know whether the abuse that had been documented amounted to torture" Rumsfeld? [Well, it depends on what your definition of "torture" is. . .]

I must have missed the part where I derided the entire military. I derided you, yeah. And I implied that the military as a whole is to blame for the actions of its members. How is that any different from your own personal left-bashing? The military does move in lockstep, unlike the populace at large.

As for Tillman, three things.
1. "Pat isn't with God. He's f---ing dead." --Rich Tillman

2. There's no need for name-calling, either from you or from the editorial writers. Other than that, they're entitled to their opinion, no matter how inflammatory it may be, especially since their opinion hasn't beaten the shit out of any POWs lately.

3. Shorter Patrick Foley: Issues at hand? There are unrelated bad people on the left!

BTW - Thanks alot for attempting (and succeeding) to piss me off

*yawn* Give it a rest. What, your Kos post wasn't intended to raise ire? I'm almost certain there's something in the New Testament about not bitching about specks in someone else's eye when you've got logs in your own.

[uilos.livejournal.com]

OK guys. You should both realize by now that neither of you is on the same level, much less speaking the same language.

Please stop picking at each other.

Thank you.

[rubinpdf.livejournal.com]

BTW - Thanks alot for attempting (and succeeding) to piss me off when I was just thinking (and posting) about the happy family memories I just gained from this weekend.

Now I'm furious - I f*cking hope your happy.

[ndkid.livejournal.com]

I'm curious... other than the fact that these assholes were doing this under a Republican administration, is there some other connection between the Republican Party and what happened that I missed in the news?

[narquelion.livejournal.com]

I agree; everyone's outraged to see dictatorial excesses, irresponsible expenditures, and dishonest officials in third world countries, and it is ridiculous to see the government of the supposed only superpower pride itself on being better than Iraq. Could we pick a standard a bit more challenging?

Because right now in cynical-land it seems like good circumstantial evidence that the US government (or the current executive branch, at minimum) believes in distracting its citizens from the ways in which we are stagnating while other first-world countries progress.

[pictsy.livejournal.com]

*twitch*

[shadowsong.livejournal.com]

a little more info.
i wouldn't be surprised if you'd already read this as well.

the idea that the situation in abu ghraid came out of the same mindset as kids pulling wings off of flies because it's neat to see them thrash is bad enough, but apparently evidence keeps turning up that this wasn't merely some soldiers with a mean streak but that it was actually orders/policy handed down by officers and people in charge.

as sgt. stryker mentions, the "best" part of it is how the excuse used by those responsible was that they never recieved training in the geneva convention and thus had no idea that torturing prisoners was bad.