Anger seethes in Hyndman over Abu Ghraib soldier

[JoFerret]

http://pennlive.com/newsflash/pa/index.ssf?/base/news-18/1089836048282340.xml&storylist=

...
"This is a shame on our country," said Tom Cunningham, Hyndman's mayor for 30 years. "There's been so many lies. ... This is not America."

Anger is seething in Hyndman, a town of about 1,000 people along the Maryland border.
...

"We are damn angry," said Brandon Greise, who went to high school with Sivits. "Why is a Specialist E-4 the only one that's in jail? It's political. This is all political. We're looking at another Vietnam."
...

"He'll be able to walk down the street with his head high in this town," Sites said.

About 200 people gathered in May to hold a candlelight vigil for Sivits. Many waved small American flags and called their former neighbor a hero.

Residents and family in Hyndman, as well as in some other communities where soldiers implicated in the abuse had lived, said they are doing their best to keep the story alive. They say it is the only way the truth will surface — that the soldiers were under intense pressure from above.

...

"I'm doing as many interviews as I can and I'm holding some fund-raisers for his defense," he said. "This administration would like for this story fade away, but we'll keep it alive here in Roselle. This is one of our own."
...
The Bush administration characterized the abuse as the failings of a few renegade soldiers and promised that those responsible will be quickly punished.

Civilian defense attorneys have contended the MPs were acting on instructions from military intelligence officers and civilian contract interrogators.

<more>

[DeaconBlues]

1. I starting to believe that a soldier could be discovered murdering

children in Iraq, and he would steal be treated as a hero. God bless the USA.

[Cocoa]

2. it's not so much that he's a hero

but that they are correctly seeing that he's being used as a scapegoat.

[atreides1]

5. What You Say

is true but it is up to each individual to stand up when they know something is wrong and evil. But if that same individual looks at others as less then human, because that's what they were taught then
he or she is not a scapegoat but a willing participant.

None of us here knows how any of these soldiers were raised, what their families told them was right and wrong. All we have is what people form their hometowns are now saying.

Do we know that Sivits wasn't told that Arabs were evil and that they should be punished, no we don't. What were the others taught about dealing with non-American ethnic groups, were they told that all are children of God, or did they tell jokes about rag heads and camel jockeys?

We will never know, and that's the worst of all. I would like to be able to go back in time and see how each of these soldiers were raised, then we could have a better picture of what they were really like.

But no one can travel back in time, and I'm not naive enough to believe the folks at home, because I don't think they would accept the truth it it hit them in the face with a bat, in that way they are just like Bush.

[King of New Orleans]

3. Not that the individual doesn't bear responisibility

but the fact that he's basically being used as a scapegoat for an organization that clearly promoted and encouraged this kind of behavior is wrong.

[nonbelief]

4. Just another example...

The common American belief is that Americans can't commit war crimes because they're Americans. William Calley was turned into a hero by the public.

These charged Army Reservists aren't scapegoats. Scapegoats are blameless.

[mahatmakanejeeves]

6. [OT] Hyndman

Hyndman (the "y" is long, so the first syllable rhymes with "hind," as in "hind leg") is on the B&O Railroad between Cumberland, Maryland, and Sand Patch, Pennsylvania. I've been there bunches of times. The helpers that would push WB trains up the grade to Sand Patch were stationed at Hyndman. It had an interlocking tower with working telegraph. The tower is now gone. What a shame.

[liberalmuse]

7. Punish them all.

From Bush down to the PFC. I understand the PFC's and low-level military are being used as scapegoats, but I'm sickened that anyone would consider these sad excuses for human beings, 'heroes'. They raped, tortured and killed people. If someone gave me that order, I'd tell them to 'fuck themselves'. As a matter of fact, I have told an abusive Sgt. just that when the guy, who used to brag about hitting his wife, started abusing those under his rank. There's no valid excuse for committing atrocities against other human beings. None.

[WillyT]

8. Jesus !!! - Did Anybody Bother To READ The Article ???

Yes Sivits was involved in the tortures. Yes he was found guilty. And yes, he'll spend a year in the pokey.

But the town has had its eyes opened ala Lila Lipscomb (not comparing the two in Sainthood here) and is pissed at this administration and the Pentagon for trying to lay it all on 'a few bad soldiers'.

Normally they'd probably be lining the streets with yellow ribbons and voting for Bush in November. I'm kinda doubting that now.

I'm glad these folks are seeing what is REALLY going on, I hope they keep this story alive, and I hope they are part of a huge awakening that will see Bush and his fascist cronies banished from American politics forever!!!

No wonder we loses time after time. This pissed off town is a GOOD thing. The reason may stink, but when life gives you horse-shit, till it into the garden, no?

Or am I missing something here???

:shrug::wtf:shrug: