Here is the commentary today on what Oklahoma US Senator James Imhofe said from www.Earthside.com:
EARTHSIDE COMMENTARY:
U.S. Senator James Imhofe Oklahoma is an IDIOT! Sorry, but there is no other word to describe a man who would resort to jingoism and deceit to try and justify or excuse the torture of Iraqi detainees. Imhofe said today <
http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=615&u=/nm/20040511/pl_nm/iraq_abuse_inhofe_dc=1 > that he is " ... probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment. ... These prisoners, you know they're not there for traffic violations. If they're in cellblock 1-A or 1-B, these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands and here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals."
Imhofe's feigned 'outrage' is surely a political attempt to fan the flames of hate and bigotrys in this country towards the very people we're allegedly in Iraq to "liberate." He is deceitful because the Red Cross has just released its report indicating that 70 to 80 percent of the detainees had been "arrested by mistake." Imhofe is an idiot because he is apparently so dense, or so radically partisan, that he is unable to comprehend that arresting, abusing, and torturing innocent people completely and unambiguously undercuts and sabotages the one remaining principle he and George W.Bush have for justifying the attack on Iraq. Imhofe is a traitor to the ideals of the United States if he finds a way to excuse torture and humiliation even of the untried guilty - that kind of repudiation of JUSTICE is un-American to the extreme.
What a huge FAILURE and BETRAYAL the Bush regime has brought upon the reputation of our country. If "liberation" and introducing the rule of law and democracy have become the mission in Iraq, then it was absolutely critical that we thoroughly to live up to those standards ... that was just as important, perhaps more important, than the military effort itself. But alas the tone set by Bush since 9/11 (indeed since he took office) has been one of America as the exception to the rules and behaviors expected of other nations. From rejecting participation in the International Court, to the disdain heaped upon the United Nations last year, to the use of "unlawful combatants" status to go outside the Geneva Conventions, Bush has sent the message that regularly accepted procedures could be superseded in order to fight his "war on terror." Rumsfeld and his commanders in Iraq have evidently not fulfilled their obligations to see that American principles of law and the dignity of the individual were respected in the land we are now responsible for governing.
The idiot Imhofe may be articulating some kind of raw political rhetoric to appeal to the "kill 'em all" and "my country right or wrong" crowd. But his language makes a bad situation for America in this scandal even worse. Yes, it is true that many other Arab and Middle Eastern countries have atrocious human rights records - but the whole point of Bush's occupation of Iraq is that we do things differently! In this case, we are held to a higher standard because we insisted, to the point of getting almost 800 of our soldiers killed so far, that we be held to that higher standard ... an example for the rest of the governments in the region.
There just isn't an easy way out of this scandal, nor out of Iraq for America now. It is better to simply face up to the mistakes and failures that the Bush administration has so incompetently let happen. Perhaps with new leadership for the U.S. next January, we can ask for some clemency from the rest of the world, start with a clean slate, and put America back on track to living by the principles stated so vividly in the Declaration of Independence.
DC
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