STORM2K

Cast your vote!

Apologize for what?

Lindaloo wrote:Apologize for what?

The photo's of the prisoners being abused.

Oh! Guess I need to check out what has happened. Thanks Bonnie.

I guess so....add it to the list of apologies being demanded each and every day of this President.

But don't for a minute think its going to change the way these people feel about us.

I'm not making excuses for the perpetrators....but there is something inside each and every one of us that wants to strike back, get even so to speak. Although what was done was cruel and unusual, I can understand how something like this could happen. We are over here in are safe little haven, while these MP's and soldiers alike, do not know for sure they will see the sun rise tomorrow. They have to behave at all times. They can't fire upon unless they are attcked first. Can you imagine the pent up frustration of knowing you are a sitting duck out there. It must be incredibly hard to resist roughing Iraqi prisoners up, knowing what their own fate would be if they were prisoners. I look at this woman in the pictures and can't help but think this was her chance to inflict upon the enemy just a small dose of what they have done to us.

Again...not condoning it...but I can understand how it could happen, and frankly and quite surprised that our soldiers are able to refrain from giving them back what they have dished out.

They are to be commended for their restraint.

I am too frustrated to comment

Rainband wrote:I am too frustrated to comment

Breathe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bfez1 wrote:Breathe!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I guess what I am saying is I agree with "j". I understand that what our troops did was wrong but under the circumstances I understand why they did it. I cannot imagine what they are going through over there

I vote yes, because if we're going to stand for something in this country, we'd better stand proud and tall for decency. And j, I understand where you're coming from, but I in no way condone what that female soldier did or the look of pleasure upon her face. It just sickens me. I always tell my daughters to take the high road when peers are bullying them. Don't play their games, don't play games at all, just hold your head up high and ignore it. I'm sorry, that's a terrible example perhaps, doesn't compare to war, but in this country, decency starts in the home. And needs to be practiced by all US citizens, private or in the military. If we sink to their level, what does that make us? One of them.

Don't flame me please for taking this stand. I rarely do with any political threads.

Mary

I think he should, and then kick the S#!7 out of the soldiers who took the pictures and started this whole mess. If they had just kept it under wraps, there wouldnt be a problem

Miss Mary wrote:Don't flame me please for taking this stand. I rarely do with any political threads.

Mary

We are all entitled to our own opinions and you are certainly entitled to yours!

Lindaloo wrote:Apologize for what?

Thats what I say!! So we slapped around a few Arab soliders and made fun of them, it's not like we burned their bodies to a crisp and hung them from a bridge for everybody to see, and it's not like we took pictures of U.S. Soilders beating dead arab's in the head with a stick....

Has the Arab world apologized for the burning of Americans that were killed ? The rest of the world is appalled at the pictures allegedly of Americans mistreating Iraqi prisoners but when it is Americans being kidnapped by Iraqi insurrgents and tortured or shot, where is the world anger then?

How amazing! we are supposed to fight for freedom, for democracy, because we're better, because we put human rights on top, to serve and protect!!!! What happened? We acted exactly as the ones we hate... and you still find a justification!!! Amazing, simply amazing.

Now ask the Iraquis how they feel: is it better now or under Saddam?

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) - The State Department plans to delay the release of a human rights report due out on Wednesday partly because of sensitivities over the U.S. prison abuse scandal in Iraq, U.S. officials said.
One official who asked not to be identified said the release of the report, which describes actions taken by the U.S. government to encourage respect for human rights by other nations, could "make us look hypocritical."

The officials said the report, "Supporting Human Rights and Democracy: The U.S. Record 2003-2004," was not ready to be sent to Congress and therefore could not be made public as planned.

But they said the scandal over abuses at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, where photographs have shown naked Iraqi prisoners stacked in a pyramid and positioned to simulate sex acts, had played a role in the decision to delay the release.

Asked which of the two reasons explained the delay of the report, one official said: "Both."

"The first reason we put it off is that we don't have the documents that need to be put in the package, so the document isn't ready," said the official, who asked not to be named.

"If we had the stuff, would we be doing it anyway given the prison (allegations)? I don't know, maybe we would," he added. "The decision (to postpone) was not made in isolation but it also wasn't made solely because of (the abuse scandal)."

One official said it was unclear whether the report would come out later this week or next week.

The report is separate from the State Department's annual "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices," which often criticizes other nations human rights records and was released on Feb. 25.
© Reuters 2004. All Rights Reserved.

Its better now paolo....why in Heavens name do you say this????

Maybe you can ask the families of those put through chippers while still alive, or fed alive to vicious dogs, or countless other horrific tortuous things Saddam carried out Paolo. It's better now, by far.

"Episodes of this nature occur in all wars, and even soldiers from democracies can, and frequently have, committed reprehensible acts. The difference between democracies and tyrannies is that the former possess the political and judicial antibodies to eradicate the infection when their soldiers are guilty of misconduct. This is as true of the U.S. as it is, for example, of Israel. But in the case of tyrannies, not only are there no antibodies: torture and indiscriminate killings are an integral part of their way of doing things.

Take the case of the Arab League. Until a year ago, that honorable body numbered among its members a specialist in assassination and torture of the caliber of Saddam Hussein. There is no evidence that the League ever took him to task on the subject. Even today, the League harbors a number of professional cutthroats and torturers. So it does not appear that the Arab League has the credentials to preach about human rights to anyone. Many of those in the West who claim to be outraged also ought to remain silent. They are the ones who have never uttered a clear word of approval for the fall of Saddam Hussein's reign of terror. They were, and are, too busy accusing the Americans, and the Israelis, of evil-doing to identify the real monsters. This is partly because of the typically western malaise that prompts so many westerners to judge the errors of democracies with severity, and the crimes of tyrannies with indulgence.

Having said what there was to be said on hypocrisy, there remains the fact that too many mistakes have been made in the Iraqi campaign. This is one more reason why rapid, exemplary punishment is needed for the Abu Ghraib incidents. It is necessary to demonstrate to Arab public opinion, and to the part of western public opinion that refuses to accept it, that while people may be the same cocktail of good and evil under democracies or tyrannies, it is equally true that democracies are able to rectify their mistakes, and remain immeasurably superior to tyrannies.

by Angelo Panebianco http://www.corriere.it

Iraq - Let Us Not Create a Terrorist State
The grave mistake of a Zapatero-style withdrawal

Giovanni
Sartori
The Bush war has been disastrous. But a Zapatero-type Europe augurs an even more colossal disaster. As European Commission President Romano Prodi has said, going into Iraq was easy, but getting out will be difficult. I'd say, "extremely difficult." Not for Mr. Zapatero, though. He's off right now, wishing a fond farewell to the fools who are staying on. Why now, indeed this very minute? The first reason is that this was an election promise. As a scholar who studies elections, I remain unmoved. I know that we have leaders who will make any promise, however ridiculous, in order to win an election. In any case, an election promise can be honored by waiting for the appropriate moment. Mr. Zapatero decided not to wait even for a month because he discovered - and here is the second reason - that the United States would never put their finest army, almost all of which is in Iraq today, under the command of anyone else (the U.N. or whoever).

This is a truly amazing discovery, but only for those who are unaware that never in the history of the world has a great power handed over its military might to someone else. Those who ask the United States to do precisely that can only be in bad faith, since they must realize it is an impossible demand. Yet, that is how Mr. Zapatero justifies his disengagement. In doing so, he has created a domino effect that involves the Italian Left. It is now forced to tag along behind the extremism of Communist Refoundation leader Fausto Bertinotti, and the puerile chorus of the "blind peaceniks" from which he draws strength. This time, we bid a fond farewell to the credibility of a serious, responsible Left.

But let's get back to Iraq. It's true that the Americans and those who help them are seen, on the ground, as "occupiers." This was not hard to predict, and was one of the many reasons that weighed against the invasion. However, those who choose the Zapatero solution will undoubtedly be seen as "running away," a truly colossal victory for the Islamic fundamentalism that is inflaming the Middle East, and mobilizing it against the West. Winning the war is not winning the peace. Mr. Bush no longer knows how to win the peace, but Mr. Zapatero is showing us how to lose it in the worst possible way.

Categorically, fleeing the field is no solution: it exacerbates the problems. But neither is leaving the Americans to sort it out (or not) for themselves any solution. Yes, the Americans deserve to be chastised. But remember the one about cutting off your nose to spite your face? What, then, is the solution? Everyone says that a "sea change" is needed. Fair enough, but in what direction? It can't be achieved by lending the American army to the United Nations, nor by making an international organization with no troops intervene in Iraq. Some have proposed involving the moderate Arab countries. They are, however, forgetting that the neighboring Arab countries, apart from Iran, are Sunnite, and therefore hardly popular with Iraq's Shiite majority.

I am not saying that the question is insoluble, but any solution will follow from an understanding of the problem. The Americans naively attacked an Iraq that was in no sense a military base for Islamic terrorism. But from the Americans' defeat, and our Zapatero-like flight, will emerge precisely the terrorist state that was not there. Desperately poor Afghanistan could only provide Osama Bin Laden with training camps: Iraq, in contrast, is oil-rich, and can offer global terrorism all the infrastructures it needs to manufacture the chemical and bacteriological weapons that could annihilate us. If this is understood, a solution can be found. But when will we take it on board? For now, it is as if, like the Byzantines, we were still bickering about the sex of angels.

by Giovanni Sartori http://www.corriere.it

Miss Mary wrote:Don't flame me please for taking this stand. I rarely do with any political threads.
Mary

Mary...I don't see anything in what you said that warrants even a flicker of a flame. You stated your opinion, and backed it up with reason and heartfelt feelings.

I disagree with you, but your view is noble and just and that is a good quality. BTW..are you a Democrat? j/k