Quote: Dave the Wonder Boy said: The way the liberal press distorts it is by portraying it as an Auschwitz or Sarajevo or Tianaman Square, or equal to Saddam's torture and rape chambers that killed an estimated one million of his own people being un-earthed now in mass graves. But they are not the same, by any stretch of the imagination. To allege they are the same is partisan propaganda. These aberrant indulgences by 7 accused U.S. military police, with lesser complicity by 6 superior officers, and 4 civilian intelligence interrogators are portrayed as a state-sanctioned abuse of prisoners done with American government impunity. That is simply not the true case, but that is how it's being reported.
Relative to these and other historic incidents of mass abuse and genocide, while the Abu Ghraib incident is a serious crime, they are not comparable.
These Abu Ghraib incidents are being fully investigated, apologized for and disclosed, by every level of American military, legal and executive authorities in Iraq and Washington.
And it would have been disclosed anyway, at the end of the investigation, once all the facts were fully investigated. Premature disclosure by CBS and the other media just whacks the Arab beehive with a stick, creates an obstructive swarm, and makes it that much harder to gather the facts.
I envision hundreds of Iraqis who oppose U.S. presence in Iraq, who will make up stories of abuse, just to make the American military look bad. They don't give a crap, the Arab world didn't give a crap about Saddam's genocide and abuse for the last 30 years. But because they know it matters to the United States, and to American voters, and other westerners who do care about human rights, they will exploit American embarrassment to the limit, and then some, with further manufactured allegations.
This happens in the United States as well. A cop I know in Boynton Beach said that when they arrest someone in the inner city, residents in the 'hood will file false complaints, that cops used "the N-word" or physically abused them or whatever. Just out of spite. But no matter how specious, these allegations have to be taken seriously and investigated. And that makes it difficult to discern the true incidents of illegal abuse of authority.
And no matter how thoroughly disproven, those with an axe to grind will always allege these things truly happened, and that exoneration is just further proof of abused authority.
Yet again, Dave, youo are comparing American democracy to Nazi Germany, totalitarian China and ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.
Running an rgument which says, "Look, compared to that, we're clean!" doesn't work.
The US holds itself to higher moral standards.
As for the "premature disclosure" by CBS.... how could any reporter worthy of the name not report a news story with those photographs? This is blame shifting: you can't blame CBS for reporting something the fault of which lies in a breakdown in the chain of command.
