Tuesday, May 04, 2004

This whole Iraqi prisoner abuse thing is just super. We have soldiers accused of "egregious acts" and "grave breaches of international law." Jesus Christ, what the hell are they doing over there? Reviving Battle of the Network Stars?

Even more stellar is the inevitable parade of token measures being taken. Six soldiers have been reprimanded. Now, maybe in the military that's more serious than it sounds, but c'mon.

"Ladies and gentlemen, we have changed this, trust us, we are doing this right."

Right. Miller said that U.S. personnel stopped using hoods and sleep depravation on Iraqi detainees four days ago. Yeah, only because they fucking felt they had to. And again, it's all token measures. It's not so much the hoods and sleep deprivation that are so awful, it's the sodomy and hooking up guys' nuts to a car battery that are really frowned upon.

We need to respond to this and not be pussies about it if we want to have any hope of saving some kind of face here, which probably isn't even possible. Remember the good ol' days when we were going to be greeted with a bed of roses and parades and cheering crowds because we were liberators? Man, was it ever great bullshitting ourselves like that. It's still better for people over there with Saddam out of power (at least, it had better fucking be), but it doesn't fucking help when we're perpetrating Saddam-like acts.

No comments: