Whine And Cheese Warriors
May 13, 2004
Thank God that Pearl Harbor was not an isolated declaration of war against the U.S. At 7:53 a.m. on December 7, 1941, the first wave of Japanese assault planes attacked Hawaii. On that same day, the Japanese simultaneously attacked the Philippines, Wake Island, Guam, Malaya, Thailand, Shanghai, and Midway. By the time they rested their pampered little heads on soft down pillows that night...even liberals understood that America was at war. Will it take a few more 9-11’s to convince the “Whine and Cheese” crowd that America, and the rest of the free world, is at war? Notice to all Upper West Siders...this isn’t a game of Mahjong.
And speaking of whine and cheesy...the diva of Upper West Side warriors, Maureen Dowd, just couldn’t wait to turn Friday’s Congressional Armed Services Committee hearings on the treatment of Iraqi Prisoners into a “Bash-Rumsfeld” fete. With body parts still lying underground at the site of the former World Trade Center and charred American limbs hanging from Iraqi bridges, Dowd persistently demonstrates more glee at the prospect of defeating the Bush administration than she could ever muster for the defeat of America’s enemies. Well Maureen, there are more important concerns than your make-believe “Bushworld ‘Mean Girls’ — Rummy, Cheney, Wolfie and Doug Feith”.
Only a liberal, or a non-profit, could live in a La-La Land blind to all abuses in the war against terrorism except the relatively minor hiccups committed by the United States. Amnesty International removed their blindfold and weighed-in this week that the “abuses allegedly committed by US agents in the Abu Ghraib facility in Baghdad were war crimes....” Of course when alerted to the Telegraph Group reported news that Moqtada al-Sadr's representative in Basra “urged his followers to abduct British women soldiers as concubines”...Amnesty immediately reverted to a state of “hear no evil—see no evil”.
While the incidents at Abu Ghraib are certainly not a case of America “putting its best foot forward”, they are, as previously stated, “relatively minor hiccups”. Before the self-righteous heap their umbrage on this conclusion let’s talk about hypocrisy. Where’s the outrage over the terrorists hiding behind women and children during their roadside ambushes? Again from the Telegraph Group, “British troops reported that fighters armed with rocket-propelled grenades had used women and children as ‘human shields’ when they were driven off a bridge across the Shatt al-Arab river.”
Or this account of the ambush in which Thomas Hamill was captured as reported by Army Pfc. Jarob Walsh in The Peoria Journal Star, “When he (Walsh) turned to find who was shooting at him, he saw two children with assault rifles. Walsh estimated that the child who shot him was about 10....when we were getting attacked it's not unusual to see kids with weapons...They don't go to school to read or write, they go to learn to blow themselves up, to be suicide bombers.” Where’s the international outrage and condemnation for “peace-loving” Muslim adults who misuse children in this fashion? More to the point...where’s the Iraqi outrage over this brand of barbarism?
Even the Swiss foreign minister, Micheline Calmy-Rey, has condemned the mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners. From Swissinfo, “Calmy-Rey called for the perpetrators to be punished...We cannot keep silent about such incidents.” Apparently the only time the Swiss can keep silent is when they are questioned on the whereabouts of all that former Jewish loot left in their vaults at the end of World War II. Dear Ms. Calmy-Rey...could you please tell the world the nature of Saddam Hussein’s Swiss deposits and if the Swiss bankers will keep them in the same vault with all that Third Reich loot?
Oh that’s right...there are the Geneva Conventions for the treatment of POW’s which Iraq ratified in 1956. Where was the international outrage over prisoner abuse during the 1991 Gulf War? Just to name a few outrageous examples cited by Tim Dyhouse in the Veterans of Foreign Wars magazine: (1) “Navy Cmdr. Lawrence Slade, shot down Jan. 22, 1991, was beaten so viciously that his body was completely blue, as if he had been dipped in indigo dye.”; (2) “Marine Capt. Russell Sanborn, shot down Feb. 9, 1991, was beaten so hard with a rubber hose that his teeth were loosened and his eardrums ruptured.”; (3) “Marine Lt. Col. Clifford Acree, shot down over Kuwait on Jan. 18, 1991...said he was forced to eat scabs off his body to reduce his intense hunger.”; and (4) “Air Force Col. Jeffrey Tice recalled a sadistic device...‘the Talkman’. Iraqi guards tied one end of a wire to his ear and the other end to a car battery. They shocked him to the point that every muscle in his body contracted at once.”
But now that the great U.S. Satan has once again humiliated the peace-loving Arab world...there is outrage. And many numbskull liberals, and conservatives alike, can’t wait to get on the soapbox for a soul-cleansing pity party. In a classic example of throwing the dogs a bone, Reuters reported that, “A 24-year-old military policeman, the first of seven American soldiers to be tried on charges of abusing Iraqi prisoners, will face a public court martial in Baghdad next week.” Maybe we can calm the Arab world down if we also publicly cut off his hands!
Before tripping all over themselves, those who love to condemn America should remember a few facts. American wrongdoing at Abu Ghraib was uncovered during an American investigation. The results of that investigation were reported by an American news organization protected by the American Bill of Rights. The wrongdoers will be tried by American jurists and punished by American law. And all of this will be taking place in the sometimes confusing atmosphere of American freedom.
When will the Arab world step up to the plate of civilization and: hand-over the murders of the “Blackwater Four”; demand an end to the use of women and children as human shields; show some outrage over schools and mosques being used as terrorist safe-houses; condemn suicide bombings in civilian populated areas; stop using videos of Daniel Pearl’s murder as reality TV entertainment; and just try to act a bit human. Or is there only an expectation of humanity for Westerners from the Judeo-Christian ethic?
RightPage