I guess after looking at the skulls of the Killing Fields of Cambodia, and seeing pictures of Nazi death camps, the Abu Ghraib pictures aren’t so horrible to me. How many prisoners had permanent physical injury? Torture less that is still criminal, just as misdemeanors are, but not as bad as felonies.

I am sick sick sick at the thought of the USA allowing the continuing genocide in Darfur. But of course, the biased liberal media has more pictures of Abu Ghraib “Stanford Prison Experiment” level of perversity than the Arab Muslims murdering and raping and burning villages.

I don’t think liberals are so bad (not when I really think about), but I do think the terrorist murderers are really really bad. Like those that cut off the head of Daniel Pearl (not quite in the movie, I read — haven’t seen).

Americans are imperfect, and some are even bad — but a basically good yet imperfect system is far far better then a basically evil anti-human rights system. Which wins if it’s not fought against.

And the anti-war folk don’t want to fight a war against evil.

But Neo, I wanted to suggest the breast beating “status” can also be seen in children of divorced and complicated families. I remember the early 60s when I was a child of very few divorced parents, even fewer with the father & stepmother getting custody. Multiple divorces and re-marriages, and then new marriages … I usually won the “most complicated (messed up) family” competitions. But only later did I realize I doing classic one-upmanship.

It’s just that today, my “America is evil” story show more evil than yours is the status game too many liberals are playing.

Prince Andrei never actually observed a war because he is a fictional character. He is not real. His opinions were made up.”

In Tom’s defense, the author that invented Prince Andrei, Leo Tolstoy, did see combat, against the Turks. Not that that helps Tom’s argument any.

Indeed, this war, like any other has seen atrocities occur. UNLIKE most other wars in history, it would seem the rate of atrocity (by our men) is as low, or lower than the rate of atrocity by men back here on our own streets at home. And we are more likely to catch and punish them. So far as I can tell, the incidents we’ve seen in this war amount to the garden variety murder and rape you find in any major city. Abu Ghraib? Police brutality, at most. I know you believe that happens here too. So what’s your argument, exactly?

If you are trying to say that we should shudder at going to war because atrocity might be committed, well, it’s unconvincing. So long as there are human endeavors, there will be atrocity. We’ve gotten really good at reducing it, and punishing it when it occurs in the military. How about some credit for that?

OB took out the trash with that line.

That particular con game of theirs is getting quite old.

As for infiltration of the military via Leftists, that has been ongoing for quite awhile now. Scott just reached a very high level publication. The funny thing is, these people do it on their own initiative and not because of party orders. Imagine what can happen when the Left gets organized like Code Pink with their “rallies” and “marches”.

These people will prompt and instigate war crimes if they get promised enough rewards. That is how it is. It is how “anti-war” marches turn violent. You have a few agent provocateurs start throwing stuff and stoking up the crowd, then every body is hitting everybody.

Also, with the draft increased the likelyhood of John Kerries. People that go into there for political power, which are usually people that are already connected to Washington DC one way or another. This then creates collaboration and provides lines of communication between officers in the United States military more loyal to the politicians in DC than they are to the Army chain of command or the US Constitution. That is not just a simple short term risk.

In order for the Left to win, they must destroy or subvert the US military. Because the US military is what is preventing the Left from destroying the US Constitution. One of the pillars at least. They have already kicked ROTC off their indoctrination camps.

The Left isn’t our friend, they aren’t loyal and patriotic citizens, nor are they the loyal opposition. It doesn’t even matter that most of the people that voted for Kerry had the bes tof intentions or better intentions than evil. After all, how many people does it take to make a protest into a violent one? How many terrorists do you need to radicalize and Talibanize a nation? How many suicide bombings do you need before people are afraid to go outside?

Not much.

And to think they use chemical fertilizers in Kansas, when they have primo material like this that could double the crop.

Prince Andrei never actually observed a war because he is a fictional character. He is not real. His opinions were made up.

Check it out.

Oh, indeed. For example, you list a series of bad things that have characterized the “tale of Iraq” — but those bad things have characterized every war, just or unjust — e.g., the Civil War, that ended slavery in America, and WW2, that ended Nazi totalitarianism and genocide. If you’re a pacifist, of course, you’d no doubt prefer slavery and genocide, not to mention state-supported terrorism, to war, no matter how nicely it’s conducted (and the rest of us are free to make our own judgments regarding your moral stature). If you’re not a pacifist, on the other hand, then choosing to emphasize atrocities on one side merely makes you a propagandist for the other side. Which is it, cleek?

Without Beauchamp, the tale of Iraq thus far includes multiple documented instances of rape, murder, torture, theft and the deaths of possibly hundreds of thousands of civilians, along with millions of displaced. It’s telling that you choose to reach back 39 years to Mai Lai for an example of soldiers behaving badly.

Beauchamp’s accounts, if true, hardly register when compared to the rest. And if not true, they’re utterly insignificant when compared to the falsehoods and deceptions that brought us into this war.

“bringing a critical intelligence to bear upon one’s favored narratives”, indeed.