Here’s my assessment guys: nobody takes seriously what the Iranians told them to say, and people in Britain stopped reacting to it because they realized that it would only inflame the situation. Only here in my country, where we have people itching for war with Iran, is some cheap propaganda on TV an excuse to start launching missiles.

Of course, it’s easier to make bold pronouncements about what they should have done when it’s someobody else’s soldiers in trouble. That’s not to say that you all wouldn’t be lauding the courage of the brave American servicemen who resisted torture and were sent home in body bags.

As lawful combatants captured by the armed forces of a state the Brits were entitled to the protections of the Geneva Conventions, which they did not get. The terrorists we capture are not lawful combatants, not being soldiers of a state, being in the service of a private group that has no standing to make war, not wearing uniforms or having a well-defined chain of command, and directing their primary attacks against civilians not military personnel. These factors violate the international law of armed conflict. So Steve from Philadelphia, the answer to your question is that the situations are not at all comparable.

Somebody brought up Abu Ghraib. I assume he meant that prison while the US was administering it, and not when Saddam had his execution cellars, torture chambers, and rape rooms there. The answer to that is that the US Army put a stop to the abuses there by a few guards as soon as higher authority found out about them. The officers whose laxness let abuses occur were disciplined, and the perps arrested and tried. The chief perp got ten years hard. The facts were made public in January 2004, so there was no cover-up, but the mainstream media showed no interest at the time. Only months later, when salacious photos were available, did it become a media circus for months. By then it was almost half a year after the abuse had been stopped.

So the US arrested the perps but Gorilla Boy decorated and praised the officer who perpetrated an act of piracy against the Brits. There is no similarity in the acts.

No American who denigrates the Iraq Campaign should be under any illusions that he is doing anything but impeding and opposing the war against the jihadi terrorists. You want to surrender to Osama and to Iran’s Fuehrer, excuse me Supreme Religous Leader, and his toady Gorilla Boy (as Meryl calls him). Wake up, the jihadis will come again once you get your way, until you pay the jizya in humiliation.

Poor little things …

Not to mention the disgusting Iranian suits!

The most obscene pictures I’ve ever seen!

Abu Ghraib’s shots in comparison were chicken shit !!!

Mill and Churchill must be rolling in their graves:

“War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
John Stuart Mill

“We have suffered a total and unmitigated defeat. … This is only the first sip, the first foretaste of a bitter cup which will be proffered to us year by year unless by a supreme recovery of moral health and martial vigor we arise again and take our stand for freedom.” Churchill, 1938

http://jcdurbant.blog.lemonde.fr/2007/04/05/iran-shame-on-you-tony/

If they behave, they can post comments. Please remember, my regulars, to be civil. It’s right up ^there. Next to “Leave a reply.”

It it’s acceptable to the Bush White House, why should the Iranians be condemned for what they did?

Way to go, HRW!

Actually, they are…

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2007/04/03/iran15632.htm