As I heard Oklahoma Senator Inhofe question Major General Taguba today in front of the Senate Armed Services Committee I wanted to sink into the floor.
Sen. Inhofe (R-OK): First of all, I regret I wasn’t here on Friday. I was unable to be here. But maybe it’s better that I wasn’t because as I watch this outrage that everyone seems to have about the treatment of these prisoners I have to say and I’m probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment.
The idea that these prisoners — they’re not there for traffic violations. If they’re in cell block 1A or 1B, these prisoners, they’re murderers, they’re terrorists, they’re insurgents, and many of them probably have American blood probably on their hands and here we’re so concerned about the treatment of those individuals.
Funny that according to Seymour Hersh and the Red Cross, as many as 80 percent are there due to random arrests and were guilty only of being at the wrong place at the wrong time.
This was a sick, nasty, ugly performance that shows the world America at its very worst — reactionary, holier than thou, always right, vitriolic, sneering at truth and justice, and willing to paint anyone as an enemy or a terrorist if that will effectively silence and invalidate them. Time for some big changes come November.
Update: Kevin Drum was as horrified as I was:
As near as I can tell, Inhofe’s only regret is that we went too easy on the guys at Abu Ghraib. And the Geneva Convention is for pussies.
I know for a fact that most Republicans find this kind of sentiment abhorrent, so how is it that.
Needless to say, Fox News played the clip again and again, portraying Inhofe as some kind of hero.
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By jeremy
The Geneva Convention is for pussies.
Welcome to the second long-war that America is entering. Instead of a Cold War, with identifiable enemies, we are entering a Warm War. In this Warm War, our allies will shift from what they were (good-bye France who will continue to fold to their growing Musliam population, hello China and Russia who are fighting to keep their countries turned into Muslim countries) and there will be blood shed. Hence, the Warm War, as it will not be a detente.
As for the Red Cross, it’s better to take everything they say with a grain of salt … this is the same organization that had oversight at the concentration camps, and equated the star of David to a swastika and continues to refuse to recognize the Israeli Magen David Adom, the Red Cross equivalent in Israel.
May 14, 2004 @ 3:55 pm | Comment
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By richard
About the Red Cross, I don’t think it’s quite so simple. In the case of the concentration camps, the Nazis set up special camps where life was far better than at Auschwitz or Treblinka, and those are the ones the Red Cross were allowed to visit. They may not be perfect, but their track record when it comes to evaluating treatment of prisoners is generally good — or at least as good as or better than anyone else’s. They’re all we’ve got.
May 14, 2004 @ 4:24 pm | Comment