Call of Cthulhu

A Critic Takes Issue

I normally run a troll-free blog, here (it's mine, so why should I put up with their crap?), but ConAnon linked his weblog URL with his arguments: A return address is grounds, in my view, for more than a cursory glance. By way of background, this guy is posting from the "army.mil" domain somewhere in Central Europe. Had his IP resolved to somewhere in the US, I would have just deleted it from the comments with a shrug--I give no credence to the Fighting 101^st Keyboard Brigade.

re: Latest pics from Abu Ghraib and my quoting of George Paine over at Warblogging:

Tell me that you would react as harshly if someone was doing this to our troops. Tell me.

--I would have reacted as strongly, and have in the past. But these acts have cost us the moral high-ground; we have shown ourselves to be that which we hate. How can we blame those jihadi fuckers for being cruel when we do the very same things? Believe it or not, it's possible to hate torturers on both sides of a conflict. And I do.

My sense of outrage stems from the fact that the systemic acts of Rumskull and his goons have added to the hatred that our soldiers are fighting against, have given more reasons for Iraqi partisans to attack our soldiers, and have denied any sense of sympathy that others might have shared with us.

We signed the Geneva Convention to protect our soldiers from suffering a similar fate. Abrogating that treaty only endangers them. Or have you forgotten why Nick Berg was whacked?

Short of a few people that argue that the rules of war, specifically this war, justify any means necessary there aren't many people out there who argue that this isn't a war crime.

--Then why are you defending them? Why are you criticizing me for criticizing the rightard neo-clowns who ordered these war crimes?

What's at issue is whether the self-described 'objective' media's (and of course the admittedly left-leaning in television and print) refusal to let this die is costing the lives of Americans (it is), whether or not they care that it is (few seem to), and lastly whether they show the same sense of moral repugnance to the much worse, much more widespread instances of deprivation committed by the people whose cause the left champions.

--That's three issues in one sentence, but here we go:

1) The "librul media" (which, btw, includes such warm human beings as "Pill Popper" Limbaugh, "Traitor" Novak, "Hate Monger" O'Reilly, and "Rove-bot" Scarborough) isn't doing much to keep the story alive; they're just playing new information as it becomes available.

And their coverage isn't killing American soldiers; the acts of soldiers at Abu Ghraib, BIF, and other camps are killing American soldiers. The orders being handed down by Rumskull, Cambone, Boykin, and Miller are killing American soldiers. Your circular argument is tantamount to saying that crime on the streets only happens because the media reports that there is crime on the streets.

2) If the media didn't care about it, they wouldn't report it.

3) The media holds the same sense of repugnance toward crimes committed against Americans--or weren't you around a television when those four mercenaries got whacked and hung in Fallujah? I was certainly exposed to that gross-fest. And so, apparently, were the people who ordered the Marines to exact a little pay-back for it.

re: Kofi Finds His Spine and my desire to see ShrubCo™ hauled before the war crimes tribunal:

As much as you would love that, Americans love their freedom too much to subserve their people to an international justice system so readily hijacked by politics.

--As an American, I love my freedom too much to let fascist goons like Shrub and Asscroft step all over my beloved Constitution, and its sacred Bill of Rights, without a fight. Too many good men and women have died that I might write this blog, and I will not dishonor their sacrifice by rolling over and letting rightard neo-clowns take these rights and freedoms away from me or any other American.

And if the international justice system is so readily hijacked by politics, then why did the US create it in the first place? Try doing a little research on something called the "Nuremberg Tribunal." You'll find that the US formed it, ran it, wrote it's principles, and that those principles were adopted by the UN to form our current international laws. In short: The very laws and system that you hate were written and created by our very own nation.

In any event, a good national leader would have the international community striving to please the US, not fight it. If the US put Shrub and his fucktards up for trial, I'm sure Justice would be served. The only people who don't want to see ShrubCo™ go to The Hague are the rightarded neo-clowns who support them.

Someone ought to indict the country of Belgium for obstruction of justice.

--In what way has Belgium obstructed justice? In case you haven't noticed, there's exactly one place on Earth that Slobodan Milosevic is getting tried for the genocide that he created, and that's in Belgium; they're not exactly coddling him, either.

The bottom line is this: If the US wants to regain the moral and ethical prestige that we once held--before Dumbya™ and his thugs pissed it all so merrily away--then we have to have our war-crimes trial in the only court internationally recognized for such trials.

[Note: The commentor's statements have been reprinted in their entirety, separated only for clarity]