Have We Crossed A Rubicon? Wingnut Angst About Torture???

[KharmaTrain]

Tonight I caught a Right Wing trucker talk show. Just a week ago, this guy...who pops up all over my radio dial...was slamming Kerry and kissing *'s behind, calling him a great war leader...yada yada. Typical hate radio drivel.

Tonight, I pop around and this guy is going on about the torture pictures and goes into a rant that I swear could have originated here. How terrible it was that Americans could do that and the people who were involved should be court martialed or neutered or whatever wingnuts want to do to people they don't like these days.

Before I could reset my jaw, he took calls. Even the deepest kool-aid drinkers had troubles swallowing this one. There were a was one who tried to say that maybe these were sexual deviates and got off on this sort of stuff, and they couldn't be too many in the military. Another was a bit more honest...saying the only reason this got such a big play was the military got caught. Both went on to rant about how war is hell and people do strange things this should be filed under "shit happens". That was what I was expecting to hear.

Then to my surprise, a man who identified himself as a driver who had just returned from a year in Afghanistan attempted to explain how dehumanizing the situation he faced. He went on about how he wen through extensive training that focused on hating Arabs...or even people who didn't "seem American", and not consider them anything more than "a piece of meat". He said he saw people in the military taking pictures of their "conquests" (he didn't need to detail) and how it must be even worse in Iraq. It's inhuman, and that's what you're taught the enemy is...and when you get into a strange land, everyone who doesn't speak English or wears the same clothes as you do is the enemy.

The host went silent. Then went into a jag about how this isn't as bad as it was in Vietnam...My Lai (how do we or he know?) and that this incident will be thoroughly investigated. But he did go on to say, that he thought this might also be a good time to look at what we're really doing in these countries and how this is making this country safer. From Wingnutland, that's quite a confession. Is there some reason still left in GOOPland?

No matter, this regime will "stay the course" and dig us in deeper, just to prove they are never wrong and the more we bleed, the more we're succeding. What's so ironic is while they spend like drunken sailors, they still undercut the military...stretching resources to their thinest since Vietnam (some will say worse) and then sending then the games of extended leaves, poor equipment, cuts in benefits and so on. For a while I've felt the military was swinging away from this regime. Will this be the episode that finally breaks 'em?

[Direckshun]

1. You know, on a related subject...

I'm willing to bet dehumanizing POWs is regular practice in wars. Not just US wars, either, but just about every darn war ever fought, I'm sure there's been a truckload of mentally, sexually, physically abused POWs.

That's why I think the soldiers weren't the only ones involved. No higher officials were arrested or are being court martialed for the crap the troops were photographed doing. What are the odds that soldiers would do something this morally reprehensible unless a higher officer approved? I bet it's standard behavior by the military.

Do the soldiers deserve to be court martialed? I think so. However, some of them are claiming to have followed orders, and I think we need to know more about what exactly their orders were before we pass judgment on the soldiers. If they were ordered to pointlessly rough up the POWs, yes, they deserve to be court martialed and have the officer who made the order booted right along with them.

However, if they're going to argue that an officer told them to torture the POWs, it gets trickier, because torture is accepted practice in the military...

We'll see how it shapes up. I'm sure there will be lots of fingerpointing.

[izzie]

3. NPR has some thing on this to day. See site as I for got title

Yes we have crossed the Rubicon and we seem to now be an Empire. Bush is our Caesar or will be unless the people take this govt back and congress does its work.

[KharmaTrain]

4. War Is Hell...This Regime Will Deny

Maybe this is a generalization, but most I've met who are pro-military and Repugnican, look at war as something fun, exciting...positive. It's the culture that starts with video games and violent games and role playing (G.I. Joe) and continues until war is made to look "sexy".

I think we really got spoiled during Gulf Oil War I...it was such a "cool" war...missiles down elevator shafts...an easy win and we have all the neat things that go boom. It took away what war really is...a total breakdown of society and order. Few who plan wars ever get the luxuary to control its destiny...not Napoleon and surely not Commander Bunnypants.

This regime will deny that our soldiers are soldiers, that dehumanization of the "enemy" and in this case Arabs, is systemic and encouraged in this military and, yes, the torture and humilation of the Iraqi populace is a lot more common than our media dare to report.

Someone pointed out that it was these photos as well as other stories of torture and late night raids and harassment that has fueled the insurrection. Damn straight. How would you react is this was happening to your country? There's only so much one's national pride can take...and where one feels they must take up arms and be willing to die to protect their homes and families. What part of this doesn't the wingnut understand? We're not liberators, we're occupiers and gonna be targets as long as we remain that way.

This regime will continue to spin black is white...I can predict now, Bunnypants will feign outrage, call for some investigation and hope this thing drops. Yet, we all know in their quiet little hidey-hole, these wingnut are getting their jollies as to how good we've taught our boys and girls to hate other human beings.

[the Kelly Gang]

2. the saddest part is that these episodes seem to deepen their 'resolve'

to continue with the folly. It's like when a GI dies and for the family to aknowledge he died in vain is far too painful..they would rather take the view it was for a noble cause.

[AlienGirl]

6. There's a psychological principle behind it

It's been shown in studies that people will feel more friendly toward someone they have helped, and more unfriendly to someone they have hurt. No one wants to accept that his or her behavior was wrong, so there is a process of back-justification: "If I hurt him he must have deserved it."

Apply on a grand scale, and you get evidence of war crimes leading to a deeper resolve to continue the war.

Tucker

[KharmaTrain]

8. This May Need A 12-Step Program

In a way, I felt witness to an intervention. There are some in Wingnut world that started to question "what the hell..." around the Wilson/Plame affair and the constant new scandals and revelation of regime lies just is getting to be too much.

Just like we've played a game of lowered expectations with these people, now it looks like the process in reverse. Some of these people are actually going to start questioning the moral "compass" of this regime. You see it starting at the bottom...boy would most of these folks like a good scapegoat right now...but as these messes pile up, the shit goes higher.

While I doubt many of these people will desert the GOOP, they may think differently about how they're going to vote this November. Nope, not for Kerry, but either not for Bunnypants or anyone at all. It'll be interesting to watch if local parties notice the manchild's ratings really heading south with their people, how far down the tubes they'll go.

Right now, it's watching the monkeys rub their eyes and scratch their balls. They're still in massive denial and turning on the manchild is still akin to self castration...but many of these people claim to be "Christian" or "moral" and they can only justify so many attrocities and hypocrisies. Stay tuned.

Cheers!

[hippywife]

5. What many do lose track of

is that there are Republican moderates that are also bereft of what this administration is doing to their party. They aren't all wingnuts.


Since we have proven to the Iraqi and Afgani people time and again that we will drop bombs and kill indiscriminantly, that we will continue to deprive them of their life and liberties, how many have chosen to pick up arms against the occupiers? Why not? It doesn't seem to matter who is friend or foe. Why not go down fighting? It's really hard to convince a people that continue to lose so much that we are there to liberate them.

All the talk of what would we do if it was our country being invaded and that the common man has taken up arms against the occupier reminds me of something I saw years and years ago. It was a cartoon of a mouse in an inescapeable corner with a bird of prey coming right at him with talons outstretched to snatch him up. The mouse was standing defiantly flipping the bird at him. It was entitled "The Last Great Act of Defiance."

How many are now exercising their own last great act of defiance against their occupiers? It seems we motivate them to do so.

[KittyWampus]

7. Interesting!