Idiots in Iraq

[bigmacbear]

Over on the Bears Mailing List, someone mentioned a New York Times article which discusses the possible release of images showing American soldiers having sex with one another at Abu Ghirab prison, and he thinks we should be on the alert for right-wingers trying to shift the blame for the abuses in Iraq onto gays in the military.

My response follows.
Uh, if they are the same two American soldiers who were depicted in the pictures already plastered all over the news media, they are a man and a woman. So there may or may not be any pictures of male-male sex.

Which doesn't make the taking of the pictures any less idiotic, in my humble opinion. Why generate evidence that can so easily be used against you, not only at a court-martial but in the all-important court of world public opinion? What really makes me angry about this whole thing is the way these photos were used to justify the disproportionately heinous murder of an American civilian job-seeker in Iraq.

Comments

[redcub.livejournal.com]

Someone up on the hill was amazed that the abuse was generating so much controversy, and attempted to point out that these people imprisoned had been insurgents who had surrendered, terrorists who had been captured, people who "very likely" had American blood on their hands, saying that their crimes should be taken into account when discussing whether or not they deserved the right to cry foul play.

The fact is, we treat "common" mass-murderers with more respect here in America, where freedom and democracy is supposed to be oozing out like tap water every where you turn, and those criminals don't have any of the excuses an Iraqi isurgent might give for committing violent acts.

The nations of the world long ago agreed that mis-treatment of prisoners was a heinious crime, given the helplessness of the victim at the time. We've known this since World War I, and reaffirmed it in WWII.

Just drives you nuts, doesn't it?