THE POOR SHLUBS

Read "More from Abu Ghraib" at Body and Soul

You have to pity these poor shlubs. Sent to fight an elective and evil war by one of the top three most corrupt administrations in the history of our country. Ordered to break the Geneva conventions and bring shame to the same country they put their lives on the line defending. What choice did they have? Refuse and be thrown in the brig. Agree and be thrown in the brig. One cannot dismiss their wrongs. I think it most generally recognized that these poor bastards are going to get all that they have brought down upon themselves and then some. However, it would be lazy of us not to explore how this could happen. John Kerry has recently been forced to defend his patriotic record in the military. He is once again under fire, and it does involve Vietnam, but this time the tracers originate with the same chickenhawks he was wounded three times defending with his life. An issue has been made of his testimony given before Congress, when he returned home to once again fight for his country, though this time the fight was where it belonged: Washington D.C. He told the truth about the atrocities in Vietnam:

"I would like to talk, representing all those veterans, and say that several months ago in Detroit, we had an investigation at which over 150 honorably discharged and many very highly decorated veterans testified to war crimes committed in Southeast Asia, not isolated incidents but crimes committed on a day-to-day basis with the full awareness of officers at all levels of command...."

Hmmmm....sounds relevant. I don't believe, for the time it takes a hummingbird to flap his wings, that this action was done other than at the direction of their superiors. Their officers. I wonder are we going to find out that these pictures were part of the humiliation process designed to "soften" the Iraqi prisoners for questioning by God knows who about the Lord only knows what. Not that anything so damning would ever see the light of day on this administration's watch. Officers set the tone, lead by example, and let it be known what is and is not acceptable. As always, however, the little guys take the rap, while the CEO's, Officers, or Policy-makers walk free as the day they turned 21. This, at the least, I am sure is a Bush administration policy.