Though the main focus of the article is on the torturer apologists ~
LOYAL RIGHT WING TRIPS OVER ITS OWN MORALITY TO JUSTIFY TORTURE
By Bill Gallagher
"That's not true. There is not any torture for the prisoners there." -- Yonadam Kanna, Iraqi Governing Council.
DETROIT -- President George W. Bush says what happened in the Abu Ghraib prison was abuse and humiliation of Iraqi prisoners and was "disgusting." He said the behavior of U.S. soldiers left "a stain on our country's honor and reputation." Bush publicly apologized to the King of Jordan. Something he's never done before.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld also apologized and warns worse is on the way. More pictures of torture and even videos of a "sadistic, cruel and inhuman" nature.
"It's going to get more terrible, I'm afraid," Rumsfeld said in testimony on Capitol Hill. While many are now clamoring for his head, he should have been sacked long ago for the unnecessary war and his failed planning for post-Saddam Iraq.
The "Rummy Cocktail" -- three parts arrogance, one part incompetence and a splash of fantasy -- has left the Pentagon tipsy, the nation hungover and the world with the dry heaves. Along with Rummy, his wacky-thinking deputy Paul Wolfowitz and his little cadre of neocons should be sent into exile for fostering the manifestly crazy idea that sending an army of Christian soldiers into Iraq would bring peace, stability and democracy to the region. What's surprising about the torture scandal is how the Bush administration puppets, the right-wing media and a member of the Iraqi Governing Council have veered away from the script. Usually, when Karl Rove directs the choreography, his pals in the right-wing media are in perfect lockstep. Not this time.
Many leading popular Republican pundits are downplaying or even justifying the torture. Cal Thomas, the most widely syndicated conservative columnist, wrote the soldiers involved were out of line and "they should be punished." Then he went on to explain away their behavior, arguing they may have been trying to squeeze information from the prisoners to save lives and -- what the hell -- Saddam tortured people, too. No outrage from Thomas, only justification.
The Fox News Channel, in typical fashion, trotted out a former Army interrogator, who compared the maltreatment of Iraqi prisoners to "frat hazing." Talking head Sean Hannity nodded in agreement, declaring, "This is not a big deal." Where do they get these idiots?
But the supreme leader of the right-wing masses, Rush Limbaugh, actually celebrated the torture. He called it a "brilliant maneuver," and also used the hazing comparison. He defended the soldiers photographed in acts of torture as just "having a good time" and "blowing off some steam." Rush told his dittoheads that the reaction to the brutality is "an example of the feminization of the country."
This is the most powerful and influential conservative voice in the nation. His followers hang on his every word like sacred writ.
Limbaugh does, however, know something about torture -- the self-inflicted kind. No, I'm not referring to his drug addiction. Rush's failure to get medical treatment for an ingrown hair in close proximity to a hemorrhoid kept him out of military service during the Vietnam War. For years, Rush claimed his medical deferment was the result of "an old football injury." That deception does, however, allow us to say that Rush Limbaugh truly doesn't know his ass from his knee.
I got an e-mail from reader Teri Robertson, who was upset over the column I wrote last week about the prison abuse -- "your trash," as she called it. She then offered a novel thought, which I'll share. "Fortunately for the Iraqis they were tortured by Americans rather than by other countries known for their disregard for humanity," she wrote.
Thank God! The torturers could have been French, old hands from Devil's Island, or maybe some old-line Russian Stalinists who were guards in the gulag. If they were Canadians, they would have said please before administering torture.
As sick as those right-wing wackos are, they won't get to exercise any authority over Iraqi prisoners. Yonadam Kanna will. As a member of the Iraqi Governing Council, hand-picked by the Pentagon, he has a direct role in shaping the civilian government set to take over on July 1. He was in the Detroit area last week, meeting with members of the Iraqi community and updating them on the occupation and the future of the shattered nation.
At a news conference held the very day the president apologized for the atrocities, Kanna startled reporters by insisting there was no torturing of prisoners. Never mind the Pentagon's own report and the findings of the International Red Cross, it just didn't happen, according to Kanna.
Sure, he said, there may have been a few "incidents" during military operations, "but not for the detainees, not for people in the prison," Kanna insisted. And besides, he added, "The Iraqi people are unhappy with the American troops that they are very nice with those criminals either outside or inside the prison."
Kanna failed to note that more than 700 detainees have been released from Abu Ghraib prison since the torture scandal broke. They were being held for questioning and they had committed no crimes.
But this founding father of post-Saddam government in Iraq is optimistic that things will improve there without the messy restraints of civility, which he and other cronies of the Pentagon darling Ahmad Chalabi won't have to deal with when they call the shots. Kanna bemoans the fact that Coalition forces, aberrations aside, are operating under international rules regarding the treatment of prisoners.
He brightens at the prospect that the situation will soon change. While Americans have their rules, Kanna declared, "Iraqis can impose our local law on Iraqis away from the Geneva Conventions and then the Iraqi people, this 5 percent or 2 percent (the insurgents) will be more quiet." Read: dead.
Kanna blasted some in the American media, blaming them for the prison torture scandal and claiming competition is driving the story.
"You have to keep yourself within the interests of your country," Kanna lectured the reporters. That, of course, means supporting whatever the Bush administration does and ignoring what your eyes see.
"Don't believe false information and false media trying to damage the shining image of America in the world," Kanna said.
That's right, Mr. Kanna, it's not torture, it's just frat hazing. Just broadcast Rush Limbaugh throughout Iraq and your democracy will flourish.
