Oh, No, You Didn't!

I had to turn my radio off the other day as I was listening to the political discussions of the Iraq torture incident. I just couldn't stand to hear another microsecond of the the noise coming out of the mouth of one of the politicians.

First, he stated that he was less upset by the actual torture than he was by the upset that was caused by the discovery of the torture. He explained that this was because he couldn't see what the big deal was. I mean, really. These people were terrorists. Is it really all that bad that we are torturing them? Don't they, in fact, have it coming to them? Okay, maybe those weren't the actual words that he used, but they may as well have been. The ones he used meant exactly the same thing. He actually said that the Iraqis we were torturing probably woke up every day and thanked Allah that they weren't being held by Saddam's regime. I'm sure that would have been true - IF THEY HADN'T BEEN SO BUSY BEING TORTURED!!! Good lord.

The second part of his speech that pissed me off was that he totally hung those soldiers out to dry. I, too, am shocked and appalled at what they did and I hope that they are punished for it, but I don't think it is appropriate for them to take the full blame. Our government is using them as whipping boys to keep the attention off of the people, events and society that actually led to them thinking it would be a good idea to torture someone. They made a mistake - a doozy of one, if you ask me - but I cannot believe that they were the only ones doing it. And I cannot believe that their actions would have been so reviled had the press not gotten ahold of the information.

I am saddened to know that these are the kinds of things that we are doing (and before anyone flames me - I am aware that this is not the norm, but even one instance makes my point) and this is the example we are setting. If we are going to demand that everyone accept us in the role of All Knowing and Powerful Judge of Everything, then hadn't we better live up to that title?

Or better yet, we could step down off of our high horse, admit that we don't actually know everything, and let people make their own decisions. Yeah, right.