Friday, September 15, 2006

Best Yet On No-Torture Policy

Andrew Sullivan | The Daily Dish:

I'm swiping the front and back of Andrew's post. You need to read the whole thing. I'd put a link right here but I can't at the most. Click on the title above to get back to the post. (That will work for a day or two)

"What We've Lost

15 Sep 2006 04:38 pm

A reserve soldier who fought in Iraq writes:

'I was deployed in my reserve unit (USMCR) as part of operation Desert Storm and Desert Shield. Marine infantry, and we were on the front lines, supposedly to guard a gunship base, but really, though, the gunships guarded us...

...If those men [the soldier was guarding POW's] had even put up token resistance, some of us would not have come back. But they didn't even bother, and surrendered at least in part because of our reputation. Our two hundred year old reputation for being fair and humane and decent. All the way back to George Washington, and from President George H.W. Bush all the way down to a lance-corporal jarhead at the front.

Its gone now, even from me. I can't get past that image of the Iraqi, in the hood with the wires and I'm not what you'd call a sensitive type. You know the picture. And now we have a total bust-out in the White House, and a bunch of rubber-stamps in the House, trying to make it so that half-drowning people isn't torture. That hypothermia isn't torture. That degradation isn't torture. We don't have that reputation for fairness anymore. Just the opposite, I think. And the next real enemy we face will fight like only the cornered and desperate fight. How many Marines' lives will be lost in the war ahead just because of this asshole who never once risked anything for this country?'

This president must never be forgiven for what he has done to the reputation of this country."

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