Allen West Gets it Right
Tom Lindholtz ·
January 14, 2012 at 5:29pm
Finally, a responsible adult speaks out on Urinegate. You can read Allen West's response here.
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Comments:
Jul '10
Re: Allen West Gets it Right
Mothership_Greg
Do you believe that more Americans know about the detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib..., Jan 13 at 7:00pm
It's Yer "perception" I have an issue with.
Nov '11
Re: Allen West Gets it Right
Jimmy Carter
Mothership_Greg
Do you believe that more Americans know about the detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib..., Jan 13 at 7:00pm
It's Yer "perception" I have an issue with. · Jan 13 at 7:12pm
Are you arguing that detainees were not abused at Abu Ghraib?
Jul '10
Re: Allen West Gets it Right
I agree it is bad form to urinate on corpses, it may be a war crime, but if so it is a war municipal infraction, not a war felony. Reprimand to file, $50 fine, tell everyone to not do that. On the other hand no one has ever tried to kill me by setting off an IED or ambushing me with a rifle, maybe if I had to kill or be killed I'd think differently.
And, truth be told, I hate the idea you can kill someone and its okay, but don't offend the corpse? Nonetheless, offering an indignity to a corpse is a crime, but it is usually reserved for some one driving around with a corpse they intend to bury informally.
Abusing a enemy's corpse is wrong not because of what we do to the corpse, or to the tender sensibilities of the corpse's murderous comrades, but because it cheapens us.
Jul '10
Re: Allen West Gets it Right
Mothership_Greg
Are you arguing that detainees were not abused at Abu Ghraib? · Jan 13 at 7:22pm
Define "abused."
Jun '11
Re: Allen West Gets it Right
As for West, "right on!".
Nov '11
Re: Allen West Gets it Right
Jimmy Carter
Mothership_Greg
Are you arguing that detainees were not abused at Abu Ghraib? · Jan 13 at 7:22pm
Define "abused." · Jan 13 at 7:30pm
Is forcing detainees to masturbate abusive? Is creating human pyramids of naked prisoners abusive? Eleven soldiers were convicted of various offenses in relation to Abu Ghraib; I do not believe our military simply hands out convictions for political reasons. If Charles Graner was not guilty of abusing detainees, then I don't know what abuse is.
Mar '11
Re: Allen West Gets it Right
Jimmy Carter
Mothership_Greg
Are you arguing that detainees were not abused at Abu Ghraib? · Jan 13 at 7:22pm
Define "abused." · Jan 13 at 7:30pm
Are you looking for a fight? Whatever truly happened at Abu Ghraib many Americans believe the worst. Don't shoot the messenger. If many US citizens believe complete and unmitigated [nonsense] it makes no sense to be angry with someone who has told you what others are saying.
Edited on January 14, 2012 at 7:01pmJul '10
Re: Allen West Gets it Right
Roberto
Whatever truly happened at Abu Ghraib many Americans believe the worst. · Jan 13 at 7:55pm
Can You prove that statement?
Mar '11
Re: Allen West Gets it Right
Jimmy Carter
Roberto
Whatever truly happened at Abu Ghraib many Americans believe the worst. · Jan 13 at 7:55pm
Can You prove that statement? · Jan 13 at 8:06pm
I would like to believe that it is false, I am not trying to prove it. Are views casually expressed in California completely different from the rest of the Nation? Maybe. Are views endlessly expressed in the media completely divorced from the sentiment of the Nation? Maybe. I can hope, but false hope is an indulgence.
The incidents that occurred at Abu Ghraib are a stain. Individuals involved were reprimanded and penalized which is appropriate, that should be an end to the matter; but we have gone from that to the MSM desperately trying to create a new My Lai from it. We only aid this slur by turning on each other.
Edited on January 14, 2012 at 5:17amMay '10
Re: Allen West Gets it Right
Americans must be the most unselfconscious people on Earth. They never think as they get dressed for shopping at the mail, "What if someone from another country saw me dressed like this? What would they think of my country?"
The marine urination video is another symptom of the same syndrome.
Mar '11
Re: Allen West Gets it Right
outstripp: Americans must be the most unselfconscious people on Earth. They never think as they get dressed for shopping at the mail, "What if someone from another country saw me dressed like this? What would they think of my country?"
The marine urination video is another symptom of the same syndrome.
9:00pm
You have spent some time Out of Country, speak from afar. Is this a fearless statement of individualism or adolescent obliviousness? You have chosen to note this, judge.
Edited on January 14, 2012 at 6:53amMay '10
Re: Allen West Gets it Right
Roberto
outstripp: Americans must be the most unselfconscious people on Earth. They never think as they get dressed for shopping at the mail, "What if someone from another country saw me dressed like this? What would they think of my country?"
The marine urination video is another symptom of the same syndrome.
9:00pm
You have spent some time Out of Country, speak from afar. Is this a fearless statement of individualism or adolescent obliviousness? You have chosen to note this, judge. · Jan 13 at 9:10pm
Edited on Jan 13 at 09:53 pm
"adolescent obliviousness"
The point is not the urination, but the video. Some marine took this video and thought it would be amusing to distribute it. Who did he think would see it? Did he consider the damage it would do? Of course not. He doesn't care.
Dec '11
Re: Allen West Gets it Right
Definitely bad form. The NCO in charge should be busted all the way down.
Aug '10
Re: Allen West Gets it Right
h/t to Roberto for speaking some sense.
Mothership, Time magazine quit being a reliable source of truth sooo long ago. The Seals brought in the terrorist after he bombed and killed 12 Red Cross workers, whether he died on the way, in the sick bay, or choked on his own bile only hastened his demise, which was a fait accompli.
Abu Ghraib was a tempest in a teapot, which I was trying to point out in an earlier post about Botero and the NYT laser focus on this story as they did their best to perfect the Bush Derangement Syndrome.
Fallujah is cause enough for an ocean of urine. Remember urine doesn't kill, people with bullets do.
Aug '10
Re: Allen West Gets it Right
cont.
Citing the Geneva Convention is even suspect, as the Intl Red Cross is now in charge of that document and it's application. The same Intl Red Cross that has aided and abetted the UNRWA in it's advancement of Hezbollah rocketry
Sorry, but Rep West knows better than almost everyone in the world. You need to research his story and see why. And then watch Patton pee in the Rhine.
Who are these guys going to apologize (because that's the appropriate punishment) to ? Hamid Karzai ? The Taliban ?
Understand that this is all a perfunctory dance to set up the appeasement talks with the Taliban that our president and SecState are entering into without the approval of the American people. First we are supposed to punish our troops for defending themselves, being pissed off at some guys that tried to kill them and probably killed their brothers-in-arms, and then surrender to a group of pederasts who beat women ?
You down with that ?
Jun '10
Re: Allen West Gets it Right
Urinating on someone is now a war crime? Progressives in my city pay good money for this sort of treatment.
Aug '10
Re: Allen West Gets it Right
While my dander is up, let me add this:
(having just read it at Powerline , h/t ) from Wm Shawcross commenting on his new book.
"The US military was then, and still is today, the greatest defender of human rights that the world has ever seen. Think of the millions rescued from tyranny by American forces throughout the 20th century – and in the first ten years of this decade. Without the extraordinary commitment of American blood and treasure the world would not have enjoyed any such stability as it finally won during the century of totalitarians and mass graves."
Thanks
Re: Allen West Gets it Right
I don't think this story is getting much attention at all outside of the US. It seems to have Americans mesmerized, though.
See if you can find any reference to it in the press overseas. It was a brief blip, then it fell off.
Nov '10
Re: Allen West Gets it Right
Col. West is absolutely correct. Bishop Paul Moore spoke of playing catch with the skulls of Japanese soldiers during WWII and E. B. Sledge's book With the Old Breed recounts his reaction at seeing such acts (as well as at seeing what the enemy had done with living prisoners and the corpses of American dead). You will find similar accounts in books like Geo. MacDonald Fraser's Quartered Safe Out Here.
I sometimes wonder whether anyone who has not been in infantry combat is fit to judge the actions of those who have been.
Nov '11
Re: Allen West Gets it Right
Michael Totten said it far better than I did a long time ago:
This is what I was getting at: moral relativism. I do find it disheartening that people on Ricochet would pretend that the actions of certain soldiers at Abu Ghraib were not disgusting and dishonorable, even if those actions are nothing, NOTHING when compared to the horrors of say, Amna Suraka, a place I had never heard of before reading "In the Wake of the Surge".