The Voice Of One Crying Out In Suburbia

As always, an editorial pulling no punches from Christopher Hitchens....

As mentioned before, Hitchens is a liberal I respect, one that is not so blinded by ideology that he recognizes the changed world after 9/11. He may still be wacky on some social issues, but when it comes to fighting terror he is usually right on...there is a piece on the Abu Ghraib prison issue in Slate Magazine, harsh in rhetoric but right on the money...

>>> - It has defiled one of the memorials of regime change. I was a visitor to Abu Ghraib last summer, and the stench of misery and evil was still palpable in those pits and cellars. It is as if British or American soldiers had not only executed German prisoners of war, but had force-marched them to Dachau in order to commit the atrocity.
- It has been like a shot in the back to the many soldiers (active front-line duty, not safe-job prison guards) who were willing to take casualties rather than inflict them and who fought selectively and carefully. What are the chances of the next such soldier who is captured by some gang of Saddamists or Wahabbists or Khomeinists?
- It seems, at least on its face, to have profaned the idea of women in the military. One does not have to concede anything to Islamist sexism in order to know what the impact of obscene female torturers will have in the wider society. <<<

As mentioned by James Taranto, this comment is a bit over the top but one has to wonder if the firing squad penalty for military criminals is such a bad idea...

>>>One of two things must necessarily be true. Either these goons were acting on someone's authority, in which case there is a layer of mid- to high-level people who think that they are not bound by the laws and codes and standing orders. Or they were acting on their own authority, in which case they are the equivalent of mutineers, deserters, or traitors in the field. This is why one asks wistfully if there is no provision in the procedures of military justice for them to be taken out and shot.<<<

Again, a bit much but when we entrust men and women in the military with a pretty serious mission, one that cannot be compromised by such foolishness, the penalities ought be severe. I expect we will see all of the folks involved spending a LONG time in military prisons.


(Hat Tip to OpinionJournal.com's Best of the Web!)