October 18, 2004
A REAL STUMPER, HUH?:
Remember Abu Ghraib? (Washington Post, October 15, 2004)
IN THE PAST few weeks the presidential candidates have debated almost every aspect of the war on terrorism save one: the handling of detainees in Iraq and Afghanistan. That is a remarkable omission, if only because the shocking photographs of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, and reports of hundreds of other cases of torture and homicide in Iraq and Afghanistan, have done grave damage to the United States' ability to combat extremism in the Muslim world. There is, too, something important to debate: whether the United States will return to adhering to the Geneva Conventions and other international rules governing the treatment of foreign prisoners, or whether the war on terrorism justifies the violation of international law in certain cases. President Bush clearly intends to preserve the current, exceptional policies he adopted after Sept. 11, 2001, despite the abuses to which they led. Sen. John F. Kerry has criticized the abuses but hasn't made clear whether he would change the policies. [...]The record of prisoner abuse stands as a principal count in any indictment of the Bush administration's handling of Iraq and the war on terrorism. Yet Mr. Kerry, who has devoted much of his campaign in the past month to criticizing how Mr. Bush has handled the war, has barely mentioned Abu Ghraib.
Okay, let's all pretend we're at the Post's editorial board meeting and brainstorm a little to see if we can figure out why the Kerry camp--which in recent days has said the Senator would make dead quadraplegics walk and that the President would reinstate the draft and cut Social Security checks by a half--wants no part of Abu Ghraib? Posted by Orrin Judd at October 18, 2004 6:06 PM
Because American voters thought we should be tougher on the prisoners? And secondarily because the Kerry campaign doesn't want to touch a prisoner-of-war issue what with those Swift Vet ads running and Sinclair Broadcasting about to run the POW documentary? [oj: I assume you want the answer in the form of a question]
Posted by: Fred Jacobsen (San Fran) at October 18, 2004 6:22 PMThis isn't flogging a dead horse. This is flogging one of those kiddie rides that they used to have in front of grocery stores, one with an "out of order" sign on it.
Are the Post editors really this stupid? even their boy is smart enough to not waste his time on a non-issue that matters to no one but the most rabid anti-Bush/anti-War Leftists and pundits.
Posted by: Raoul Ortega at October 18, 2004 6:36 PMFred's comment pretty well states it. You'd have to be a complete nitwit to run with Abu Ghraib and the so called torture issue at this stage of the campaign.
Posted by: at October 18, 2004 7:29 PMI can only make sense of it as another bid to depress the religious conservative vote: Hey, our guys were violating the ius in bello criteria of the just war theory by TORTURING people! And they were doing it in a way that showed they'd been watching too much MTV. Ergo, (1) the President ordered them to do it, which makes him a sick pervert, and (2) the President probably blew off the ius ad bellum criteria, too.
Sounds nutty, but I've heard serious people -- who would never dream of voting for a gun-grabbing frog-loving abortion fanatic like Kerry -- say it seriously. How big an effect it has, I don't know.
Posted by: Random Lawyer at October 18, 2004 7:48 PMUmmm, because The geneva conventions only apply between signatories? And that the terrorists never met the requirements for insurgencies to fall under the Geneva conventions?
Ptah: You took the words right out of my keyboard.
IIRC, there was a proposed amendment to the Convention (circa 1978) that would have changed the rules considerably in favor of the terrorists, but the US never signed on to it.
Posted by: Mike Morley at October 18, 2004 8:25 PMI wonder whether the WaPo would ever print what the real Iraqis think about the prison abuse. From all I have been able to find they seem to wonder what all the fuss was about in light of the normal prison abuse they put up with. Of course the WaPo would never print that because it would just show how mendacious all their coverage of that was, especially by comparison with their comparison of the beheadings going on at the same time. Heaven forfend that the MSM should look mendacious with all their fair and unbiased coverage of all the news fit to print!!
Posted by: dick at October 18, 2004 8:57 PMBecause no one in his right mind cares?
Posted by: Robert Schwartz at October 18, 2004 9:01 PMBecause AMericans would compare the Abu G pix with the pix of people jumping from the 100'th floor of the WTC?
Because the WaPo, ABC, and CBS don't want Kerry to be elected. So they keep bringing up dead issues that detract from Kerry's message and remind the voting public of issues they have ceased to care about. It only makes Kerry look like he is still living in Vietnam. Look for the "reporting for duty" and salute thing to make a comeback next week.
I'd like to see someone at a Kerry rally yell "incoming" in the middle of Kerry's speech. Should be quite humorous.
Posted by: Remy Logan at October 18, 2004 11:25 PM