BCT Editorial – 12/29/05

This page was last updated on December 30, 2005.

Credibility; Editorial; Beaver County Times; December 29, 2005.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“Saddam Hussein claims that he was beaten and tortured by U.S. troops, and his lawyer says he has seen the bruises.

“We don’t buy that nonsense for a minute. American operatives would have to have been out of their minds to treat the former Iraqi dictator in such a way.

“Nor do we believe many Americans are buying Saddam’s line. They know their fellow countrymen wouldn’t handle him in that manner.”

[RWC] If that’s true, can the author explain why Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL) on the Senate floor compared our soldiers to “Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime - Pol Pot or others – that had no concern for human beings?” In 2004, Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-MA) said, “Shamefully, we now learn that Saddam’s torture chambers reopened under new management: U.S. management.” A quick search of Times editorials found none disagreeing with these statements.

“His ridiculous charges might resonate in other parts of the world, though, particularly the Middle East, because of what took place in Abu Ghraib prison. And the Bush administration’s opposition to the effort to ban torture from being used for interrogation purposes by U.S. operatives didn’t help matters.”

[RWC] I know this probably escaped the author, but U.S. law and international treaties already banned torture. Any additional laws would be redundant. What the Bush administration opposed was nothing more than a political stunt.

I believe President Bush was in a no-win position regarding Sen. McCain’s (R-AZ) al-Qaida bill of rights. If you supported it, you were portrayed as admitting you violated existing law and tortured prisoners. If you didn’t support the law, you were portrayed as supporting torture.

While what the U.S. military uncovered itself at Abu Ghraib violated U.S. policy, it hardly qualified as torture as most of us understand torture.

“In a region of the world that is far too willing to believe the worst about the United States, the Bush administration provided a context in which Saddam’s incredible charges have credibility. That’s what hubris can do to you.”

[RWC] “In a region of the world that is far too willing to believe the worst about the United States?” I guess the author doesn’t listen to most liberals in the U.S. and doesn’t read his own editorials. Read Times editorials for the last several years and I believe you’ll find the editorial board is squarely in the “blame America first” camp, at least when Republicans are in power.

Given the language noted above that was used by Democrat so-called leaders, why wouldn’t the rest of the world believe Saddam Hussein’s claims? Words have consequences, and words spoken in the U.S. travel far beyond our borders.