Sen Inhofe stepped up to the plate and declared that he was more outraged by people being upset at torture than he was at torture itself. I believe this to be an indication of a psychopathic personality. Of course, Sen Liebermann opened this can of worms already by bemoaning the fact that nobody had apologized for 9/11. So I guess our side, if you count that cunt Liebermann as one of us, started the outrage race.
But, of course, the right is never one to let a good outrage pass it by. No sooner had a shitty stream downloaded a severed head into our shared narrative than fox news began describing their own outrage.
Not, mind you, at the public beheading of some poor schmuck, but rather at the supposed fact that the people upset by the Abu Ghraib photos weren't outraged enough by the beheading. See above re: psychopathy.
Meanwhile, this whole business has gotten me down. Actually, scratch that. I'm already down, but this business has got me upset about something other than my miserable excuse for a life. Thinking over this picture
in which (die, )Lynndie(, die) seems to be giving the American Sign Language gesture indicating, "Look ma, I ain't got a soul!" particularly bothered me. I really wanted to take a baseball bat to this person.
Of course, there's nothing new under the sun and all that. And I did remember an historical precedent for this behavior. Specifically, the Nazis used to take their pictures next to dead Jews, which they'd then send home to their parents to show what fine anti-Semites they were. Photos like, well, this:
"We feel a tortured ambivalence regarding our pyramid of naked prisoners."
Of course, none of this means anything to the psychopathic right. Andrew Sullivan has fallen into lockstep with Fox News, upset that the media, which felt the need to fuzz out genitalia in the Abu Ghraib photos, won't show the five chops to Nick Berg's throat, won't play his horrid cry as he's hacked to death. Well, there are some reasons for this supposed inconsistency.
First, the press has been squeamish. Genitals are blurred, not all of the Falluja murder and mutilation fest have been shown around the clock on CNN. And a snuff film is pretty far over the line. Let's see if the rape video airs, then maybe we'll have a point of truer comparison.
Second, we're Americans. Those shithead soldiers are representing us, doing our bidding. Well, in theory, at least. We know that al Qaeda's fucked up. They are not an agency of our government, however. We don't have oversight on Osama. We got nothing, in fact, even remotely related to sighting when it comes to bin Laden. We do, however, have a military and civilian structure which we must use in a responsible and ethical manner. The abuses at Abu Ghraib were a violation of the prisoners and a violation of our trust in those soldiers.
To the petty mind of these conservatives, however, such distinctions are unimportant. They are so caught up in being right and wronged that they cannot see the plain truth.
But I don't want to leave you on such a bummer note, so I'll bring you the one piece of high comedy I found today. It's from Fark, where I looked for and found a link to the decapitation footage which I don't think I will download because I don't think I should watch it. Regardless, this bit of humor was inspired by the cries of the decapitators. To see the joke, please click here.
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