Abu Ghraib worse than Saddam

The worst thing that has ever happened in Iraq is not Saddam Hussein or terrorists attacking the innocents or Iraqi infrastructure. Ask any lib in DC or big media sound alike. The worst thing that has ever happened in Iraq is Abu Ghraib.

Alberto Gonzales’ confirmation hearing allowed prisoner abuse to again raise its ugly head. Let’s stipulate the prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib demonstrates a breakdown of military discipline and is not a good thing. The only thing worse than the humiliation of the Iraqi prisoners, who, by the way, consist of murderers, bombers, anarchist and terrorist, is our own national humiliation brought on by the grandstanding and over-the-top feigned outrage of some politicians who smell a political opportunity.

While America is locked in a life and death struggle with Pan-Islamo-Terror-Fascist, these politicians and their supporters sense a political advantage and are willing to press it home no matter the cost to the nation and its fighting force. Facts mean nothing to this crowd. The fact that the military leadership announced to the world an immediate and thorough investigation of the abuse only days after the allegations surfaced is of no matter. The fact that the abuse centered on a dozen or so soldiers and contractors on one shift at one prison is immaterial. The fact that whatever abuses were occurring have long since stopped is not worth noting. The fact that military trials have been and are being conducted for those accused of wrong-doing is not important.

What’s important to this self-serving crowd is that there are pictures out there that might be used to drive the Secretary of Defense from office and embarrass the president. They seem more willing to put their women in burkas, buy prayer rugs and convert to the most extreme form of Islam than to allow this president to wage a successful fight on the maniacs who, given the chance, would slit all of our throats for their own now famous version of wackiest home videos.

War IS hell. In the summer of 1415 King Henry V met the French army at Agincourt. After initial success, when it appeared that the battle might turn against him, Henry ordered prisoners that numbered in the thousands killed. In September 1864, in reply to a letter from the citizens of Atlanta, GA begging relief from an order to evacuate and burn the city, Gen. Sherman wrote, "You cannot qualify war in harsher terms than I will. War is cruelty, and you cannot refine it; and those who brought war into our country deserve all the curses and maledictions a people can pour out. I know I had no hand in making this war, and I know I will make more sacrifices to-day than any of you to secure peace.”

So, in the grand scheme of the cruelty of war, what occurred at Abu Ghraib is rather insignificant. Those responsible, though they have made more sacrifices than most to secure peace, will and already have faced swift and sure justice for their actions. What makes this a national tragedy rather than a success is the endless, public, national self-flogging we’re engaging in for political advantage. I’m not sure any nation with such tender sensibilities can or should ever wage war irrespective of how many of its citizens might be slaughtered on a September morning.