[Dan Halberstein]

Come on guys, let's get a real fight going here--not change the subject everytime somebody scores a hit.

What did you score a hit of, Dick? My apologies if the question is clever, which you have set over against being right, as if they were polar opposites.

I like the notion of not changing subjects. You believe, then, that it is good professional discipline for American military personnel to take it upon themselves to urinate on the religious symbol not only of the enemy, but of a couple million Americans?

Or are you saying that it good military policy to urinate on that symbol, not something the individual soldiers elected to do?

I do understand the logic, if the object of the military is to continuously replenish the ranks from which these enemies spring. After all, you see the worldwide reaction. We can't very well scratch our heads and wonder where all the anti-Americanism is coming from, if we don't create a few more anti-Americans now and then by blatant acts such as these. Some of those guys just don't have a problem with less provocative (though more substantial) slights. It's like a wake-up call.

If, however, the object of the military is to fight and win the war at hand, these acts - the recent gitmo revelation, and the Abu Ghraib disgraces - are counterproductive. What do you think this does for the legitimacy of the elected Iraqi government (our allies?) How about the insurgents (our enemies - though since we are making recruiting posters for them through actions such as these, you could hardly tell)?

I work daily with career military guys, Dick. They are disgusted by these displays. Not disgusted-for-the-press-but-really-kinda-psyched disgusted, disgusted-in-real-life-conversation-over-a-cigarette disgusted. They wince and stuff when they talk about it.

Have they seen greater obscenities? Of course. So have I. What makes them wince is not that this is the worst our military can do - far from it. It's the whittling away of a code of conduct they had legitimate pride in, a code that says "I don't care what your sick-ass creed tells you to do, Americans don't do that."

I'm sure during the recent Iraq war Qu'rans were spattered with bodily fluids by munitions of all sides. But this is collateral to the actual destruction the munitions were intended to cause. To piss on the holy book of a religion is to say "we fight you because you are Moslem."

Please tell me again why bigotry is good. My fuzzy leftist brain has forgotten already.

Oh, and one for Kevin - you do know Lo is speaking of George Santayana, not Carlos, right?

Dan

[This message has been edited by Dan Halberstein (edited June 07, 2005).]