US soldiers' bodies found in Iraq
Maybe now Bush and Cheney will understand why so many of us have been screaming that the US needs to clarify it's policy on torture and state categorically that it is not approved and that the US will never participate in it.
The bodies of the two US soldiers missing since Friday have been found and it is being reported that they had been tortured.
US military spokesman in Iraq, Maj Gen William Caldwell, said the bodies were found late on Monday by US troops. "We have recovered what we believe are the remains of our two missing soldiers. They will be taken back to the United States for positive verification."Now, of course, there is no way of saying whether or not they would have been tortured even if the US had clearly and emphatically denounced such behaviour, but the foot dragging and obfuscation of the likes of Cheney and Gonzales on this subject makes any US condemnation seem like hypocrisy.
He said the cause of death was "undeterminable at this point".
But Iraqi defence ministry spokesman Gen Abdul Aziz Mohammed said: "We found they had been tortured in a barbaric fashion."
That's the scandal of Cheney's Vice President for Torture stance.
The reason they should embrace the Geneva Conventions and stop farting about is for the protection of US soldiers.
No-one is saying that embracing Geneva guarantees that such vile actions won't happen, but if they do, you are at least in a position of moral authority to express your rightful indignation.
The US is not, and for that Cheney and Gonzales should hang their heads in shame.
Thankfully, there are some of us who have always condemned torture, and we will condemn this barbaric act. It doesn't bear thinking about how those young men lost their lives, or what their final hours must have been like, or how their mothers ever come to terms with the fact that their babies were tortured to death.
It's horrible. Just horrible. And it deserves to be condemned in the strongest terms possible.
It's just a pity that the current administration has, by it's own actions and inactions, left itself in a position where it is unable to do so properly.
Click title for full article.
Tags:
2 comments:
I'm sure a clarification of torture policy, perhaps coupled with a strongly worded condemnation of torture would have prevented these soldiers' mutilations by al-Qaeda.
Of course, you suggest that a clarification might have done something and then you take it back in the next paragraph to remain entirely ambiguous. Did you work for the Guardian or the Independent at one point, Kel? Either way, you would make a great Democratic presidential candidate in the United States if you had been a native-born citizen of our country.
Jeez, how idiotic can you get, Kel.
I at no point suggest that a clarification would have prevented these soldiers being tortured.
I do say that Bush, Cheney and Gonzales, by failing to rule torture out completely have lost the moral authority to condemn this appalling act.
I am not remotely surprised to find you attempting to defend them.
That seems to be the function you have chosen in life.
I wonder if you could look into the eyes of the mothers of those two tortured soldiers and defend Bush, Cheney and Gonzales' stance.
They have done everything in their power to keep the torture option open to the US. As have you by defending them.
Shame on all of you.
Torture is wrong. What a pity you can't bring yourself to say something so very bloody obvious.
Post a Comment