Hiatt: Why Hawks Should Be Angry

Zell Miller, the plain-spoken quasi-Democrat from Georgia, took to the Senate floor earlier this month to bemoan all the fuss about the prison abuse scandal.

"Here we go again, rushing to give aid and comfort to the enemy," he complained. "Why is it that there's more indignation over a photo of a prisoner with underwear on his head than over the video of a young American with no head at all? Why is it that some in this country still don't get that we are at war?"
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Bush could have responded differently. He could have embraced the heroes such as Spec. Joseph Darby, who sounded the alarm; William J. Kimbro, the Navy dog handler who refused to sic his dogs on prisoners; Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba, who wrote an honest report. He could have apologized to the people of Iraq, appointed an investigator from outside the chain of command, pledged to abide by the Geneva Conventions. Instead, he opted for a Nixonian strategy of damage containment, and a summer of piecemeal disclosure.

Who pays the price for the president's dishonesty? Soldiers such as Maj. Gen. Peter Chiarelli and his troops, who, as The Post's Scott Wilson reported last week, are out in Baghdad's slums, fighting insurgents one hour and fixing sewers the next. The prison scandal and the administration's failed response haven't doomed those efforts, but they've lengthened the odds. They've given aid and comfort to the enemy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A3520-2004May30.html

The young American with no head and another 800+ young Americans (not to mention uncounted thousands of Iraqi civilians) would still be alive if not for the fraudulent, ill-considered, counter-productive war that you and other fools helped to make possible.

Yes, this Rubicon cannot be un-crossed and we have to salvage whatever we can in terms of our national interests and a stable non-belligerant Iraq. Well, the Abu Ghraib scandal may have made this situation unsalvageable. The Bush administration, by their willful disregard of the Geneva Conventions has given more "aid and comfort to the enemy" than Osama and al Qaeda could have hoped for.

You, Senator Miller, are giving aid and comfort to those who have undermined our nation's security and moral authority. Only by holding our government accountable and demonstrating to the world that the American people have the will and the wisdom to change can we ever hope to recover from this debacle, and reclaim our position as the leader of the free world.

If you really don't care about truth and decency, Zell, then you've sold yourself and you're willing to sell your country. Stay downwind, please.

However, it is not the war Zell Miller thinks it is. The war has gone from one against terrorism to one of fighting for America's heart and soul. Over 200 years of build up moral authority has been lost in less than two years. The rhetoric from the Millers and Inhofes do nothing to advance the cause of regaining what has been lost. Instead, it only deepens the pit we have now fallen into. Given their apparent lack of comprehension to what has been lost, I feel they will only continue to worsen our image in the world through their acts of arrogance and stupidity.