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The Real Atrocities of Abu
Ghraib
War on Terror/Frank
Salvato, Managing Editor |
January
14, 2005
- "He laughed. He was whistling. He was singing.” This
was the testimony of Amin al-Sheikh in the Court’s Martial hearings against
Army Spc. Charles Graner. Graner is charged with being the ringleader of a
band of rogue American soldiers who forced Middle Eastern terrorists to
commit humiliating acts in an effort to extract information regarding
terrorist activity. Al-Sheikh is a Syrian terrorist who was captured while
committing acts of terror against the Iraqi people and acts of aggression
against the allies in Iraq. He is currently being detained at the Abu Ghraib
prison, a facility that, until the liberation of Iraq, incarcerated
political prisoners. Today it houses terrorists.
My words today are not in complete defense of Spc. Graner. If laws were
broken and orders usurped then a fair and just punishment should be
administered. Unlike the civilian court system that is routinely manipulated
by the semantics of high-priced lawyers and the legislation of activist
judges – a mockery of what our legal system was intended to be – the
military justice system tends to be more equitable in its proceedings and
more rigid in its punishment. What makes Spc. Garner’s case different from
the military norm is that the mainstream media has mandated that the
bastardized version of our civilian system be injected into our military
system of justice.
Our civilian legal system has fallen into a pattern of relying on the
testimony of those who have been convicted of committing crimes. We see it
every day and from both sides of the aisle, the aisle being the dividing
line between the prosecution and the defense. Invariably one side or the
other will introduce a "witness” who can testify beyond a shadow of a doubt
as to the defendant’s guilt or innocence. The only problem is that many
times the "witness” is someone who resides behind bars and whose testimony
will result in personal gain. We have grown accustomed to accepting the
statements of these individuals as they attempt to gain favor with those on
whose behalf they are testifying or who have something to gain by affording
those who "employ” their testimony the information they want the jury to
hear. We accept the testimony of those who have proven themselves
untrustworthy and we do so to prosecute or defend those accused of crimes,
sometimes with their lives hanging in the balance.
In the case of Spc. Graner the question begs to be asked, is there anyone in
the world who believes that al-Sheikh would have testified any differently?
After all, he is an insurgent terrorist who was caught by the allies
committing acts of murder, acts of terror and acts of aggression against the
Iraqi people and their allies. If there is anyone in the world besides the
blinded-by-hate, "blame America first” crowd, the French government and the
terrorists themselves who believe that al-Sheikh would have ever said, "No,
Spc. Garner didn’t do anything out of the ordinary, in fact, he was quite
professional in his duties,” then we have truly found the land of the
imbecile. Al-Sheikh is a terrorist. He knows that he and his ilk are at war
with the Western World and he will do anything to win the battle in order to
win the war. He already has committed acts of aggression, terrorism and
murder. What makes anyone think that telling a lie about his enemy in order
to remove him from the battlefield would be beyond possibility? Quite
frankly, anyone with half a brain should expect that al-Sheikh would be
lying.
I will reiterate that I am not giving Spc. Graner a pass. If he has done
something wrong then appropriate action should be taken. I will, however,
say this in his defense. Whether the cowardly anti-war left in this country
and around the world care to admit it or not, the West – not only the United
States, but the entire Western culture – is at war with fanatical Islamic
terrorists. They want our way of life extinguished and they want us either
converted to radical Islam or dead, infidels that we are, there is no in
between. This war has been going on for thousands of years dating back to
before the Crusades and it has been proven throughout time that fanatical
and radical Islamic jihadists don’t employ rules of engagement, they wage
war to win at all costs, humanity be damned.
As the champions of freedom and democracy, we need to understand that
sometimes, in our efforts to defend, attain and enable those very
principles, we might have to do distasteful and perhaps "politically
incorrect” things (insert sarcastic eye-roll here). But when the choice is
between the evils of whistling while you make naked terrorists form a human
pyramid and hooded cowards sawing the heads off of innocent kidnap victims
the choice should be clear. It is astounding that for some people it is not.
Keeping all this in mind let’s ponder this question: whose word should we
suspect to be more truthful, the word of an American soldier or the word of
an incarcerated Syrian terrorist? Come on, people, this questions shouldn’t
be so hard.
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