Watching the Left

There has been seething, festering debate about the cooked up American policy of torturing prisoners, yet other than a handful of events that were either fully prosecuted under the law, or still under investigation by authorities, there has yet to be any evidence pointing to a large-scale, top-down policy of torturing prisoners. Lots of ink, pixels and breath has been wasted trying to argue for an against this imaginary ad hominem attack. But, I can understand the desire to hold Western Civilization to high standards.

Meanwhile, our medieval enemies continue to rape, mutilate and kill.

Two American soldiers from the 101st Airborne were captured by insurgents, and today their bodies were found:

Two U.S. soldiers missing since an attack on a checkpoint last week have been found dead near a power plant in Yusifiyah, south of Baghdad, according to U.S. officials, and Iraqi officials say the soldiers had been tortured.

Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Muhammed-Jassim, head of operations at the Iraqi Ministry of Defense, said the soldiers had been "barbarically" killed. U.S. officials would not confirm or deny that the men, who were identified Monday as Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore., had been tortured by their captors.

Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, left, 25, of Madras, Ore., and Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston were apparently kidnapped following an attack by Iraqi insurgents outside the town of Yusufiyah, south of Baghdad.

"Coalition forces have in fact recovered what we believe to be the remains of our two soldiers," said Maj. Gen. William B. Caldwell IV, spokesman for U.S. forces in Iraq, at a Baghdad news conference.

Caldwell said the bodies were found Monday night after dark but were recovered early Tuesday because of concern of makeshift bombs around the bodies.

Let's see what the Left has to say about the barbaric killing and booby-trapping of two men wearing the uniform worn by those on OUR SIDE:

Daily Kos: Nothing -- There are some open threads and a post about how many late-night comedians are telling jokes about Bush though (strange, they write as if making fun of the President is a new phenomenon).

Eschaton: Nothing. However there is a post attempting to link the White House to Abu Ghraib. I'll assume they have the best of intentions and just want to make sure that we are upholding Human Rights in the midst of the fog of war. Noble effort, but I'm just figuring that their duties at real-life work have prevented them from commenting and putting any thoughts together on what happened to our soldier this morning.

Kevin Drum: Nothing.

TalkLeft: We have contact! Here, TChris uses the story as an opportunity to bash our "plan" in Iraq:

The uncle of one of the fallen soldiers wants to know why the administration had no plan to win peace in Iraq:

"Because the U.S. government did not have a plan in place, my nephew has paid for it with his life," Ken MacKenzie, uncle of Army Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, told NBC's "Today" show.

Good thing they got the chance to let his anti-war uncle opine on the grevious event (apparently the parents of the fallen soldiers weren't available--strangely, I think we might have been able to get a word from them had they been as vitriolic towards the war as Nick Berg's dad). No word yet on the condemnation of the alleged torture practiced by the barbarians that did this to them. However, TChris, who admitted that he doesn't have time to post due to other commitments today, did find time to post about Rove and his "torture policies" (note, no actual evidence given, just links to op-eds, postulations and other conspiracy minded sites).

...And lastly, my favorite bellyaching heartaching pundit, Andrew Sullivan: He has nothing. But he does have lots of content that distresses over Christians and Dick Cheney, detailed descriptions of how we are losing the war through posters, and conspiracy ridden acount of how our rogue nation not only tortures prisoners in Guantanamo, but we simply can't help ourselves, and actually start torturing them on the plane ride over. Hmmn, I'm just guessing here, but I'm quite sure Sullivan won't nominate Rumsfeld for the Richard Branson Award.

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Now, to be fair, it is possible the Left has delayed "rushing to judgement" on this issue before all the facts are in. That is a respectable thing to do considering that mutilation and torture of our soldiers is, at this point, just alleged (although Iraqi Maj. Gen. Abdul Aziz Muhammed-Jassim stated they were "barbarically" killed).

I will offer this thought to my die-hard, loyal readers: if, in my rush to judgment, I assume that these soldiers were killed, that would now put the percentage of killed-mutilated American soldiers to POWs held under Red Cross/Red Cresent standards over total soldiers captured by the enemy at exactly 100%. Maybe, in my rush to judgement, I missed something, but my count still stands at 100% dead-mutilated, murdered soldiers to total captured.

In aggregate, the total number of POWs held by the insurgents has indeed been small, but my model doesn't weight incomptence in measuring volume.

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UPDATE: There is no reason to troll the reality-base community for further thoughts on this issue, Jeff Goldstein has done it here.

UPDATE II: I should have known better. If I would have waited a few hours, I would have been able to witness another spectacular meltdown from Andrew Sullivan:

I doubt whether even Donald Rumsfeld will describe what has been done to two young American soldiers as a "coercive interrogation technique." But you never know. Some people wonder why I remain so concerned about torture, and the surrender of our moral standing with respect to this unmitigated evil. Maybe the news of captured, tortured and murdered Americans will jog their conscience. Or maybe it will simply reinforce the logic of torture-reciprocity endorsed by Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Gonzales. As usual, complete silence from Instapundit. Almost radio silence from the Corner, except for the torture-advocate, Mark Levin, who is urging reciprocal atrocities. Give him points for consistency. And so the cycle of depravity and defeat deepens ...

Just when you think Captain Dipstick can't dig his hole any deeper, he tries to "justify" his comment:

Professor Bainbridge writes:

Andrew Sullivan seems to think that the Bush Administration's position on torture is at least a - if not the - root cause of the death by torture apparently suffered by two US service personnel.

No I don't. In fact, I explicitly argued against such an idea here. My point is that we can no longer unequivocally condemn the torture of these two soldiers because we have endorsed and practised torture ourselves. What was once a difference in kind between us and our enemy is now a difference in degree. That fact profoundly weakens our moral standing in the world, the power of our cause, and impedes the long-run success in the war of ideas that the war on terror involves. That this change was made secretly by an executive violating the express laws he is constitutionally bound to enforce makes the betrayal all the more enraging.

Here is a 5-step lesson in Andrew Sullivan-logic.

1. Start from a position of absolute moral authority.
2. Look around and see which pieces of what puzzle can fit the particular narrative you have been building.
3. Add water.
4. Finish narrative full of half truths, trumped up charges and borderline insanity, and preempt disagreement by finding it (enter emotional adjective here) enraging/heartwrenching/gobsmackingly vile/horrifying/disgusting/shocking that people won't agree with you.
5. Re-read and make sure that you've come across like giant prick, if not edit and try again. Remember, the difference isn't in kind, it's in degree.

Posted by 10 fingers 6 strings at June 20, 2006 10:29 AM | TrackBack