There’s a huge difference between when they do it to us and we do it to them.

When they did it to us, folks like you couldn’t care less about it.

Yeah Stage you remember, when the insurgents were found to be raping people with broken lightbulbs, sending in women to sexually humilitate their prisoners, then sending picture to their buddies? Oh wait, that was the herioc liberators. Better keep looking…

I guess burning bodies hanging from bridges and others being dragged through the streets were okay to you wonderful folks who didn’t see a need to even bring it up when it happened because, well hell, we done deserved it.

You guys are like a damned broken record. It’s mind boggling.

There’s an old saying. Expect nothing and you’ll never be disappointed.

In short, I’m never disappointed coming here lately.

God Bless, Bal.

You too Stageleft.

And even you Peter.

God bless all of you.

I think that everyone that was involved in this torture/abuse cases should have been tried by an Iraqi court on Iraqi soil. If you break a law in a country, you should be tried in that country, by it’s citizens. Let them wait in an Iraqi jail until the legal infrastucture is in place.

Yes Vinny the insurgency has been responsible for shitty things happening to Americans - please don’t tell me you bought into the Bush administrations ’smiling people with flowers and fresh bread meeting coalition troops at the gates of Baghdad’ line. It was to be expected for petes sake, the country was bombed to pieces, innocent men, women, and children have been killed left, right, and centre… peoples lives, homes, businesses, and everything they may have worked an entire lifetime for has been destroyed. Some of them are mightily pissed, some of them are mad as hell, and it does not surprise me in the least that more than a few may be seeking violent and bloody revenge; I imagine I’d sure as hell be looking for some. How many of us can say we wouldn’t be out in the streets looking to inflict some payback in the same circumstance? How rational do you think you might be if your family happened to be one of the ones blown up as part of the US led charge and you had to bury them in the back garden using your garden tools?

Your country and your president blew it - if your knickers are wound up so tight about this that it’s cutting off the circulation send them a letter.

Balbulican: I think what has frustrated me so much with this is the apparent general lack of concern on the part of the American people that these incidents have taken place, and, the regular justifications and rationalizations that get used to either minimize the issue or make it all ok…. Vinny’s little you hate America temper tantrum is but one example of rationalizing it away.

As for what might be an appropriate sentence we would have to start discussing who gets to answer it. If we ask US law possibly 11 years is appropriate - she didn’t kill anyone that we are aware of - if we ask Iraqi law we’d probably see a different answer, and if we ask the Iraqi people and the their families who are involved we would probably get a far different answer.

IMO the US needs to address this issue in some sort of very open and decisive manner if they hope to regain any sort of moral platform - and that’s going to be a tough thing to accomplish given the fairly negative light that the country is viewed in around our fair globe of late. Calling what has taken palce what it is instead of trying minimizing it would be a start, open investigations by others would be another route to take but (and there is always a but) they can’t do that without losing more face than they are willing give up, and they will never accept transparent and/or outside investigations into what they consider internal matters so their judgements and decisions will always be suspect.

They are between a rack and a hard place and the old adage of making beds and having to sleep in them comes to mind…….

The charges dropped were “committing and indecent act” and “dereliction of duty”.

>If you break a law in a country, you should be tried in that country, by it’s citizens

Obviously that requires we submit to whatever passes for a legal system there, or do you intend we impose our standards of proof and conduct and Criminal Code? Syria and Iran are therefore within their rights to detain, incarcerate, and try foreigners, or their own citizens, as they see fit. I should imagine if you can impress your views on Canadians there are a couple of matters of which we may wash our hands.

Whooee! I seen in this mornin’s paper that the judge ain’t goin’ along with the guilty plea bargain deal. He sez he ain’t sure the little gal knowed right from wrong. Shee-it! If the Merkin army’s takin’ on dumbasses who don’t know right from wrong, they got big troublems up at the top end.

I seen onta the TV where they sed this little gal was damn near mentally defective. They sed she never even learnt t’ talk til she was 8 years old. How in the hell does sumbuddy so bad off get inta the army?

JB