News > Politics > For Want Of a Little Moral Authority

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MONDAY JUNE 19 2006 10:00 AM

For Want Of a Little Moral Authority

Tags: Iraq

It's times like this that Americans everywhere can put their minds at ease, secure in the knowledge that their country holds the moral high ground:

An Iraqi farmer said Sunday that he saw seven heavily armed gunmen capture two American soldiers during an attack on a road checkpoint south of Baghdad, while U.S. troops searched for their comrades for a second day.

Of course the men who captured our soldiers don't need an excuse to hold, torture, or kill them. But in a war that clearly can not be won via military tactics, the reaction of Iraqi civilians to this unfortunate situation would be more helpful if it didn't amount to "Fuck 'Em:"

A Youssifiyah resident, who said his house was searched by U.S. soldiers Sunday afternoon, said the Americans were using translators to offer $100,000 for information leading to those who took the soldiers.

The U.S. military denied a reward had been offered. It said only that coalition and Iraqi forces were continuing the search and "will continue to use every resource available."

The man in Youssifiyah said he would not cooperate.

"I will not do it even if they pay one million dollars," he said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he feared retribution. "They deserve all that they are facing ... we are living a hard life because of them."

Setting aside the question of whether Iraqis are better off now than they were pre-invasion, when they turn down six figures for the simple task of pointing rescue units in the right direction of soldiers facing a high probability of torture and/or death, it's long past time to reevaluate exactly what it is we're doing there.

At the very least, the administration might want to rethink their torture fetish in preparation for the inevitable internet ransom video now so familiar. "Do as we say, not as we do" doesn't sound like a winner when it's book-ended by U.S.-sanctioned atrocities both in Iraq and Guantanamo. Not that blatant hypocrisy hasn't been a pillar of White House policy to date...

Comments

quagmirething

I'm lost

June 2005

JUN 19, 2006 10:26 AM

I believe it was the same day that 10 Iraqi bakery workers were kidnapped. It's hard to imagine that "every resource available" will be deployed to find those people, in part because the chances are they are dead by now. But good news stories do happen, 12 captives freed would be a delightful example.

DhD_No_Pants

Katy, TX

May 2006

JUN 19, 2006 10:28 AM

Difference is, after they refused to give us information, we didn't take them (and their entire families) into the streets for a nice little game called "bang bang" And I'm pretty sure that is what we (as a whole, minus the ones that have gone shit crazy there, you cannot blame a government for the actions of a few soldiers) are attempting to do there. And while the prisoners in Guantanamo are facing serious injustice, I wouldn't label that as an atrocity. What the Iraqi government has been doing to their own citizens is. But if that is the government they want, let them have it. Not one of my friends or my husband's brothers in arms should bleed out in their country for people who don't know a life or want one that doesn't involve putting entire villages into mass graves. We will wait for the genocide to extend a little farther out of their borders before we try again next time.

demonesskage

Oakland, CA

July 2004

JUN 19, 2006 10:34 AM

I have no comment on the content of the article because I'm already chonicaly depressed as it is, but it was incredibly well written. Thank you.

SirPsychoSexy

Ridgewood, NJ

January 2004

JUN 19, 2006 11:32 AM

Guess what, people don't like being occupied. They tend to not like or wish harm to the occupiers.

What a fucking shocker.

SirPsychoSexy

Ridgewood, NJ

January 2004

JUN 19, 2006 11:39 AM

If there were Chinese tanks rolling down El Cajon Blvd. here in San Diego, and I was walking out of the 7-11 with a big gulp, then witnessed a bunch of Crips de-track, storm a tank, drag out the guys inside and drive off with them..

Lets just say I don't think I would say anything.