The Omega Letter Intelligence Digest

Vol: 32 Issue: 12 - Wednesday, May 12, 2004

"Outraged by the Outrage"
by Jack Kinsella

Senator James Inhofe, (R-Ok) tore a strip off fellow Senate committee
members, expressing his outrage over the public and political outrage
regarding the allegations of prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison by US
forces.

"If they're in cell block 1A or 1B, these prisoners -- they're murderers,
they're terrorists, they're insurgents," Inhofe reminded his fellow
senators. "Many of them probably have American blood on their hands. And
here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals."

'Outrage' is the current Buzzword of Choice among political and media
types.  If one watches CNN, one is forced to conclude the most important
event taking place in the world today is the story about alleged abuses
that allegedly took place months ago and was already under military
investigation.

Listening to CNN, you'd think they BROKE the story.  Expert after expert
has been paraded before the public, plus all the 'formers' whose names the
public can still remember that CNN could track down.  This morning's
offering was Donald Rumsfeld's former assistant, Victoria Clarke.  They
were all 'outraged'.

All America is outraged.  Generals are blaming majors who are blaming
senior staff NCOs who are blaming their commanders who are blaming the
generals again.  CNN is blaming George Bush and in particular, Donald
Rumsfeld, while pundit after pundit wrings their hands and cheers on their
favorite side.

The United Nations is outraged.  The British public is outraged.  The
European Union, (especially the French) is outraged.  The international
press is blaming the US for not turning everything over to the UN. (Abuses
NEVER happen under UN command.  Just ask the Israelis.  Or the thousands
of victims in Yugoslavia who were massacred while UN peacekeepers stood by
and did nothing).

Teddy Kennedy is outraged with Donald Rumsfeld for not 'acting fast
enough' in dealing with the prisoner abuse reports.  Senator Kennedy's
comments sort of sum up all the outrage, coming, as they do, from the
senator from Massachusetts.

Back in 1969, when Kennedy drove his car (and Mary Jo Kopechne) off the
Chappaquiddick Bridge, a reportedly drunken Ted Kennedy didn't even report
the accident,(and Mary Jo Kopechne, who drowned in the car) until the next
day. The incident was 'handled' when Kennedy pleaded guilty to leaving the
scene of an accident. (Kennedy's driver's license was revoked for one
year.)

Kennedy is 'outraged' at Rumsfeld for Rumsfeld's failure to deal with a
situation in a 'timely fashion'. Nobody seems outraged at Kennedy's
hypocrisy -- he's Teddy Kennedy!

CNN's outrage at the prisoner abuse is mentioned at least six times an
hour.  This is the same CNN who looked the other way when it came to
Saddam Hussein.  Does anybody remember when CNN admitted to covering up
Saddam's abuses in order to keep their Baghdad bureau open?

For ten years, CNN functioned as an arm of Saddam's propaganda machine, in
exchange for being the only news organization with a presence in Baghdad.

When Saddam kidnapped and tortured one of CNN's cameramen, CNN boss Eason
Jordan decided to sit on it in order to keep peace with Saddam Hussein
(and their offices in Baghdad).  But now they are wallowing in outrage at
American abuse of Iraqi prisoners.

So far, out of 700 troops stationed at Abu Ghraib, seven were involved
enough to merit letters of reprimand, six were involved enough to rate
trials by court-martial.

So the outrage and the fury and the thunder and the hand-wringing and the
soul-searching about why we are in Iraq is all about the actions of
thirteen guards out of seven hundred in one prison out of hundreds across
Iraq in which more than fifteen thousand MP's are NOT charged with abuse.

The hypocrisy is outrageous.

Assessment:

Lost in the din of outrage at the actions of thirteen troops out of one
hundred and thirty-five thousand or so in theater is the sense of outrage
at the brutal murder of a young American named Nick Berg from
Philadelphia.

Berg, according to CNN, was 'executed' as a response to 'the acts of abuse
by American troops in Abu Ghraib', refocusing the 'outrage' back at the
administration.  This is exactly what the enemy was counting on when they
made the video tape.

The video bore the title "Abu Musab al-Zarqawi shown slaughtering an
American."

(You may want to skip the next couple of paragraphs.)

A clearly terrified Berg was shown, sitting bound on the floor, with five
hooded men standing behind him.  Berg told the camera, "My name is Nick
Berg, my father's name is Michael, my mother's name is Suzanne. . . I have
a brother and sister, David and Sarah. I live in ... Philadelphia."

After reading a statement, the hooded men were shown pulling Berg's head
to one side and putting a large knife to his neck.  Berg screamed as one
of the men used the knife to cut his head off.

Samplings of the headlines telling the story of Berg's brutal murder tell
a much wider story as well.

"US to Blame say Family of Iraq Victim" says The Scotsman, UK; "Family
Angry With US Gov't Over Son's Beheading" the Times of India tells its
audience.

Reuters managed to tie the murder to the abuse scandal, suggesting a
'cause and effect', "Beheading and Abuse Darken Iraq Progress" as if the
two were equivalent atrocities.

America's "Radio Free Europe" -- born out of an effort to rebut Soviet
propaganda during the Cold War -- reported the killing this way:  "US Man
Beheaded in Retribution for Iraqi Prison Abuses."  And in Canada, the
London Free Press reported what it called "Vengeance in Iraq."

Despite the efforts of enemy propagandists within the mainstream media
(both at home and abroad) there IS no moral equivalency between the murder
of Nick Berg and the abuse of Iraqi detainees.  Both took place within
their own context, and, taken in context, it is an entirely different
story.

Not to excuse any human rights abuses, the outrage over the Iraqi prisoner
abuse (I noticed nobody applied the word 'outrage' to the beheading of a
conscious, screaming, American non-combatant) is directed at thirteen
Americans who were guarding the worst of Saddam's goon squad, Iraqi
insurgents who had killed American troops, and al-Qaeda fighters, all of
whom possessed intelligence that could save American lives.

None of the abuses recorded held a candle to those inflicted on Iraqis by
other Iraqis under Saddam Hussein, and, so far, there are no allegations
of US forces decapitating non-combatants.  Or cutting out their tongues.
Or dropping them into tree shredders.  Or tying them up and throwing them
blindfolded from the tops of buildings.

There is outrage o'plenty for the thugs and murderers who deserve to meet
the same fate they dished out to their Iraqi victims under Saddam, but not
a peep of outrage over the murder of an innocent civilian contractor whose
only crime, according to reports, was wanting to be involved in helping
Iraq rebuild.

Senator Inhofe expressed his outrage at the outrage over the abusive
treatment meted out to murders, rapists and terrorists.   What about the
lack of outrage over the decapitation of an innocent?  THAT wouldn't be
politically correct.

What matters to the left is not what is good for America, but what is good
for their political future.  The military already had the Abu Ghraib
situation under investigation and all the soldiers involved were relieved
from duty and rotated back to the States long before CBS signed Nick
Berg's death warrant by broadcasting those inflammatory photos.

It reveals that America's deadliest enemies aren't the ones fighting
America with bullets and bombs, but the ones fighting America with words
and pictures.

"He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind. . ." says
Proverbs 11:29. Whether the Left likes the current occupant of the White
House or not, it is still the 'people's house' and what hurts the
government in wartime hurts the people.

Broadcasting those photos served no purpose except to inflame public
sentiment against the war, in the hopes of giving the administration a
black eye and gaining some political points to use against Bush in
November. That mission has been accomplished.

Nick Berg paid for their politics with his life. But nobody seems very
outraged about that.