Terrorists charged that their Qur’an’s were mistreated at Guantanamo and the Left is outraged at Americans. A few soldiers humiliate some terrorists at Abu Ghraib and the Left absolutely goes ballistic! Rumors come out about fatal shootings in Haditha and the Left rushes to judgment completely ignoring the presumption of innocence until proven guilty.
By now everyone knows that the bodies of the bodies of two kidnapped American soldiers have been found. They were reportedly tortured in a way that one general described as “brutal” and “unnatural.” We’re still waiting for any sign of outrage by those on the Left.
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
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I don't consider myself to be part of either the "right" or the "left". I agree and disagree with each side on certain issues. But Dennis, do you really think that any American (other than maybe a couple of nutjobs) is not outraged by these acts? Just because you disagree with someone's politics that makes them happy to see such barbaric acts? It's comments like these that have cheapened political discourse in our country over the last several years.
Another point: this is all relatively recent news (less than a day), and no stories I have read included comments from anyone on the right either. So I suppose you could also say we are still waiting for "any sign of outrage by those on the [right]."
I disagree John. I searched the blogosphere and found numerous right wing blogs which expressed outrage. I couldn't find a single left wing blog or website that even addressed the issue. Check it out--Google my "Conservative Reference Desk" and click on "The Left." Then see if you can find a single left wing blog or website that expresses outrage at the torture.
I would sure hope that people on the left are upset and outraged about this torture--but my point is that while they seem to go out of their way to endlessly parade every American injustice or suspected injustice through the mud, when an atrocity like this happens, the silence on their part is deafening.
We'll just have to agree to disagree on this because I don't think this has cheapened the level of political discourse--I think its a legitimate grip.
I looked at a random selection of blogs/websites you have linked as both liberal and conservative in your reference desk - I didn't find a mention of these events in any of them. Maybe I'm not looking at the right ones.
Regardless, I'm not sure what you want from them. Your silence on the mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib has been just as deafening. (I'm relatively new here, but I also searched your blog for references.) Applying your logic, I must assume that you are in favor of torture in those circumstances(and maybe you are).
Recliner Commenteries posts w/ Guantanomo in the text.
Using the searc feature I didn't find anything on Abu Ghraib.
Of course that's beside the point... the tactics the Left uses have very little to do w/ defending a principle of non-torture or humane treatment of prisoners... they have everything to do with attacking the Left's apponenents in order to gain more power. The right does the same thing... it's politics... it's despicable. The interest has shifted from actually doing good or making progress to spewing rhetoric and gaining mindshare and spinning events into issues and winning elections.
Echidne of the Snakes
Pilgrim's Digression
AmericaBlog
Polimom
ReidBlog
How many more examples do you want, Dennis? Are you incapable of doing a search in Technorati or Google or is it just not important to you whether what you say is accurate? Do you just blindly follow the right-wing talking points of people like Rush Limbaugh:
"Just a couple of minutes into the program, Limbaugh read an email from a listener, who wondered if "the left will say the soldiers deserved it," and who went on to say he was "so sick of the cut-and-run liberals." After reading the email, Limbaugh said he had gone to the "wacko lefty" sites to see what they were saying. Sure enough! "They're happy these two soldiers got tortured! Good riddance to them!" Limbaugh said the crazed left would use these deaths to say once again that this "war" was going nowhere, that we're losing, etc." from Crooks & Liars
Why do you feel the need to demonize and lie about your opponents? Does it make you feel better about yourself? How do you justify your own silence about wrongs committed by conservatives or the Bush administration? Will we hear an apology from you? I doubt it.
Dear Comrade: Reread your posting; you are ranting again! By the way I looked at your "AmericaBlog" link. It said, regarding the two soldiers, "to Bush they are just numbers". Is this your idea of the "lefts" sympathy for the loss of these two good men?
Ed, apparently irony is lost on you. The point, of course, is that Dennis' contention that the Left was silent on these murders is untrue. To accuse me of "ranting" (as if Dennis is not ranting) is just to demonstrate that you are unable to contradict what I have said. I still await Dennis' apology.
Ed, let me fill you in on the "number" comment. It's a reference to the President's Press Secretary, Tony Snow, and what he said when asked about the "milestone" of 2,500 dead soldiers in Iraq. His quote was, "It's a number." That blog was expressing disgust at the RIGHT's callous reflection on the number of dead.
Thank you, Comrade, you sometimes make my point for me even better than I do. Your first example was an expression of sorrow but hardly an example of outrage toward our enemies. Your second example produced a ‘page not found.” Your third example was exactly what I’m complaining about. After copying a brief excerpt from the Washington Post citing the bare facts that the bodies had been found tortured, the blogger notes: “To George Bush they are just numbers.”
Granted, your forth example blog did express outrage but only in the context of slamming our own administration. Finally, your last example, while expressing sorrow over their deaths, says, “I can't figure out what exactly they died for. Not for American "freedom," since our freedom isn't tied to Iraq. Not for American values, as Abu Ghraib clearly showed.”
In the Alice-in-Wonderland world of liberalism no matter what atrocity is committed against Americans, no matter how heinous, no matter how unjustified, it always seems to come back to being America’s fault somehow. This absolutely infuriates many conservatives but rather than try to honestly explain this phenomenon from your left-wing perspective, you simply deny that it exists! Unbelievable!
I have Direct TV’s “NewsMix” channel where I can watch eight news stations at once and so far I have yet to see any outrage by the Left over what our enemies did to these boys (maybe I just missed it).
After all this time, however, I still occasionally hear outrage by the Left at Guantanamo or Abu Ghraib (e.g. as in one of the blogs you cited). Again, maybe I just missed it but I don’t recall the Left’s outrage when President Clinton was bombing Iraq or sending troops into Bosnia or Somalia.
No one denies that American has serious problems and injustices, but when we compare America’s injustices with the injustices and even atrocities committed in and by some other Middle Easter Countries (e.g. Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Iran, Pakistan, etc.) the difference is like comparing a shoplifter with the pedophile, necrophiliac, cannibal Jeffrey Dahmer, who murdered numerous homosexual boys!
To many of us on the Right, what the Left does is the equivalent to spending an entire year crucifying the shoplifter in the media while merely noting that the murderer Jeffrey Dahmer had been caught.
Maybe we’re mistaken. Maybe we have the wrong impression. Maybe we’ve missed something. But we honestly don’t get it. It looks to us like many on the Left make precisely the same kinds of attacks against America that many of our enemies make against us—and yet you get absolutely infuriated when we question your love for our country.
Comrade, my rant is not just an attack on the Left—-many of those on the Right honestly don’t get it. So rather than flaming me this time, educate me. I really want to understand it.
I will let Comrade responds as he sees fit, but here are some of my observations:
Blog #1: Referred to this event as a "horror". Also makes the astute observation that "everything has become politics, including the horrors from both sides." An apt point, given the way you have politicized this.
Blog #2: This link worked just fine for me. This blogger calls the people who did this "barbarians" miltiple times. An astute point from this blog: "...these three men will be used as martyrs for a political cause, by both right and left."
Blog #3: If you'll read my previous comments, you'll understand the "just numbers" reference. Mr. Snow was asked about the President's reaction to the 2,500 "milestone" and replied "[i]t's a number." (Granted, he did go on to add more, but still a callous remark regardless.)
Blog #4: The one you expressed the most frustration with, called the people who did this "vicious, brutal, vile beasts." If that's not outrage I don't know what is.
Blog #5: Is it really so wrong to reflect and wonder why over 2,500 soldiers have now had to give their lives? Many, many people don't understand it.
I really didn't want to get into discussing the finer points of 5 specific blogs - it doesn't speak to the overall issue that you're trying to raise. But I thought these points deserved consideration, since you apparently only read them to see what you wanted to see.
As a side note, I see that some of the relatives of these soldiers have spoken out against the war and how the military handled the situation. I wonder how long before Ann Coulter churns out her next book slamming them too.
Finally, I will also say again what I said in my first comments. Just because you disagree with someone's politics doesn't mean you need to stoop to implying that they are less than human and not outraged when fellow Americans are treated this way. People on both the right and the left love this country, and have a right to disagree with how it is run. People on the left are pained to see the direction we are headed. As a former conservative myself, who has grown quite disillusioned over the past few years, I can completely understand that. But that doesn't mean that those opposed to the war don't love their country.
Thank you, John. You've said it perfectly.
I'm afraid you have stopped listening, Dennis, if you ever were. I've made numerous attempts to "educate" you and withstood many unfair attacks on my patriotism and my decency and humanity. I'm afraid that in the end I haven't really accomplished much of anything with this little experiment in dialogue. In the beginning I had the feeling that though our conversation often got heated, you at least were listening to what I had to say and you at least thought I was a decent (if misquided) human being. But your attacks on gays and the liberals in recent weeks have been raised to such a hysterical level (perhaps because you sense the tide is turning) that it has become increasingly difficult and frustrating to get you to listen to anything I have to say or even see me as something other than the "enemy." I am not the enemy, Dennis, and I don't think you are either. But it seems as if more and more you are unable to see those who disagree with you in any other terms.
I forgot to add one thing, which is that I feel I have learned a lot reading this blog as well. Unfortunately, I feel that is less the case than it was.
Hmmm.... since I'm the author of blog #4, perhaps I could shed some light on at least one opinion?
For the record: I'm a moderate and a pragmatist. What that means (for me) in terms of Iraq is that while I abhor the "how and why" of our entry into Iraq, I feel a strong sense of obligation now that we're in it up to our necks. Leaving "now" strikes me as counter-productive in the extreme, dangerous in the long-term, and highly irresponsible.
OTOH, to put the war in Iraq on the same footing as a "war on terrorism" is obfuscating and misleading.... and NONE of that has any bearing on my feelings toward the troops, or toward America.
There is a bizarre tendency of late, in politics (and particularly in blogs) to attack others as a means of defining one's position. Presumably this stems from an inability to write persuasively, leaving such authors with no other recourse than to rant incoherently.
The phenomenon is not unique to one extreme or the other; both the hard right and hard left have ample sources from which to draw ammunition.
As it happens, I agree with John that there are a number of hard-left writers who seem to be viewing every event through the "I'm just flat-out ticked off at Bush and the administration" prism. However, there are just as many on the hard-right who see any disagreement with current policy -- no matter how valid -- as verging on blasphemy.
Generalizing a "norm" from those who are irrational in both wings is hardly helpful.
Polimom...welcome to the blog and thank you for your thoughtful post.
John, I'm going to leave it to other readers to decide between us on our disagreement on the blogs, but just for the sake of argument, suppose you're right about my interpretation of the blogs Comrade cited---how does your post answer my question or address my original concern, i.e. that it seems to many conservatives that the Left is constantly and endlessly hammering on real or perceived injustices by America while seemingly giving a pass to the horrible atrocities committed by our enemies?
And Comrade, just as I expected--you don't have a good answer so you attack me personally.
You're dealing with perceptions here, Dennis, and those are hard to talk someone out of. (To use an extreme example, how would you talk a Klan member out of his perception that African-Americans are inferior? It's something he's come to believe, and he's not going to change his mind.) I could just as easily ask you the reverse question: how do you refute the left's perception that the right holds little regard for personal freedoms, treating prisoners humanely, or any number of issues? (Don't mean to start those arguments here and now - those are just examples.)
I'll even concede that there are some people out there who feel the way you think the entire left wing does, but once again you're making the mistake of assigning the beliefs of a vocal few to an entire side of the aisle. I think this is another discussion we'll have to file under "agree to disagree"....
This is not a personal attack, Dennis?
"It looks to us like many on the Left make precisely the same kinds of attacks against America that many of our enemies make against us—and yet you get absolutely infuriated when we question your love for our country."
You have the gall to question my patriotism and then to whine that I have personally attacked you? John is right. Your defense of outrages like the suicides at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib are the epitome of knee-jerk responses. I already demonstrated with a few examples of the Left being outraged and horrified by the killing of those soldiers. Those were just a few I found on the first page of a Technorati search, which you didn't even bother to do. There were many more. As John said, you just saw in them what you wanted to see and clearly never bothered to confirm your hunch that liberals are in favor of murder and torture.
I don't know how you could have interpreted what I wrote as a personal attack. It certainly wasn't in lieu of a response which I gave. Again, you don't seem to be listening.
It seems to me that this whole conversation is caving in around itself.
The representatives of both the left and right sides here are making absolute fools of themselves.
This situation is about two American men who were tortured and killed because they apparently thought it was worth it. If any of you really cared about our country you would not be arguing with your countrymen about who cares more.
You would be actually caring. How many of you have sent money or help to the families of these soldiers? How many of you have provided relief to the causes you claim to love and fight over?
If you are doing these things, then I can't believe you would waste your time arguing over who cares more about the issue.
This is an issue about our country. That's right, I said it, OUR country. Arguing online about these things is going to improve nothing in our society, nothing in our politics.
It's sickening to think that these men died in vain, not because the war in Iraq means nothing, not because the war in Iraq means everything, but because Americans STILL don't get it.
Through our freedom we should be helping each other, willing to die as these men did, for each other. Republican or Democrat. Now I understand that there are arguable points in politics. But please don't use these boys' deaths as a means to start another argument. It's just not right.
Anonymous,
With all due respect, I think you are missing the point of our discussion. I expressed concern over what I believe to be the tendency by many on the Left to endlessly condemn American injustices, while giving a pass to the atrocities of our enemies.
Comrade and John have demonstrated that there are in fact, people on the Left who have expressed sorrow and outrage over the killing of these two boys. They apparently think they've refuted my contention and I don't think they have, but both sides are certainly sorrowful over the tragic deaths of these two soldiers.
If the death of Americans is not a legitimate reason to discuss politics, public policy or foreign policy, I don't know what is. So I guess we'll just have to agree to disagree and let readers decide whether we are making fools of ourselves.
Regarding your contention that we should be willing to help each other and even die for each other--I served very proudly in our military and was fully willing to give my life for this country. I would still be willing to go to war and risk my life to die for John's and Comrade's right to disagree with me. I suspect that Comrade would be fully willing to risk my life to protect his freedom of speech as well :-)
To add to that, I don't think anyone who disagrees with Dennis questions his patriotism, we just wish he would afford us the same courtesy.
That being said, I didn't realize that about you Dennis. Thank you for your service and sacrifice.
Dennis,
I understand your original point, and I do not think that the Left has sufficiently answered you (except maybe in John's second to last blog). My disappointment was with certain turns the conversation took about who feels more sorrow over the incident.
All of you,
Exploiting the deaths of two young, American soldiers in order to take a jab at the political party in opposition to you is not my idea of patriotism. (I think that's what CA has been trying to say)
If the tables were turned, and it was your death causing this conversation, would this be something you would have sacrificed for? I'm not talking about freedom of speech, I am talking about Americans using the situation to argue with each other.
Those men died trying to protect our freedom and our peace, not our hatred for and disagreements with each other. That was my only point.
Perhaps if the right made up for every area where they believed the left to be lacking, and the left made up for every area where they believed the right to be lacking, without accusing each other, there would be many less things to argue about and a lot more things getting done in America.
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