Curt: The torture case is going to have a horrible effect on America’s image in the Arab world.

What makes you say that?

Torture cases only seemed to improve Saddam Hussein’s image in the Arab world.

It may surprise you to learn that a lot of Arabs didn't like Saddam Hussein very much.

"Torture cases only seemed to improve Saddam Hussein’s image in the Arab world."

I would say, quite to the contrary, that Saddam's brutality had made him by the end one of the least popular rulers in the Arab world and, in fact, the sheer rapacity of his torture-tactics is probably almost entirely responsible for the small amount of goodwill that currently exists towards the U.S. in Iraq at the moment.

Jesus Christ!

I've seen college hazing rituals that were far worse.

This entire non-issue is really about Liberal desperation.

I'm not sure if you are referring to Saddam's use of torture or the American soldiers', but if you mean Saddam's, I'm a little dubious about your point. I don't know of too many college hazing rituals that involve hundreds of thousands of people being massacred and thrown into mass graves, but perhaps it is just because we went to different colleges.

Second point: I actually agree with you that the abuses by the American soldiers seem pretty mild by the standards of any war, and in that sense all the current outrage seems pretty damn naïve. However, regardless of whether torture made Saddam more popular or not, you would have to be a fool to believe that torture of Iraqis by American soldiers, whether or not it's any more severe than "college hazing rituals" or not, is going to make the U.S. occupation any more popular there. In that regard, the issue is not at all about "Liberal desperation," but rather about Arab rebelliousness. Set aside the moral and factual angles for a moment, and just consider the situation from a purely pragmatic standpoint: regardless of the merits of what the soldiers did or intended to do, they might as well have dug their own graves by doing it. Is that something that you would consider a very wise action?

Curt: Second point: I actually agree with you that the abuses by the American soldiers seem pretty mild by the standards of any war, and in that sense all the current outrage seems pretty damn naïve.

Like I said, they seem pretty mild by the standards of college fraternity hazings.

Curt: However, regardless of whether torture made Saddam more popular or not, you would have to be a fool to believe that torture of Iraqis by American soldiers, whether or not it’s any more severe than “college hazing rituals” or not, is going to make the U.S. occupation any more popular there.

My point was that we aren’t there to be “popular” we are there to hurt people.

Curt: In that regard, the issue is not at all about “Liberal desperation,” but rather about Arab rebelliousness. Set aside the moral and factual angles for a moment, and just consider the situation from a purely pragmatic standpoint: regardless of the merits of what the soldiers did or intended to do, they might as well have dug their own graves by doing it. Is that something that you would consider a very wise action?

I don’t have any problem with it at all. Unfortunately not everyone sees it the same way I do.

Were the soldiers unwise? … foolish? DEFINITELY, they were foolish for taking the pictures. They were foolish for getting caught. They should have known what the word-manglers would do if they found out.

The word-manglers (i.e. those desperate Liberals) love when they get an opportunity to apply their absurd double standard (Hypocrisy). Those soldiers handed them such an opportunity on a silver platter.

"Were the soldiers unwise? … foolish? DEFINITELY, they were foolish for taking the pictures. They were foolish for getting caught. They should have known what the word-manglers would do if they found out."

For somebody that claims to believe in the universality and transparency of information, you don't seem to have very much faith in the truth emerging at the end of it all.

My point was that we aren’t there to be “popular” we are there to hurt people.

Well, that's a surprisingly honest response. Of course, I doubt that you, personally, are "there" at all.

More importantly, I don't think any of us individually know what "we" are "there" for, I doubt even "they," the decision-makers, do. The effect may well be hurting a lot of people, but in that case I wonder why one would dismiss all that injury as unimportant, unless one feels that violence itself is fairly trivial and unimportant.

Curt: For somebody that claims to believe in the universality and transparency of information, you don’t seem to have very much faith in the truth emerging at the end of it all.

You can’t hand the truth to those who seek to destroy it.

They’ll just use the truth against you.

Did you ever go see “Kill Bill”?

Why do you think Pai Mei didn’t teach Bill the “5 point palm of death technique”? Why didn’t he teach it to Elle (Daryl Hannah)?

He didn’t teach it to either of those nitwits because he knew the first thing they would do with it was use it to annihilate Pai Mei himself.