"Harry Krause" wrote in message

....his words seemed to have done little to stem a chorus of complaints
across
the globe

A chorus being led, ironically, by the NYT and the Dems in US Congress.....


*"In the world the United States has a moral and political leadership,"
said Alioune Tine,


There you have it.

This whole brouhaha is preposterous. The event itself is totally
unacceptable, and the people involved should be imprisoned, for rank
stupidity if nothing else. Pictures? On the net? Please!

The international press furor is naught but a political red herring. The
fact of a few dozen Americans behaving this way has supposedly shocked the
world. Why? Because our two centuries of history have documented and
confirmed the fact that this is not the way the US of A does business. The
world *expects* the US to hold the high road, and act with fairness and
dignity. They expect it because we have repeatedly shown that that is what
we do.

On the other hand, I have heard no sustained fury or condemnation from the
world press, or (for that matter) from the leadership of the Islamic and/or
Arabic communities anywhere in the world, regarding the treatment of
prisoners in similar venues throughout the Islamic world, or regarding the
murder of innocents in the name of jihad. Why? Because almost two
*millenia* of history has shown that this is the way that *they* do
business. The world, and their own communities, *expect* Arabic and Islamic
cultures to treat prisoners in a brutal and subhuman manner. They expect it
because these cultures have repeatedly shown that this is what they do.
This sort of thing is expected from Arabic or Islamic cultures, so when it
occurs there no one is substantially surprised.

To claim that the Islamic world is infuriated by these events is to be naive
in the extreme. ( Did you note the Iraqi protesters on the news? See those
nice placards they were holding? Well printed, in good, legible English?
Think they whipped them up at home?) They expect political or military
prisoners to be treated this way. Nota bene that in these cultures [as
throughout most of the rest of the world] the notion of a "political
prisoner" is not considered unusual. That in itself speaks volumes. The
Islamic world is not infuriated by these events -- they rejoice in the
political opportunity the event presents them, and generally do not care a
whit for the prisoners involved.