I'm going on vacation this week, which means not a single Furdell will be in the country. (Or at least none of the important ones.) If everyone gets anthrax while we're gone, I swear it's a coincidence.
Speaking of terror, I'll take this opportunity to rebuke some more comments from commenter Chris.
They may have showed them at the time, but I haven't seen a World Trade Center video, based on why we are fighting this war on terrorism, in about 2 years. Bush used one image in a commercial and all the liberal activists went crazy. Why? Because it reminds Americans why we are fighting terrorists in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Did you know that every time you remember something, the memory gets rewritten in your brain with a whole new set of perceptions and links? Often the new memory barely resembles reality. An interesting, totally unrelated fact.
Back on the subject at hand, it'll interest you to know that those liberal activists were in fact firefighters and victims' families; and that they were upset because they believed Bush was exploiting the tragedy for political gain.
If I had seen the video, I probably would have responded by putting my hand through the TV screen. It enrages me that human beings would do this to someone else. It further pushes me to believe what we are doing is the right thing and the ultimate defeat of the Islam-o-fascists is something all countries should strive for.
You don't seem nearly so upset by what white human beings were doing to Arab human beings at Abu Ghraib. Innocent people died there too -- do we American fascists therefore deserve to be ultimately defeated as well? (Correct answer: "No, but now I understand why those guys are so pissed at us. Hmm.")
In conclusion, your jingoism disturbs me. It disturbs me so much that I'm going to leave the country! Goodbye, you obese bunch of losers!
I am glad my "jingoism", or should I say, "dissenting opinion" disturbs you. I hope all dissenting opinion on your site is so fairly labeled.
Let's take your two points:
1.) The 9-11 "jersey girls" you refer to as the represenatives for all families in the 9-11 disaster were just a sampling used by lazy media types to portray opinion they wished to show; mainly that families were opposed to the using of the images. These women in no way represented "all" families so much as your weblog represents "all weblogs". They were merely the easiest accessible and the ones who offered the opinion of what most media outlets wanted Americans to hear. Please refer to Dorothy Rabinowitz's Media Log column in April 14th, 2004 Wall Street Journal. It can be found here: www.opinionjournal.com/medialog/?id=110004950. These women have an opinion, and no doubt, they deserve to be heard (even with their obvious left wing leanings that were never discussed by the media that interviewed them) but let's slow down before we label them as all or most of the families who affected on that day.
2.) I am damn upset about what happened at that prison. As a former member of the Armed forces, it's hard to believe that soldiers were unsupervised enough to allow that behavior to occur. They, and their supervisors should be punished accordingly. But the process is working. It was discovered by the Army, investigated by the Army and will be prosecuted by the Army. The system has worked in the past and will work here.
However, I will not allow this to be used by anti-war types to take away from our larger mission (regime change)...which will be successful. But let's real clear about one thing: no one died there at the hands of American soldier. Sure, they suffered embarrassment, but, unlike Saddam, we didn't burn them or torture them. We didn't kill thousands who disagreed us in that prison. I especially like the "white" touch; it really makes your point. Real class right there. When in doubt, they say, throw race in! Our Army is still a volunteer Army, Andrew.
Jingoism is dangerous. Rumor has it that "maybe the jingo ate my baby."
Right, the WSJ is the place to go for unbiased, cogent opinion.
I can't even comment on the rest of your post. Why don't you go back to frothing at the "libruls" over at Slate or something and stop bothering this otherwise enjoyable haven of whateveritis.
OK, let's back off the whole "the media shows what it wants" crud. As a confirmed part of the horrible mainstream media I can tell you: we're too damned lazy to slant the news.
More importantly, though, we're not too lazy to get the facts right - although Chris apparently is. He writes: "no one died there at the hands of American soldier."
As the NY Times reported just this week: "Intelligence officials have acknowledged that the C.I.A. played a role in interrogating about two dozen prisoners at Abu Ghraib, and that one prisoner died there during questioning in November, in a case that is being investigated by the agency's inspector general as a possible criminal homicide."
NYT too "liberal" for you? How about the New Republic: "The same secrecy the military imposes in Iraq pervades its operations in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay. In December 2002, two prisoners at the Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan died of "blunt force injuries" that were ruled as "homicides."
I'll leave it to others to throw around partisan insults and other mindless rhetoric. But if you're going to debate, at least stick to facts.
You're correct. There was one body found. I willing to own up to my mistake or "laziness" as Pinz so delicately puts it. Thanks for assuming I wanted to leave that out. I didn't know, at the time I wrote, there was one (1) homocide. I apologize for not including it. But it still doesn't change the fact there were countless more murdered by the previous regime. Let's not lose sight of the bigger picture here, Pinz. As bad as some of our actions have been, let's be real clear about who the bad guys were and continue to be.
And Chris is also absolutely right that the system worked perfectly.
Except... wait a second... that can't be right:
"This system is broken," said Gen. John P. Abizaid, the top commander in the Middle East, of the way Red Cross reports were handled by the military.
...
General Abizaid acknowledged that "systemic problems" at Abu Ghraib contributed to the prisoner abuse there, and he and General Sanchez accepted responsibility for numerous breakdowns in standards and procedures
...
"Our doctrine is not right," said General Abizaid. "There are so many things that are out there that aren't right in the way that we operate for this war. This is a doctrinal problem of understanding where you bring, what do the M.P.'s do, what do the military intelligence guys do."
...
Red Cross inspectors were sending in their reports, but military officials were handling them in "a haphazard manner," said Col. Marc Warren, General Sanchez's senior staff lawyer, who also testified at the hearing. "Some of them were given to the camp commander, some were given to the military police brigade, some went to my office."
...
Now, clearly, I must have really scoured the last few weeks' of news reports to find all those examples of a system that didn't quite work.
Except, no. That's all from one story in today's Times.
Did Hussein do horrible, inhuman, murderous things? Of course. Is the world better off without him? Soitenly.
Is his inhumanity any excuse for American inhumanity? No. If we're going to be the good guys, shouldn't we act like it?
I didn't know, at the time I wrote, there was one (1) homocide.
Yeah, and only one guy got beheaded, too. I have a feeling you wouldn't be so complacent about that though.
So, excuse me for assuming you're a racist, but I can think of no other difference between these two presumed innocent, murdered men than the color of their skin and the identity of their killers.
Oh, yeah. Several very important Furdells _did remain_ in country, and kept it in turmoil while you were away!