Richard J. Durbin's stand aganist the War and his choice of words

Last year I got into an E-Mail debate with two college music students that I knew, over a holiday stamp promoting the Islamic Religion via our own Post Office. One of them decided to play the "Diversity" card with me, and downhill it went from there.

One of biggest things they misunderstood was that of ideals and those who calls themselves patriots and what they envision for the nation they love (or not). What I tried to tell them was that Hitler was a patriot to Germany. After all he fought in the German army you know. He just thought Germany would be better off without any Jews. Well these enlightened musicians thought yours truly was calling them Nazis and all that wonderful stuff.

Bottom line is that these two musicians are full blown leftys who want to see the United States embrace more and more a socialist type of government. Which now brings me to my thoughts on Senator Richard (Dick) Durbin, Democrat from Illinois. A few days ago he made this statement that made the "right wing noise machine" crazy once again, and yes it should make them crazy. Here is that statement.

"If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime--Pol Pot or others--that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."

Above statement was taken from boortz.com

Durbin likes to keep reminding us that this FBI agent is the one who expressed and that Durbin was just a messenger. Neverless the Arab news network Al Jazeera picked up this story right away. I don't have to tell you about how Al Jazeera slants its news in favor of the Islamo-Terriorists. I have been told that AJ published this before our own news media reported it.

Durbin to my knowledge is still standing behind his statements and has gone on to talk shows that will play softball with him such the Sith Lord of Progressive Talk Ed Schultz and Spike O'Dell of WGN radio in Chicago. Hugh Hewitt got hold of what was said on O'Dell's program and highlighted the exchange on his website.

Q. No regrets on the statements you made?

Durbin: No, I don't, and I'll tell you why. I went to the floor and read a memo from the FBI. This isn't something I made up. It was a memo that was unclassified, was disclosed, and I'm going to take, if I can ask you to bear with me, I'm going to read the highlights of it because it really sets the stage for my comments....[reads investigator memo] It goes on and on and on. I read this into the record because there has been a lot of controversy about what is happening in Guantanamo Bay where we have held 500 to 700 people for some times up to two and a half years with no charges. The Supreme Court has ruled that this Administration's new interrogation policy under Secretary Rumsfeld violates basic rights and I said if I just read this to you and you didn't know where it came from, where would you think this could happen? In the Nazi regime, in the soviet regime? Sadly it happened under Americans. Now the point I was trying to make is, we have departed from standards of conduct which presidents of both parties have played by for over 50 years, and we shouldn't be doing this....

Q. So what you just read there was verbatim and when you read it into the record, it was exactly what was there and there was nothing else added to it?

Durbin: Exactly. And I will tell you what happened afterwards. There was a tremendous reaction, first from the White House, negative reaction, calling my statements reprehensible, demanding some apology to our troops. If you'll listen to this memo, they never say that there was an American soldier involved except an MP guarding a detainee. They talk about interrogators. We don't know if they are from intelligence agencies, private contractors, like Abu Graihb, we have no idea what they are. But I wasn't disparaging our troops. Our troops are following orders. I'm saying the orders coming down from the top are just plain wrong....

Q. I guess one of the reasons people are having such a hard time with this one, is when comparisons are made and you use names like Nazis and Soviet gulags, when you are talking Nazis there were what, 9 million people killed in the camps there. The gulags had about 3 million and so forth. And I know Gitmo is not the Holiday Inn down there, but I don't think anyone has died down there, have they?

Durbin: No, that's true. In all fairness, they did not. But I don't believe we were dealing with deaths at Abu Ghraib either. We were dealing with a situation where when people saw the digital camera photographs, they said "My God! Americans should not be involved in that kind of conducrt." Now I will not demean or diminish the terrible atrocities that were commtted by the Soviets and the Nazis. The points I was, the point I was trying to make there was, if I just read this to you and say "What kind of country, what kind of governemtn would do that," and you'd think of some of the most repressive regimes in history. Sadly this FBI report says its being done by our government. I don't know who in our government. But it should stop....

Q. Weren't you trying too ignite a fire politically speaking with these comments?

Durbin: The comments I made were a day before a hearing in the Senate Judiciary Committee on Guantanamo Bay. The hearing was called by Republican Senator Arlen Specter. And to his credit, and I said it publicly when I went to the meeting, he had the courage to do it, because we just don't have investigative hearings on Capitol Hill of this Adminsitration and this war. We just don't do it. And sadly a lot of things have gone unanswered. My point in taking this to the floor and reading into the record this FBI document, this report from this FBI agent, was to make it clear that the criticisms of Guantanamo Bay go to some very fundamental American values. And that we need to take care not to do things that are going to do damage to our reputation or in any way endanger our troops.

Q. Interrogators are the ones who are fault here...Wouldn't the interrogation techniques still be suspect, regardless of where these prisoners are housed?

Durbin: They don't have to be. In terms of closing Guantanamo Bay, yes I have joined in that chorus, but I have quickly added, just changing the address of these detainees isn't going to change the situation. We have to get back and ask some basic questions. Why did this president decide to abandon the Geneva conventions, the first president since we signed on to them after World War II, why did he decide that this war on terror require the kind of interrogation techniques that we have criticised in other nations? Why have we gone this far?...

Q: How would you get information from them...They are pumping Christine Aguilera music in there, and all that stuff, what would you do different?

Durbin: I think you would agree, Spike, that if that there were visual images, digital photos, of what I just described to you in this FBI memo, it would be comparable to many of the things we saw in Abu Ghraib, and the American people said that just isn't who we are. That isn't what we stand for. There are methods of interrogation. There's reward and punishment. But you don't have to reach the point where you have someone chained to the floor for over 24 hours in their own urine and feces, tearing their hair out as they go into madness, I mean, that does not apper to me to be an effective way to interrogate anyone and come up with reliable information.
Q: Are you surprised at all this backlash?

Durbin: Yes, I am. Well, I shouldn't be. I have seen it happen before. What happens is this, for your listeners, so they understand now. The people on the other side, the president's supporters, have a pretty substantial newtwork behind them. The first thing they do when they get angry and decide to focus on something, my statement obviously was their focus, they start their blogs, which I don't pay a lot of attention to but some people do. The next thing you know is it moves into this talk radio. I became a poster child for Rush Limbaugh. He put my number on his radio show. People called from all around the country. The Washington Times, a very conservative, Republican newspaper, puts a front page story about me on there. The White House lashes out to me, and pretty soon the mainstream media , it just follows. It has happened time and time again. They have a good way of starting the news when they want to protect the president, but the reality is, as the poll numbers show this morning, despite all this effort, the American people are very worried about what's happening in Iraq. We have lost 1700, I want to say 1710, that was yesterday, I think we have now lost 1713 soldiers. I have attended the funerals. I have sent notes to tthe families. This is a sad situation with no end in site, and the president's approval for handling this war is at an all time low.

Q. Would you consider taking up the Pentagon on their offer to go down there and tour the whole thing?

Durbin: Yes, you know, I have tried several times, and they cancelled it for a variety of reasons, but I would certainly do it again. The problem with it Spike, just to be honest with you, is that when they bring in VIPs, you can just guarantee that you are going to see the very best of the best. You aren't going to see any troublig situations. And people are very guarded in their comments. Not that I wouldn't want to see it, and not that I disagree with your premise that no one has died there. We are providing basic care for people who are there. But obviously there have been some excesses. This FBI memo points to it. It is the kind of thing that happened at Abu Ghraib. It is the kind of thing that shouldn't happen any more in the future.

I don't care if it is Durbin himself or a faceless FBI agent. What you have here are people that are giving ammunition to the terrorist. What we are doing in Gittmo is far from what the Nazis and KGB and even far from what the TV character Jack Bauer (24) would do to get information to fight the bad guys.

Playing music from Pop vixens, extreme temperatures, dripping water etc is a cake walk. However knowing how the left does not like to inflict pain on anyone, they would rather see the prisoners put in a 'time out' if anything.

Understand people that these prisoners are spies and were NOT wearing the uniform of their respected nation. If they had uniform on, then and only then would that Geneva Convention come into effect. If we wanted to, we could have executed these prisoners for being spies. Now that would make the 'bleeding hearts and artists' go into overdrive to make the United States look like Neanderthals (think back to those Caveman days).

Sadly the left would extend the Geneva Convention to the spies and make it harder for the United States to fight back. Keep in mind that liberals believe in peace through cooperation, trust, and goodwill. Meaning that we need to talk and talk and talk and talk etc etc etc until we reach some understanding. Does not always work and that means you have to bring peace through using strength and doing what it takes to make the peace. Sadly the amount of strength is being stifled because of the left's misguided ways which could cost win a victory in the Middle East along with Vietnam.

Yes we are losing the war in the Middle East. That is because of the Democrats and their allies across the board who are more concerned about getting power in Congress along with electing Hillary Clinton to the oval office along with the Republicans (George W. Bush included) who are intimidated by their rival party.

Oh well at least I feel better about what happen last year. Maybe those young and dumb musicans were just playing mind games with me. Just like Turbin Durbin...maybe not, but then again what I said to the idiot musicans gets twisted and what Durbin says is taken as the Holy Gospel.

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