Durbin rebuked on floor of Senate

[thedrifter]

Durbin rebuked on floor of Senate
By Rowan Scarborough and James G. Lakely
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published June 17, 2005

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Senate Armed Services Committee chairman yesterday accused Sen. Richard J. Durbin of insulting American soldiers with a "grievous error in judgment" by comparing U.S. treatment of al Qaeda suspects to the crimes of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot, and demanded that the Senate's No. 2 Democrat apologize.
The rebuke followed a similar rebuke by the commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, who called Mr. Durbin "totally out of line."
Republican lawmakers lined up to condemn the remarks as making the war on terror more dangerous for American troops.
Some were particularly angry about the Al Jazeera Arab-language news station, which had posted Mr. Durbin's Nazi comparison made in a Tuesday night floor speech.
"That's horrible. That's our worst nightmare," said Sen. John Cornyn, Texas Republican, about the posting by the network, which the administration accuses of stirring up anti-Americanism.
In a Tuesday night speech to the Senate, after reading an e-mail from a FBI agent, Mr. Durbin said: "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 as the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners."
The scolding of Mr. Durbin by Sen. John W. Warner, Virginia Republican, set off a tense debate on the Senate floor that lasted more than an hour.
Mr. Warner, joined by Sen. Mitch McConnell, Kentucky Republican, repeatedly chastised Mr. Durbin for likening interrogation techniques at the Pentagon-run prison at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to three 20th-century dictators who killed tens of millions of innocents.
A clearly uncomfortable Mr. Durbin refused to apologize.
He blamed the "right-wing media" for the flap, and read his words from Tuesday's Congressional Record to show its "context." He said the real issue was Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld permitting rough interrogation techniques in the war on terror.
But clearly Democrats felt the pressure.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, came to the floor to defend his chief deputy and to lash out at press reports and the White House, which earlier in the day called Mr. Durbin's remarks "reprehensible."
"The noise machine of the far right never stops and it's gotten so much more in operation in the last few weeks," he said. "This is all a distraction by the White House."
But Mr. Reid did not directly address Mr. Durbin's gulag comparison. He was followed by Sen. Robert C. Byrd, West Virginia Democrat, who spent more than 10 minutes recognizing Father's Day.
Then Republican Sens. John Kyl of Arizona and Jeff Sessions of Alabama further denounced Mr. Durbin's comments and echoed the calls for an apology.
Mr. Warner began the Senate debate with a floor speech in which he read from a front-page account of Mr. Durbin's remarks in yesterday's editions of The Washington Times.
Mr. Warner said, "To equate actions of the men and women of the armed forces ... with regard to their services down there in Guantanamo maintaining the detainees to the genocidal acts of murder and repression of the Nazis, of the Soviet gulag, of Pol Pot, I think is insulting to our men and women in uniform.
"The danger that loose comments such as that, comparisons which have no basis in fact or history, could do harm to the men and women serving wherever they are in the world today in this war on terrorism. Because this is the type of thing that is picked up and is utilized by press antithetical to the interest of the United States and [who] distort in their own way.
"I feel apologies are in order to the men and women of the armed forces."
Mr. Durbin quickly appeared on the Senate floor but offered no apology. He read that part of his speech again. He said he had read earlier from an FBI's agent letter on harsh treatment of suspected terrorists and had compared such treatment to what would be found under the Soviet gulag, Nazis and Pol Pot.
"To suggest I'm criticizing American servicemen, I am not," Mr. Durbin said. "I don't know who was responsible for this. But the FBI agent made this report ... I was attributing this form of interrogation to repressive regimes.
"Now sadly we have a situation here where some in the right wing media have said that I've been insulting men and women in uniform. Nothing could be further from the truth. I respect men and women in the uniform."
Mr. Warner did not accept the explanation. He said the government is now investigating FBI and al Qaeda inmate complaints and it was wrong for Mr. Durbin to read from one agent's unsubstantiated letter before all the evidence is in.
"There is no verification of the accuracy of that report," Mr. Warner said. "For you to have come to the floor with just that fragment of a report and then unleashed the words 'the Nazis' ... It seems to be that was a grievous error in judgment."
Mr. McConnell then read Mr. Durbin's references to the Nazis, gulags and Pol Pot and asked, "Does the senator from Illinois stand by these words?"
Mr. Durbin answered: "In this particular incident that I just read from an FBI agent describing in detail the methods that were used on prisoners, was I trying to say that, 'Isn't this the kind of thing we see from repressive regimes?' Yes."
There was criticism of Mr. Durbin outside the Senate.
The VFW's commander in chief, John Furgess, said, "The senator was totally out of line for even thinking such thoughts, and we demand he apologize to every man and woman who has ever worn the uniform of our country."
Several Democrats ducked the furor yesterday.
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, New York Democrat, declined to comment, saying she had not heard Mr. Durbin's speech. When a reporter read the passage to her, she declined again.
The offices of Democratic Sens. John Kerry of Massachusetts and Joe Lieberman of Connecticut did not answer calls for comment.

Ellie

[yellowwing]

I don't know with whom I am more disgusted with.

The Republicans denying that there are several first hand reports from several FBI agents, or the Democrats that had no comment.

Hillary did not hear the speech? She must be the only one out of 260 million people that did not! Kerry/Lieberman left it up to Byrd to talk about Fathers Day. WTF?

No wonder we got our azz kicked in 2004!

[OLE SARG]

clinton, kerry & lieberman are the three stooges of the senate. durbin is just a dickhead.

If reports are right I wouldn't mind being housed at GITMO. Air conditioning, fine food (can't feed the towelheads MRE'S) & getting to listen to music (notice I didn't say good music). Hell, we are treating the detainees better than we treat our school children and our troops in iraq. A kinder and gentler war, my arse. Let's start making these a#%holes pay for their deeds.

SEMPER FI,
OLE SARG

[Ed Palmer]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/Ed15Palmer/clubg9xj.gif

[Joseph P Carey]

Originally posted by yellowwing
I don't know with whom I am more disgusted with.

The Republicans denying that there are several first hand reports from several FBI agents, or the Democrats that had no comment.

Hillary did not hear the speech? She must be the only one out of 260 million people that did not! Kerry/Lieberman left it up to Byrd to talk about Fathers Day. WTF?

No wonder we got our azz kicked in 2004!

Mike,

I have not known you for long, but I always thought you were a smart man, just a misguided man. Perhaps, you see now what we have seen for a very long time. My gut turns at even the use of those names of those Senators.

But, Durbin is not a Di_khead, he is just a Democrat Politician willing to use any means available to him to gain power in a country that will not listen to them any longer. You need only to look to the Democrat Party Chairman, Dean, to see where they are going in their politics.

In all honest, let us use the Hanoi Hilton as a standard of what a prisoner should not be subjected to. Now, let us look at Club Carib at Gitmo.

They say: The awakening from a deep sleep comes with the flutter of an eyelid to the first ray of sunlight never seen before.

[Kegler300]

I was there for a year and didn't even get a t-shirt!

[Phantom Blooper]

From the Navy Times. <br />
<br />
June 06, 2005 <br />
<br />
Biden: Close Gitmo prison <br />
<br />
Associated Press <br />
<br />
<br />
A leading Senate Democrat said Sunday the United States needs to move toward shutting down the military...

[OLE SARG]

No, you don't understand, durbin is a dickhead and so is biden. The pansy towelheads at GITMO are treated better than most school children, our troops in iraq, hell even some of our troops in most other countries. It is sad for these dickheads to equate GITMO with Nazi Germany and Russian POW camps. There is no comparison!!!!!! GITMO is like a vacation resort compared to what Nazi and Russion POW camps were. durbin needs to take a long walk on a short bridge.

SEMPER FI,
OLE SARG

[thedrifter]

The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Durbin 'regrets' Gitmo remarks
By Rowan Scarborough
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published June 18, 2005

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Sen. Richard J. Durbin expressed a conditional "regret" yesterday for his remarks linking Guantanano Bay interrogations to Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot after Vice President Dick Cheney and the American Legion unleashed another day of rebukes of the Senate's No. 2 Democrat.
Mr. Durbin had refused to apologize for his Nazi speech in a Senate debate Thursday. But as the high-ranking Democrat and his party continued to feel a political backlash, Mr. Durbin issued his third -- and most contrite -- statement yesterday.
"I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood," said the Illinois senator. "I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings: our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support."
Hours earlier, Mr. Cheney kept up the pressure on Mr. Durbin, and the nation's largest veterans groups called on the senator to apologize.
"Senator. Durbin's remarks could very well make him the 'Hanoi Jane' of this conflict," said American Legion National Commander Thomas P. Cadmus. His reference was to actress Jane Fonda, who visited North Vietnam during the war and posed for photographs in an anti-aircraft battery.
"I am totally outraged by his hideous slight of those he should be honoring for their selfless devotion to this nation," said Mr. Cadmus, who leads the 2.7-million-member, nonpartisan group.
Mr. Cheney said on a Nashville radio station that "for him to make those comparisons was one of the most egregious things I'd ever heard on the floor of the United States Senate."
The vice president told the "Steve Gill Mornings" radio show that the 520 detainees at Guantanamo are "very violent and evil people ... They're out to kill Americans and if you put them back on the street that's exactly what they'll do. All the hand-wringing that we've heard from Durbin and others strikes me as totally inappropriate."
Congressional Democrats have been mostly quiet on the issue, declining to defend or condemn one of their leaders. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, took to the Senate floor Thursday to talk of his long friendship with Mr. Durbin and to criticize the "noise machine of the far right." He did not specifically address his deputy's Nazi speech.
Asked by Mr. Gill why Democrats are largely silent, Mr. Cheney said, "I think they're swallowing hard."
Mr. Durbin, in the process of being rebuked by Senate Armed Services Chairman John W. Warner, Virginia Republican, for "insulting" American troops, appeared on the Senate floor Thursday. Rather than apologize, he reread his Nazi-Soviet gulag-Pol Pot remarks and explained that he was only referring to interrogation techniques described in a letter by an FBI agent. He blamed the flap on the "right-wing media."
His hometown newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, also chastised Mr. Durbin in an editorial in yesterday's editions for his Nazi analogy.
"To suggest I'm criticizing American servicemen, I am not," Mr. Durbin said. "But the FBI agent made this report ... I was attributing this form of interrogations to repressive regimes."
In his statement yesterday, he said, "More than 1,700 American soldiers have been killed in Iraq and our country's standing in the world community has been badly damaged by the prison abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. My statement in the Senate was critical of the policies of this administration which add to the risk our soldiers face."
Tuesday night, Mr. Durbin, after reading the FBI agents letter, said on the Senate floor, "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."
Mr. Durbin also lumped in Guantanamo "torture techniques" with President Franklin Roosevelt's decision to authorize the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
The American Legion posted a statement on its Web site calling the senator's speech "outlandish remarks against U.S. military personnel."
"There are lies and there are damn lies," said Mr. Cadmus. "Sen. Durbin knows better and owes every man and woman in the United States Armed Forces an apology for his totally inaccurate remarks comparing our sons and daughters to crimes of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot."
Together, those dictators are responsible for the deaths of millions of innocent civilians.
"I would encourage Sen. Durbin to visit Guantanamo -- not a VIP tour -- but receive POW/MIA training from the United States Army and spend his August recess working alongside of the very Americans he defamed," Mr. Cadmus said.
In criticizing Mr. Durbin, the Legion was joining the nation's other large veterans group, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which issued a critical statement on Thursday. The 2.4-million-member VFW is open to ex-military members who served overseas in a war zone.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

DISGRACEFUL DICK DURBIN <br />
<br />
Sen. Richard Durbin (D-Ill.) is a dis grace to the people he serves, the U.S. Senate and the United States of America. <br />
<br />
In that order. <br />
<br />
Durbin took to the Senate...

[Joseph P Carey]

It seems the Democrats have decided that anything they say as a group is Sanctus, the last hymm to the congregation, and is not to be spoken of badly by any of the true believers. They talk of The Republican partisan politics out of one side of their mouth, or out of one of their faces, and they dare not speak against one of their own.

Let us take the leaders and see what developes:
Senator Kennedy has said nothing; Senator Reid has endorsed the speech; Senator Clinton has said nothing; Senator "Reporting for Duty" Kerry has said nothing; Senator Leiberman, the one man I thought would have come to the aid of the USA, has said nothing; Senator Boxer has said nothing; Senator Biden has endorsed the speech; Democrat Party Chairman Dean has endorsed the speech; President Clinton has said nothing; President Carter has endorsed the speech; and, Senator Obama has endorsed the speech.

These are not people known to be word shy. They seem to have plenty to say about the President for the most insignificant of remarks, but here they are silent as a stone, and in their silence, they speak volumns of just exactly who they are, and where their leadership wants to take this country.

So be it! It is the public that has to erase the shame these individuals have brought on this country. Vote, when the time comes, and remember!

[GunnyL]

Liberalism is a Mental Disorder! Every time Democrats open their mouths, they prove that statement to be true!

[thedrifter]

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich Calls on U.S. Senate to Censure Senator Richard Durbin

6/18/2005 4:33:00 PM


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

To: National Desk

Contact: Rick Tyler, 540-338-1250 or ricktyler@newt.org, for Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich

WASHINGTON, June 18 /U.S. Newswire/ -- In a letter sent to United States Senators on Saturday, June 18, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called on the Senate to censure Senator Richard Durbin for his speech comparing U.S. servicemen serving in Guantanamo Bay to those of the Nazi Gestapo, Soviet KGB, and Pol Pot's killers in Cambodia.

"Senator Richard Durbin has dishonored the United States and the entire U.S. Senate. Only by a vote to censure Senator Durbin for his conduct can the U.S. Senate restore its dignity and defend American honor," Gingrich wrote.

He added, "It's one thing for one Senator to endanger young Americans and defame America; it would be the shame of the Senate if the other 99 Senators did not stand up to defend America and to defend the reputation of our young men and women in uniform."

Gingrich called Senator Durbin's comparison "despicable."

"Nine million innocent human beings were murdered in Hitler's death camps, nearly three million perished in the gulags under Stalin, and more than one and a half millions were slaughtered in the killing fields of Cambodia at the hand of Pol Pot. And while not a single terrorist has died in detention at Guantanamo, Durbin sees fit to liken our American service men and women to the terrifying murderers of three despotic regimes."

Gingrich continued, "This moral equivalence isn't just utterly false; it endangers the lives of our young men and women in the military because it arms every radical Islamist with the official-record words of a Senate leader to justify their war of terror against civilized people everywhere."

Gingrich added that a censure would help "reaffirm a standard for healthy, rational debate."

"By voting for or against the censure, the rest of the members of the U.S. Senate can go on record and make clear how they judge Durbin's characterization of American soldiers." Gingrich continued, "It will also send a clear message to terrorists who will use the words of a Senate leader against us that the Senate stands in support of America and our military and against those who seek to destroy the free people of the United States."

Gingrich also wrote that a censure would be "justified" and that there is "historic precedent for censuring Senators whose words bring dishonor and disrepute on the Senate and impair its dignity; Senator Durbin's words fit that precedent."

Gingrich concludes the letter by calling on the Senate to act. "In this case, expressing outrage is not enough. It is time for the Senate to act. Senator Durbin must be censured now."

---

Following is the full text of Speaker Newt Gingrich's letter to the members of the United States Senate:

Office of Speaker Newt Gingrich

June 18, 2005

U.S. Senate

Capitol Hill

Washington, DC

Dear Senator:

By his statements equating American treatment of suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay with the behavior of the evil regimes of Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, and Pol Pot's Cambodia, Senator Richard Durbin has dishonored the United States and the entire U.S. Senate. Only by a vote to censure Senator Durbin for his conduct can the U.S. Senate restore its dignity and defend American honor.

Senator Durbin's comparison, sadly, is despicable.

U.S. Senators should be clear about the gravity of Senator Durbin's comparison. Nine million innocent human beings were murdered in Hitler's death camps, nearly three million perished in the gulags under Stalin, and more than one and a half million were slaughtered in the killing fields of Cambodia at the hand of Pol Pot. And while not a single terrorist has died in detention at Guantanamo, Senator Durbin sees fit to liken our American service men and women to the terrifying murderers of three evil despotic regimes.

Moreover, Senator Durbin equates the terrorist detainees at Guantanamo with the millions of innocent men, women, and children exterminated by the order of evil dictators. The fact that he did so as a high ranking member of the Senate on the Senate floor makes his comparison all the more shocking.

This moral equivalence isn't just utterly false; it endangers the lives of our young men and women in the military because it arms every radical Islamist with the official-record words of a Senate leader to justify their war of terror against civilized people everywhere.

Senator Durbin's statement of "regret" on Friday has only compounded the need for the Senate to act. In it, Senator Durbin said that "I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood. I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings ... " Incredibly, Senator Durbin is sticking to his original assertion that there is indeed, in his own words, an "historic parallel" between U.S. soldiers at Guantanamo Bay and the killers under Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot. In other words, his only regret is that Americans don't understand his misreading of history and that he has caused us to misunderstand him. Offering no apology for the original slanderous statement itself, Senator Durbin has chosen instead to actually defend his comparisons. This defense makes his original speech all the more revolting.

It's one thing for one Senator to endanger young Americans and defame America; it would be the shame of the Senate if the other 99 senators did not stand up to defend America and to defend the reputation of our young men and women in uniform.

A Senate censure of Senator Durbin is justified and would reaffirm a standard for healthy, rational debate. By voting for or against the censure, the rest of the members of the U.S. Senate can go on record and make clear how they judge Senator Durbin's characterization of American soldiers. It will also send a clear message to terrorists who will use the words of a Senate leader against us that the Senate stands in support of America and our military and against those who seek to destroy the free people of the United States.

There is historic precedent for censuring Senators whose words bring dishonor and disrepute on the Senate and impair its dignity; Senator Durbin's words fit that precedent.

In this case, expressing outrage is not enough. It is time for the Senate to act. Senator Durbin must be censured now.

Sincerely,

Newt Gingrich

Former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives



Ellie

[thedrifter]

Gitmo remark makes Durbin easy prey
June 19, 2005

BY LYNN SWEET WASHINGTON BUREAU CHIEF




'There's an old rule in politics, and I've seen it many times," said retired Gen. Wesley Clark on Thursday night, as he brushed aside Fox News talker Sean Hannity's demand for him to condemn Sen. Dick Durbin. "Whoever uses the 'Nazi' word first loses," said Clark, the former Democratic presidential candidate who is a political analyst for Fox.



Six months ago, Senate Democrats picked Durbin (D-Ill.) to be their No. 2 leader because he is one of the most articulate and informed senators on his side of the aisle.

But Durbin lapsed this week and his punishment included providing fuel for the mighty right-wing political machine. That includes Rush Limbaugh and talk show hosts at Fox News, where bashing Durbin was the singular theme of Friday's "Fox & Friends" morning cablecast.

Nazis, Soviets, Pol Pot



On Friday, seeking to defuse the issue, Durbin issued a statement of regret.

Noting that more than 1,700 U.S. soldiers have been killed in Iraq, the U.S. image battered because of "prison abuses" at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, Durbin said, "My statement in the Senate was critical of the policies of this Administration which add to the risk our soldiers face.

"I will continue to speak out when I disagree with this Administration.

"I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood. I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings: our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support."

On Tuesday, from the floor of the Senate, Durbin, citing a declassified FBI report, compared the treatment of prisoners at the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, to "Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings."

No behavior compares



However troublesome the conditions at Guantanamo, whatever the embarrassment for the U.S. of its treatment of inmates, there is no comparison to the incomparable -- the Nazi genocide, the Stalinist horrors, the Pol Pot murders.

I cringe whenever someone -- no matter how well-meaning -- describes some offensive person as a Hitler or accuses someone of being a Nazi. No behavior, I pray, should ever again rise to that level.

Durbin was trying to make a point about U.S. policy towards detainees based on a snapshot provided by a one-page FBI report -- worrying about the path the U.S. is taking and hoping to head off future scandals -- in an arena that is a nuance-free zone.

As a result, "I became a poster child for Rush Limbaugh," Durbin said early Friday on WGN radio's Spike O'Dell show.

A few weeks ago, Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) said the Democratic threat to filibuster President Bush's judicial nominees was "the equivalent of Adolf Hitler in 1942."

Santorum's comment drew a reprimand from the Anti-Defamation League and the consistent ADL sent Durbin a letter Thursday asking him to repudiate his remarks and apologize for his "inappropriate comparison to Nazi tactics."

However shabbily prisoners are treated at Guantanamo, "suggesting some kind of equivalence between their interrogation tactics demonstrates a profound lack of understanding about the horrors that Hitler and his regime actually perpetrated," the ADL said.

'Totally out of line'



Sen. John Warner (R-Va.), the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) raked Durbin over on Thursday. Warner said he was "deeply disturbed" by Durbin's analogy. Vice President Dick Cheney, on a radio show, said Friday Durbin was "totally out of line."

"If it is Dick Durbin in trouble, then something is wrong. They are so good at changing the subject," said Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.).

Durbin's analogy, as clumsy as it was, is not where the focus should stay. How the U.S. treats prisoners, how the U.S. is conducting the Iraq war, how the U.S. wins more allies, how the U.S. improves relations with Muslim countries -- yes, and why the U.S. has trouble providing armored plates for Jeeps in combat -- one of Durbin's crusades -- that's what is important.

"Everyone who knows Dick Durbin knows how much he cares about the troops and their families," Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) told me Friday.

Said Obama, "This administration has made a habit of diverting attention of its failures by criticizing the messenger."


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Say It Isn’t So, Dickie Boy
Written by John Armor
Sunday, June 19, 2005




Let’s talk about the stupidity of senators. Senator Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) is our Poster Child. First, there is no known lower limit on the stupidity of an individual senator.

For gross public dumb, it’s hard to beat a one-term Iowa senator who went to a local massage parlor to have his ashes hauled. He was dumb enough to pay with a credit card. And dumb to have a staffer who was living in sin with an Iowa reporter. As a result, the credit card slip was published in a paper, and the gentleman’s career ended at six years.

This illustrates two sides of the issue of Senate stupidity. The job of the senator is to be alive and get reelected. Almost everything else that a senator does can be done by staff. More than a few senators have been relatively successful despite being notorious drunks. The Irish tend that way (no cards or letters, so I’m part Irish with a right to say that).

In short, it’s the job of staff members to be sober and on duty 24/7. They feed information, talking points, entire speeches, to the boss, so the senator then sounds prepared on the subject with useful ideas to offer. The best of senators lead their staffs. The worst of senators are led by their staffs. Think ventriloquist’s dummy; you get the idea.

Now we turn to Dickie Durbin’s comments on the Senate floor. He read what he said was an e-mail from an unknown FBI agent about actions at Gitmo, and then said: “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.” Minor point: the FBI is not in Gitmo, so this is obvious hearsay.

Let’s put some facts on the table. Within minutes of Durbin’s comment, folks posted on the Internet comparisons of how bad these various regimes were. In the Nazi death camps about 9 million people were killed. In the Soviet gulags, about 2.7 million people died. And under Pol Pot, about 1.7 million were killed. From my research, those figures are low, but close enough for government work

In Gitmo, by comparison, there are suggestions of five instances of possible “Koran abuse” by guards. No one has been killed. The one inmate treated worst was the apparent “20th hijacker,” slated to fly a plane full of passengers into the White House.

The blogosphere can get the Soviet, Nazi, and Khmer Rouge information in seconds. Therefore, alert staffers for Dickie Durbin could have gotten the same information before he went on the Senate floor and revealed himself as the south end of a northbound horse.

The fact that Durbin wasn’t warned off means one of two things, both bad. Was the senator such a geopolitical moron not to see how wrong his comment would be, and said this off the cuff without consulting staff? That means this stupidity is his, alone. Or, did Durbin consult with his staff before this remark? Then, the stupidity here is ubiquitous in his staff.

What has happened since, about Dickie Durbin’s incompetent history lesson? He’s refused to apologize, but has begun to lie and cover up. Days later, he quoted himself in the Senate: “you might conclude that it was done by one of those repressive regimes....” Go back and review. When he shot his mouth off originally, he didn’t say, “might.” That’s a new and false addition.

Now, Dickie Durbin has blamed the “right wing media” for the “Nazi flap.” A UPI article, 17 June, 2005, concluded: “He said abusive treatment of prisoners was something most likely in ‘repressive regimes’ than the United States.” It’s hard to understand why Durbin thinks that calling the United States a “repressive regime” will help end the criticism he is already receiving from many people across the political spectrum.

Apparently, Durbin’s ignorance of history includes ignorance of presidents in the 20th Century who were Democrats. A turning point in Harry Truman’s 1948 campaign came when a listener called out, “Give ‘em Hell, Harry.” Truman replied, “I don’t have to give ‘em Hell. I just tell the truth and they think it’s Hell.”


Well, the same applies to Dickie Durbin today. We only have to tell the truth to cut him down to size. Welcome to Hell, Dickie. You’re so dumb you richly deserve it.


About the Writer: John Armor is a First Amendment lawyer and writer who lives in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. John receives e-mail at John_Armor@aya.yale.edu.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

The Dick Durbin affair: Comforting the enemy


Sunday, June 19, 2005

It all started when the Clarabelle Hornblows at Amnesty International compared the al-Qaida-holding Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba to the gulags of Josef Stalin's Russia.

At least one high-ranking AI official -- former Pittsburgher William Schulz -- later was forced to admit there was no such evidence to make the claim. But that hasn't stopped Democrats from making the lie chief among their talking points.

Mr. Durbin offered an even more incendiary comparison, saying "you would most certainly believe this must have been done by the Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings."

In short order, video of Durbin's comments was running on the Arab-language propaganda network Al Jazeera. As recklessness and stupidity collided, an irony was born: Durbin is part of the crowd that wants Gitmo closed because of its propaganda value to the enemy.

Durbin refuses to apologize. And like his mealy-mouthed comrades -- DNC boss Howard Dean and Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid -- he blames the "right-wing media" for reporting his remarks.

But Dick Durbin alone is responsible for his words. And should the blood of Americans abroad be shed because of his grandstanding fatuity, he must be held accountable.


The latest to do so is Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois. The Senate's No. 2 Democrat took to the floor last week to repeat unsubstantiated allegations of prisoner abuses made in what he said was an e-mail from an anonymous FBI agent.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

McCain: Durbin Should Apologize

Sen. John McCain called on Sunday for Sen. Dick Durbin to apologize for comparing U.S. troops to the armies of Hitler, Stalin and Pol Pot, confounding Durbin's claims that he's being targeted by a right-wing witch hunt.

"I think that Senator Durbin owes not only the Senate an apology ... but an apology because it does a great disservice to men and women who suffered in the gulag and in Pol Pot's killing fields," McCain told NBC's "Meet the Press."


The maverick Republican recommended that Durbin read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's "Gulag Archipelago," saying that would give him "a better understanding that there's no comparison whatsoever."
McCain said that Durbin had done "a great disservice to the majority of men and women who are serving in Guantanamo who are doing the job that they're told to do and they're doing it in a humane fashion."

Durbin's latest comments on the flap - to the St. Louis Post Dispatch on Friday - indicated he had no intention of apologizing.

"It's not that my remarks were wrong or that there's any need for apology," he told the paper. Durbin instead blamed the "right wing" for twisting his comments.

But McCain - who's more popular with Democrats than with Republicans - predicted that the Illinois Democrat would eventually be forced to back down.

"I predict to you that by the time this program is shown next Sunday that Mr. Durbin will have apologized," he told "Meet the Press."

Ellie

[Joseph P Carey]

Durbin and his remarks: <br />
<br />
It sounds like the person being charged with DWI proclaiming his innocence while blaming everything on Whiskey as the real criminal. <br />
<br />
He can't take responsibility for...

[yellowwing]

Here's your Durbin Whiskey from the context before Senator McCain's remarks on Senator Durbin. He addresses and revisits his previous comments regarding Gitmo:

MSNBC Transcript of June 19th Meet the Press (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8245636/)
MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to Guantanamo. In October--excuse me, December of 2003, "Sen. John McCain said he is concerned about the failure to move ahead with prisoners' trials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. ...`These cases have to be disposed of one way or another. After keeping someone two years, a decision should be made.'" That was a year and a half ago. It's now been three and a half years. Should we close it?

SEN. McCAIN: I don't think necessarily. But I think the important thing is it's not the facility of Guantanamo, it's the adjudication of the cases of the prisoners who have been held there without trial or without any adjudication of their cases. So the frustration is not the fact we have a facility at Guantanamo, although that certainly becomes symbolic. The frustration is: What are we going to do with these people?

Now, I know that some of these guys are terrible, terrible killers and the worst kind of scum of humanity. But, one, they deserve to have some adjudication of their cases. And there's a fear that if you release them that they'll go back and fight again against us. And that may have already happened. But balance that against what it's doing to our reputation throughout the world and whether it's enhancing recruiting for people to join al-Qaeda and other organizations and want to do bad things to the United States of America. I think, on balance, the argument has got to be--the weight of evidence has got to be that we've got to adjudicate these people's cases, and that means that if it means releasing some of them, you'll have to release them. Look, even Adolf Eichmann got a trial. I mean, there--we are signatories to numerous agreements on human rights, against torture, universal declaration on human rights, etc. So that means we have to do something with these people. And I hope we can move that process forward very soon.

MR. RUSSERT: Ross Perot, who's been deeply involved in the prisoner-of-war issue, and you were a prisoner of war, said this the other day: "If, in fact, we are doing things that are improper, that will give our enemy the incentive to be more brutal to any POWs they have from our military." Do you agree with that?

SEN. McCAIN: Yes, I do. I think that we will not have as high a moral ground the next time we are in a conflict and Americans become--American servicemen and women should fall prey-prisoner--become prisoners of war. And it worries me and it keeps me awake at night. It really does.

...Interview continues with the Senator Durbin snippet

[thedrifter]

Republicans keep heat on Durbin over remarks


[published on Mon, Jun 20, 2005]
By JANET HOOK

Los Angeles Times


WASHINGTON – A Senate Democratic leader is facing mounting criticism for recent comments he made comparing U.S. treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo Bay to inhumane tactics used in Nazi, Soviet and Cambodian concentration camps.

Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the assistant minority leader, subsequently said he regretted that his comments were misunderstood as criticism of U.S. troops. But Republicans have continued to call for a more forthright apology.

"He should certainly apologize," Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press." "There's no comparison whatsoever."

The day before, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., called on the Senate's second-ranking Democrat to apologize and withdraw his comments.

Democrats, asked about the controversy, said they accepted Durbin's statement of regret as sufficient apology. Some also argued that the controversy over his words should not obscure the issue that he was raising about the need to investigate alleged abuses at the U.S. prison.

"I think we're paying too much attention to that particular set of circumstances and not the underlying question, and that is whether or not we ought to maintain Guantanamo as a prison camp in Cuba," Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., said on ABC's "This Week."

At issue is a speech Durbin made last week in the Senate criticizing the administration for mistreatment of prisoners at Guantanamo. He read from an e-mail from an FBI agent complaining about "torture techniques" he had witnessed, such as prisoners chained in the fetal position without food or water for 24 hours or more.

Durbin said that if he had read from the report without disclosing it was about an American-run prison, "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."

Under fire for those remarks from the White House and conservative critics, Durbin initially was unrepentant. By Friday, however, he was more contrite.

"I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood," he said in a written statement. "I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings: our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support."

But that language, Republicans said, was not enough. On Saturday, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich called on the Senate to censure Durbin because his statement of regret did not retract the offending comparison.

In an appearance on "Fox News Sunday," Gingrich argued that Durbin's words have damaged the U.S. abroad. On the English-language Web site of Al-Jazeera, the Arab news network, an article about Durbin's remarks was listed Sunday as one of the site's most frequently e-mailed items.

"You cannot ... have a public official quoted throughout the world by our enemies describing the U.S. in these terms," Gingrich told Fox. "It puts every young American in uniform at risk."

Joe Shoemaker, a spokesman for Durbin, said Sunday that the senator had no further comment.

"Senator Durbin clarified his position in his statement Friday," Shoemaker said. "He still stands by that statement."


Ellie

[OLE SARG]

Wouldn't you just love to see fatass durbin dodging rounds and rockets in iraq. Now that would be a sight. I bet he would have second thoughts about running his elephant sized mouth.

What a waste of human flesh - a real piece of s#%t.

Even at my age, I'd like to just beat the s#%t out of him.

SEMPER FI,
OLE SARG

[thedrifter]

Dick Durbin and our post-patriotic elite
June 20th, 2005


How wrong can you be? No, we are not talking about the analogical genius, Senator Dick Durbin (D. al-Inois). We are talking about the great Mark Steyn, a genuine genius columnist who calls Dick Durbin unpatriotic. Come now, Mr. Steyn. Dick Durbin isn’t unpatriotic. He is post-patriotic.

Among the many things that our American liberals ask us to swallow in our own best interest is the idea that it is an act of lèse majesté to call them unpatriotic even though they are utterly embarrassed by patriotism. Who has not heard the liberal across the dinner table dismissing nationalism as dangerous and aggressive? But we are not allowed to call them on it.

This power play began after World War II when it came to public knowledge that a number of people with first names that sounded like last names had been passing government secrets to the Soviet Union. We call this time the McCarthy Era.

The McCarthy Era taught liberals that their ideas of a post-nationalist world did not go down too well with the American people. By the skin of their teeth they managed to swim back into the mainstream through a successful counterattack upon Senator McCarthy. Ever since, when caught in a post-patriotic act, they have waved the bloody shirt of McCarthyism to cow their accusers into silence.

Alger Hiss and Dexter White were unpatriotic and proud of it, and so are today’s liberals—in their hearts. Hiss and White believed in a world higher and better than nation states. From their experience in the 1930s they knew that the age of capitalism and fractious nation states was coming to an end, and they wanted to be part of the exciting and altruistic movement that would create a new world order to replace the old, failed system. There would be no place for atavisms like patriotism in the post-patriotic world that they wanted to build.

Today, as they continue with the project to replace the nation state with something higher and better, our post-patriotic elitists have a problem.

They have not offered anything to replace patriotism. This was suddenly made obvious in May 2005 when the French and the Dutch people rejected the proposed EU constitution. The governing elite and the international professional class with graduate degrees may feel comfortable with the European idea, but average people do not. They still adhere to their national loyalties.

Liberals are wrong about nationalism. It is not an embarrassment, it is a miracle. How was it ever possible to get people to shake loose from clan and tribal loyalties, a belonging based on blood, and accept the abstract membership in the modern nation state? The answer is embarrassing, of course.

“Toute ma vie je me suis fait une certaine idée de la France,” wrote General de Gaulle. The first Frenchman to have de Gaulle’s “certain idea about France” probably had it around the time that the English Henry V and his band of brothers were beating them up at the battle of Agincourt. The idea of Italy was created in conflict against the hated Austrian occupiers; the idea of a united Germany was imprinted into the Germanic peoples in the Franco-Prussian War. Local loyalties can only be melted in the crucible of war.

The EU constitution failed because the national loyalties of the Europeans remain un-melted. The French, to their credit, understand this and propose to unite the Europeans in the moral equivalent of war against the United States. Unfortunately, there are plenty of Europeans—Brits, Poles, Czechs, and Balts, for a start—who lack the proper enthusiasm for such a project.

Perhaps in another 50 years we can all unite against neo-imperial China.
The time to abandon our patriotism will come when we combine with others to fight a common foe.

But wait a minute! We don’t have to wait half a century to face a common foe. We already have one, the dark forces of Islamic terrorism. Here is the very opportunity that the western liberals have wanted: the chance to melt particularistic nationalistic patriotisms in a cleansing war against a homophobic, intolerant, patriarchal ideology.

Yet the liberals have gone AWOL. Instead of rallying the nationalism of the peoples of Europe and North America into a new integrated post-nationalism they have reacted like bureaucrats, searching diligently for undotted “i”s and uncrossed “t”s.

They would rather miss the chance to grow the world beyond stultifying nationalism and patriotism than join with George W. Bush and the theocrats.
Maybe Dick Durbin and Co. are doing us a favor. Our modern elites seem incapable of building anything but top-down bureaucracies like the welfare state and the EU. So it is better for them to spout their offensive similes. Their mischievous post-patriotism is just the thing to keep them out of joint—and out of power.

Ellie

[redneck13]

:mad: :devious: :thumbdown This really makes me angry. Who in the Sam Hill, is this jackass to make such comments? What about all other wars, you ding bat? There's a new "breed" of Marines/Soldier's out there today. They see right thru all this "heap of garbage" these politicians put out.
They don't see it like some of us older folk did. Even though it's well known that in every war, the treatment of POW'S has been criticized, in one form or fashion. I seen things in the land of "OZ" that at the time I thought wasn't very good. But, the frustration, the over-shadowing of; "WHEN WILL THIS END?" And "I'M TIRED OF THIS CRAP, SEND ME HOME."
This all comes in to play when you're being shot at, seen pictures, heard, of your buddy, or member of your unit tortured, then killed. It's the "GET EVEN" thing.
I'm assigned to this "BRIG." "I'm a Marine." "MY DUTY FIRST IS; "I'M AN INFANTRYMAN." "DON'T MAKE NO DIFFERENCE WHAT MOS YOU HAVE, YOU'RE AN INFANTRYMAN." I can understand. "I MAY NOT BE ABLE TO FIRE A SHOT." "BUT THIS ONE'S FOR __________my __________!!!"
So, Durbin? YOU'RE OUT OF TOUCH, AS IS MOST UP THERE IN THAT ZOO." "SO SIT ON IT!!!" AMEN!!

[Joseph P Carey]

Originally posted by yellowwing
Here's your Durbin Whiskey from the context before Senator McCain's remarks on Senator Durbin. He addresses and revisits his previous comments regarding Gitmo:

MSNBC Transcript of June 19th Meet the Press (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8245636/)
MR. RUSSERT: Let me turn to Guantanamo. In October--excuse me, December of 2003, "Sen. John McCain said he is concerned about the failure to move ahead with prisoners' trials at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. ...`These cases have to be disposed of one way or another. After keeping someone two years, a decision should be made.'" That was a year and a half ago. It's now been three and a half years. Should we close it?

SEN. McCAIN: I don't think necessarily. But I think the important thing is it's not the facility of Guantanamo, it's the adjudication of the cases of the prisoners who have been held there without trial or without any adjudication of their cases. So the frustration is not the fact we have a facility at Guantanamo, although that certainly becomes symbolic. The frustration is: What are we going to do with these people?

Now, I know that some of these guys are terrible, terrible killers and the worst kind of scum of humanity. But, one, they deserve to have some adjudication of their cases. And there's a fear that if you release them that they'll go back and fight again against us. And that may have already happened. But balance that against what it's doing to our reputation throughout the world and whether it's enhancing recruiting for people to join al-Qaeda and other organizations and want to do bad things to the United States of America. I think, on balance, the argument has got to be--the weight of evidence has got to be that we've got to adjudicate these people's cases, and that means that if it means releasing some of them, you'll have to release them. Look, even Adolf Eichmann got a trial. I mean, there--we are signatories to numerous agreements on human rights, against torture, universal declaration on human rights, etc. So that means we have to do something with these people. And I hope we can move that process forward very soon.

MR. RUSSERT: Ross Perot, who's been deeply involved in the prisoner-of-war issue, and you were a prisoner of war, said this the other day: "If, in fact, we are doing things that are improper, that will give our enemy the incentive to be more brutal to any POWs they have from our military." Do you agree with that?

SEN. McCAIN: Yes, I do. I think that we will not have as high a moral ground the next time we are in a conflict and Americans become--American servicemen and women should fall prey-prisoner--become prisoners of war. And it worries me and it keeps me awake at night. It really does.

...Interview continues with the Senator Durbin snippet

Mike,

I am a man of above average intelligence, and I read the article in its entirety, and I still fail to see the comparison between Nazi Death Camps, and the Russian Gulag, or for that matter, Pol Pot and others.

In Nazi Germany it was not only Jews who died in the Nazi Death Camps; it was not just a religious thing that people were sent there. There were Nine Million People that died, not becuse they fought to kill the German People, or even made statements to kill all of the German People, but because they were different. They died of being worked to death, starved, and executed.

I have heard strange numbers of the Soviet Gulog. When you come to the realization that people were transported there as Counter Revelutionaries in most cases, because they did not believe as the government wanted them to believe, although, many were just SAoviet Citizens that were sent there because of minor vanities of the local Soviet and because these people were rivals. Roughly between 22 Million and 32 Million Russian Citizens died because of these vanities, which included Orthodox Priests (Of which Stalin had trained as a young man), Trotsky Supporters, Land owners; Union Leaders, The purges in the Military, and for any reason concieved in the minds of the Soviet. The truth was that the Soviet were the Counter Revelutionaries. It was not the Bolchiveks that wrested control of the Russias from the Czar. It was not the Communists that took initial control, but rather they that were the Counter Revelutionaries in the Russias. They died of being worked to death, frozen, starved to death, and execution.

Pol Pot's Regime did not kill its people because they were a danger to society. Pol Pot's Regime killed all of those people because they were educated, and for no other reason than that. They died by way of execution.

As far as McCain, there is no comparison between the way the Prisoners at Gitmo are kept, and the way that a soviergn country nation (Supported by such leaders as Kerry, Kennedy, Boxer, Durbin, Clinton, Byrd, Reid, Biden, Dean and others of the Democrat Party) that held McCain were kept.

Now, we come to Gitmo. The men in Gitmo are radical fighters that have taken an oath to their God to Kill all none believers of Islam, most specifically Americans as stated in the Oganizational Charter of the Al-Qaeda. The prisoners at Gitmo are well fed, they are allowed exercize, they are in invironmentally controlled environments that insure their ability to live, they are allowed to practice their religion, they are given prompt medical care, and there have been no deaths on the scale of with the Nazi Death Camps, the Soviet Gulog, or the Pol Pot's Cleansing of his society.

Just where is the comparison. They are held outside the USA on a military base, and therefore not subject to the Bill of Rights granted all who step foot within the borders of the USA. They are military detainees from a conflict and they are held under military tribunal law, not Civilian authority. None have died in their confinement! They want to die in the name of Allah as they kill the infidels, and our only crime is that we keep them from doing so!

[Flip Fraser]

I agree with you Ole Sarge.
I'm 74 years old but like you would love to kick that loud mouth Durbin's fat behind!

[thedrifter]

The Washington Times
www.washingtontimes.com

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Frist tells Durbin to apologize on Senate floor
By James G. Lakelyand Stephen Dinan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
Published June 21, 2005

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist yesterday demanded that Sen. Richard J. Durbin make a "formal apology" on the floor of the Senate for comparing U.S. interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to Nazi and Soviet regimes and that he strike his remarks from the Congressional Record.
In a letter to Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Mr. Frist, Tennessee Republican, said previous bids by the Senate's No. 2 Democrat to clarify his remarks didn't go far enough.
"Subsequent statements by Senator Durbin indicate only that he was regretful if people misunderstood his remarks," Mr. Frist said. "We do not believe his remarks were misunderstood."
The letter is the latest in a wave of criticism against the Illinois Democrat, which yesterday was joined by the Anti-Defamation League and a White House spokesman and, over the weekend, by Sen. John McCain, Arizona Republican and a prisoner of war in Vietnam who was tortured in captivity.
Reid spokesman Jim Manley called the Frist letter "pathetic."
"Republicans don't have an agenda, so they are trying however they can to pull attention away from the real problems facing the country," Mr. Manley said. "It is interesting to note that reporters got the letter before we did, as far as I can tell."
Last week, Mr. Durbin read a portion of an FBI memo that described a prisoner being held at the naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who was chained to the floor and subjected to loud rap music. The air conditioner was alternately turned very high so that the terror suspect was "shaking with cold" or turned off so the temperature in his cell was "well over 100 degrees."
"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," Mr. Durbin said.
After the furor began last week, Mr. Durbin said Friday that he had since "learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood" and that he "sincerely regrets if what I said caused anyone to misunderstand my true feelings."
Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), said Mr. Durbin's apology "was not sufficient" and contrasted the Democrat's reaction to that of Sen. Rick Santorum, Pennsylvania Republican, who was criticized by the ADL for likening the use of the filibuster on judges to Nazi tactics.
"Senator Santorum apologized," Mr. Foxman said. "Senator Durbin's explanation is not an apology, and I think an apology is in order."
Mr. McCain also demanded over the weekend that Mr. Durbin apologize and said he "should be required to read Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn's 'Gulag Archipelago.' "
"I think that Senator Durbin owes the Senate an apology -- I don't know if censure would be in order -- but an apology, because it does a great disservice to men and women who suffered in the gulag and in Pol Pot's 'killing fields,' " Mr. McCain said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
"To tar American servicemen and women with a brush that applies to the gulag or to the killing fields is a great disservice to the men and women in the military who are serving honorably down there," he said.
The White House, which has largely avoided talking about Mr. Durbin's remarks, weighed in with condemnation yesterday but stopped short of suggesting that any action be taken.
"I know many feel his most recent response to their outrage does not go far enough," said White House spokesman Scott McClellan. "Many Americans, particularly veterans and our men and women in uniform, are rightly outraged by such a comparison. The comments were a real disservice to those who serve and have served."
In his letter, Mr. Frist said Mr. Durbin's words "exacerbate the terrorist threat against Americans by providing 'evidence' of what they claim are reasons for attacking us."
As of last night, a story with the headline "U.S. senator stands by Nazi remark" was still the second-most e-mailed story on the Web page of Al Jazeera, a network that the U.S. government accuses of spreading anti-American sentiment in the Arab world.
But Democratic leaders said they consider the issue closed and will not talk about it any more.
Asked about the reaction to Mr. Durbin's comments and his apology, Mr. Reid said he was through talking about the controversy.
"The American people have really had it up to here with what the president is doing and not doing and what the Republican-led Congress is doing," Mr. Reid said, pointing to a copy of the New York Times in his hands that had a front-page story about the falling poll numbers of President Bush.
"The statements made by Senator Durbin speak for themselves. I stand by the statement he made," he said. "We are not going to discuss this any more."
Sen. Charles E. Schumer, New York Democrat, refused to address the ADL criticism of Mr. Durbin, saying only that Republicans "will do anything for a diversion."
Pressed to give his opinion of the matter, Mr. Schumer turned his back on reporters and ignored the questions.
Sen. Frank R. Lautenberg, New Jersey Democrat, was an exception, directly rejecting Mr. Durbin's Nazi analogy.
"I wouldn't have used it, but I take a particular view," said Mr. Lautenberg, who is Jewish and a World War II veteran. "The cruelty and barbarism that was used [by the Nazis] can never be duplicated again, we hope to God. The mass killing of thousands of people and the dehumanizing of them before they put them to death was as barbaric as one could imagine."
•Joseph Curl contributed to this report.

Ellie

[thedrifter]

The Washington Times
Dustbin Durbin
By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
Published June 21, 2005

When a United States Senator says something deeply offensive, there are usually but two immediate recourses: Either he or she voluntarily apologizes, or colleagues formally censure the senator.
If the senator happens, however, to be a member of the leadership -- as was the case with then-Majority Leader Trent Lott in December 2002 -- another option is available: The humiliating loss of power resulting from the forced removal from that high office. Such a remedy clearly seems appropriate in the case of the Senate's unapologetic and as-yet-uncensored Minority Whip, Dick Durbin, Illinois Democrat.
By now, Mr. Durbin's offense is well-known. In remarks on the Senate floor last Wednesday, he equated American servicemen and -women engaged in the difficult and dangerous incarceration of unlawful combatants in the Guantanamo Bay prison with the perpetrators of the Nazi holocaust, Soviet gulag and Khmer Rouge killing fields in Cambodia.
The question is: Does this rise to a firing offense equivalent that which prompted Mr. Lott to be driven from power?
Surely, by any objective measure the answer must be "Yes."
Mr. Lott lost his leadership post after effusively praising a retiring colleague, the now-deceased Sen. Strom Thurmond. His remarks were widely interpreted to suggest Mr. Lott thought America would have been better off if the racist views held by the South Carolinian senator when he ran for president in 1948 had prevailed. They were, understandably, deeply offensive to black Americans and all others who regard segregation as a terrible stain on this nation's history.
Mr. Lott's failure to apologize promptly and persuasively for such comments fed a firestorm of criticism that led shortly to his colleagues demanding his resignation as majority leader. That pressure came from Republicans as well as Democrats.
The statement Mr. Durbin made last week gave at least as much offense to victims of past systematic and violent wrongdoing -- to Jews and others who lost some 6 million loved ones to Adolf Hitler's gas chambers and death camps, to those whose kith and kin were among the 20 million or so exterminated by Soviet communism and to those subjected to Pol Pot's murderous terror. It demeans their sacrifice to suggest anything that has happened to date at Gitmo -- where not a single detainee has died -- remotely compares to what happened every day under the odious regimes Mr. Durbin cited.
Also offended should be everyone worried about the growing ignorance of many Americans about history. How can we be critical of students who have no idea what the Revolutionary War was about, who Abraham Lincoln was or just about anything else predating the Michael Jackson trial if one of the most prominent and powerful of American legislators is so ridiculously ignorant of historical facts? Surely, Mr. Durbin would get a failing grade on his SATs.
Mr. Durbin's most grievous offense, of course, was his defamation of American troops who protect us from terrorist operatives, trainers, recruiters, bomb-makers and financiers confined at Guantanamo. He has not only derided their service. He has legitimated our enemies' efforts to wage war against us by suggesting the government whose orders they follow is literally -- as well as morally -- equivalent to the most repressive regimes the world has ever known.
Ironically, Mr. Durbin's remarks can be expected to embolden the Islamofascists who seek, as in Iran, to subject ever more people to their brutal application of Shari'a law -- a system of government that has much more in common with history's most odious totalitarian regimes than the latter do with American conduct at Guantanamo or anyplace else.
Such repercussions should be as unacceptable to Democrats in and outside the Senate as they are to other Americans. Speaking of history, it clearly suggests that, if the Democratic Party is ever again to be entrusted with power, its leaders must be seen as trustworthy stewards of the national security.
Consequently, it is no longer enough that Mr. Durbin provide a more heartfelt and convincing apology for his comments about Guantanamo Bay. In failing to do so thus far (by Friday, he had only issued a statement regretting others were misinterpreting his historical references), he has compounded the original offense and obliged his colleagues to take corrective action.
For the Democratic Party once again to be seen as a reliable advocate for American power -- a role performed by such past leaders as Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman and Henry M. "Scoop" Jackson, it must convincingly and completely disassociate itself from Mr. Durbin. The only way that can be achieved is by stripping him of his leadership responsibilities.
As with the vote on John Bolton's nomination, the decision about removing Dick Durbin as minority whip is an early test of Sen. Hillary Clinton's purported "centrist" credentials. If she hopes to persuade voters across America she has the stuff to lead this country, she must demonstrate she is prepared to lead her party in more responsible directions in the Senate.

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. is president of the Center for Security Policy and a columnist for The Washington Times.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Making a Dent in Liberal Disinformation: Democrats and the Loss of Perspective
Written by Lester Dent
Tuesday, June 21, 2005




This will be a lazy piece. Unlike most of my screeds, you won’t find a lot of links to original statements or reports. I want to focus on something that you can’t hyperlink to on the web – common sense.



Thousands of words have been written and uttered about the comments by Amnesty International’s William Schulz and Illinois Senator Richard Durbin. These comments analogize the behavior of the U.S. government, our intelligence agencies, and our military with the worst regimes in the history of the world.



Perhaps, as some suggest, these words were calculated to simply energize a donor base or gain air time. Perhaps they reflect what the speakers think people want to hear. Perhaps they are statements of deep-held beliefs.



That really doesn’t matter to me.



These are just the latest in a long line of horrific analogies and hyperbolic claims coming from the Left and the movers and shakers in the Democratic Party. Equating Bush to Hitler. Claiming attempts at reform (take your pick – welfare, Social Security, the U.N., whatever) are an attempt to deliberately destroy institutions. That conservatives want women to return to chattel status, or want Blacks to return to slavery, or make all abortions illegal. That a mysterious cabal (again you have a choice – it can be the neocons, the Skull & Bones, the Trilateral Commission, the Illuminati, the Christian Right, the Jews) is using the U.S. to exert hegemony over an unsuspecting and defenseless world.



At what point do people look at all of this and say… “Naw.”



All of this rhetoric demonstrates a great loss of perspective. There is no proportionality in such sweeping claims. The statements never bear up under a modicum of applied common sense. For example, why would anyone want to destroy Social Security? What would that leave in its wake? What benefit could come from it to any nefarious puppet master?



The chief domestic political horror de jour is that a “radical” Supreme Court, in overturning Roe v. Wade, would “make abortion illegal.” Nonsense. Roe placed restrictions on what state legislatures and courts could do in regulating abortion. Without that limitation, states would go their own ways. Some would retain abortion pretty much as it is today. Some would restrict it (perhaps mandating longer waiting periods, or required counseling, or parental notification which exceeds that allowed under Planned Parenthood v. Casey). Some might ban it. But within these United States, abortion on demand would still be available. It just might not be so convenient for all women. Hardly the end of life as we know it.



What interests me is – how can people make such sweeping statements that have no basis in history or common sense? Is it willful blindness (“there are none so blind as those who will not see”)? Or is it something more elemental – is it an abandonment of reality for a quasi-intellectual relativistic plain?



My suspicion is that the detachment of the Left from reality grows out of the multiculturalism it has embraced and championed for decades. Implicit in multiculturalism is that all cultures are of equal value – we are constantly enjoined to understand other cultures within their own frame of reference (thank you, Margaret Mead!). They are all beautiful if we only share their values and perspective.



Bull hockey. Cultures are not equal. When faced with someone who maintains that, ask them whether they would fly their child to Papua New Guinea for an appendectomy. Sure, the rejoinder might be, Western Civ is clever at some things, but they have ____ (you fill in the admired quality).



That’s fine, as long as you don’t need an appendectomy. Or a cell phone. Or a standard of living. Or freedom from slavery, government oppression, infant mortality, modern medicine, small household appliances and any number of things that I, for one, don’t want to give up.



It’s all well and good to wax poetic over another culture’s pristine environmental symbiosis – but do you really want to always wipe yourself with a leaf? There is a cost to any cultural value, and that price is apparently too high for even the most ardent multiculturalist who prefers New York or San Francisco to sub-Saharan Africa.



Common sense says that cultures are not equal. Common sense says that to say they are in spite of the evidence of our eyes and brains is silly. Common sense says that those who proclaim this equality really don’t believe it because they choose to live here instead of there. They vote with their feet because they value what they have here over what is available there. Value requires discrimination and an ordering of worth. All things are not equal.



Pretending that all cultures are equally worthy of respect and honor leads to a disconnect between observations and conclusions. When you say, “Honor the beliefs of the Islamists who riot over perceived disrespect for the Koran,” you have to ignore the reality of their own, more horrific, defilement of their own holy writ. When you insist on condemning a U.S. soldier for accidentally splashing a few drops of urine through a vent on a Koran while ignoring prisoners intentionally flushing torn pages from a Koran down a toilet, you are completely cutting off your understanding from the real world.



For the Left and Democratic leadership (not identical but not mutually exclusive) everything is equal. There is only one bad – the U.S., and conservative or Republican leadership. And there is no continuum of value or good or bad. Pol Pot is Stalin is Bush is Rice is Falwell is Saddam is Thomas is Hitler. A gulag is a detainee facility is a youth facility is a Boy Scout Camp. Extremes of cold and heat is castration is electrocution is loud music is rape is nakedness is amputation is a delayed meal is an unmarked mass grave. Interrogating civilian terrorists is executing children is killing millions is slavery is beheading.



Maybe it is just wishful thinking, but how appealing is such reasoning and rhetoric to people in the U.S. today? How do you trust people who cannot distinguish between the murder of millions and relatively benign, respectful incarceration of those who tried and still want to kill us? Are these the level-headed people you want to entrust your future – and that of your children – to?



How can you trust people who reason like this with any important decisions? I wouldn't trust them cooking a fast-food meal for me. "A burger is a taco is a bar of soap."



“Gitmo is just like Stalin’s gulag – except for the millions who were starved and died, those who were executed outright, those who died as slave laborers and those who were persecuted for their religious practices.” Sheesh.


Ellie

[thedrifter]

Piling On Dick Durbin
By Richard Cohen
Tuesday, June 21, 2005; Page A21

Those of us who have read accounts of the gulag or of the interrogation methods of the Nazis and similar barbaric regimes are familiar with the infinite varieties of torture. Maybe for that reason I did not feel it was anything of a stretch for Sen. Dick Durbin to refer to those regimes when reciting what an FBI agent had seen at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba: detainees "chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water," or deprived of a bathroom, or kept in extreme heat or cold. One was found "almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out." Whatever that is, it is not America.

This was Durbin's point. He was right, although not necessarily politically prudent or elegant, when he said that if you did not know these descriptions came from an FBI agent, you "would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime . . . that had no concern for human beings." I certainly might have thought so -- although, in general, these regimes were capable of far worse than that, and Durbin should not have said "most certainly." A "possibly" would have done just fine.


Still, Durbin is not being faulted for a lack of nuance. He has instead come under vitriolic attack by Republicans who would have you think that the Democrat from Illinois likened America to the Soviet Union or the American military to Nazi Germany or disparaged the military in its entirety. In the name of our armed forces, Virginia Sen. John W. Warner asked for an apology. Newt Gingrich, the former Republican speaker of the House, called for Durbin to be censured by the Senate. That would be a more severe penalty than that accorded Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) for praising the late Strom Thurmond's racist 1948 presidential campaign.

Bill Frist, the Republican leader of the Senate, also called on Durbin to apologize -- although he himself did nothing of the sort when his videotaped patient, Terri Schiavo, turned out to be horribly brain damaged and not, as he suggested to the Senate, potentially treatable. Frist has lost the ability to blush, but not to mischaracterize. He said Durbin "called Guantanamo a death camp" -- words that do not appear in the text.

Durbin has since regretted if his words, misconstrued as they were, offended anyone. It certainly would have been better if he had couched his criticism in a more politically savvy way. He should have recognized that it is imperative never to compare anything in America to anything in the old Soviet Union, particularly the heinous gulag, or to make any references at all to Nazi Germany. But of course, Durbin really wasn't intending to do that. He was just criticizing the administration's insistence on thumbing its nose at world opinion and its failure to hold detentions and interrogations at Guantanamo to accepted human rights standards. From the very start, from Sept. 11, 2001, onward, the Bush administration has made no bones about its willingness to treat alleged terrorists -- some of them not anything of the kind -- without the nettlesome interference of international laws and treaties. It has sent the wrong message.

The practice of the Bush White House and its supporters is to go right at its critics -- to hell with fairness -- and shout them down. This is what the Swift Boat Veterans for Truth did to John Kerry and this is what the White House itself did to Newsweek. That magazine's story about reported abuses of the Koran at Guantanamo was admittedly wrong on one specific, but we did learn later that the military itself had investigated reports of Koran abuse. There's smoke, if not fire, there.

The vitriol being heaped on Durbin would be almost funny if it weren't so mean. The man, after all, is the virtually invisible Dick Durbin. And yet he is being tarred and feathered for saying something that has occurred to many of us: Guantanamo makes the United States look bad.

The contempt the Bush administration has shown for world opinion and international law -- not to mention American traditions of jurisprudence -- is costing us plenty. We are not the Soviet Union and we are not Nazi Germany, and Dick Durbin did not intend to say we are. His detractors have to know that. Their intention, however, is not to answer criticism but to silence a critic. They ought to be -- whatcha say, Newt? -- censured.

Ellie

[OLE SARG]

GITMO is a Boy Scout Camp and durbin is a stupid dickhead. AND, further, screw any of the countries that don't LIKE the USA - AND screw them in the pocketbook and start cancelling some of that good ole USA FOREIGN AID. I'm SICK of the U.S. buying allies!!!!

NUFF SAID!!

SEMPER FI,
OLE SARG

[redneck13]

"AMEN" Ole Sarg. I feel the same way. And you got it, "NUFF SAID."

[Joseph P Carey]

Like friends, when you buy allies you get what you pay for, when the money is not enough, the allies are not there! Maybe, we should findout who our real friends and allies are.

[david fox]

Dick "Turbin" Durbin deserves a trip to the wood shed so he can be beat with every log in there! I agree with several post that it is a dying party he represents and you only need to look at the latest BS from Howard Dean to see this. I suggest that we let the Mr. Durbin visit a jail cell in GTMO for a month long vacation. Might come back a changed man after hanging with the gang there. I sort of doubt it but it might work.

[Ed Palmer]

It was a tiring day, back when Tom Daschle was still the Senate Majority Leader...and Tom just got a little disoriented.
Another of Durbins friends
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/Ed15Palmer/daschle.jpg

[Joseph P Carey]

Ed,

This is so unfair of you, Ed! It is only because of his being a Liberal! Their hearts have always gone to the Left! Perhaps, that is a truer statement than we ever really knew.


Originally posted by Ed Palmer
It was a tiring day, back when Tom Daschle was still the Senate Majority Leader...and Tom just got a little disoriented.
Another of Durbins friends
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/Ed15Palmer/daschle.jpg

[Ed Palmer]

What does the "S" stand for?


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/Ed15Palmer/capt.jpg
A. Stupid

B. Scum-bag

C. Sorry

D. Sumo wrestler

[tbruyle5]

Originally posted by OLE SARG
No, you don't understand, durbin is a dickhead and so is biden. The pansy towelheads at GITMO are treated better than most school children, our troops in iraq, hell even some of our troops in most other countries. It is sad for these dickheads to equate GITMO with Nazi Germany and Russian POW camps. There is no comparison!!!!!! GITMO is like a vacation resort compared to what Nazi and Russion POW camps were. durbin needs to take a long walk on a short bridge.

SEMPER FI,
OLE SARG

I couldn't agree with you more!!! I'm ashamed to admit I live in Illinois.

[thedrifter]

Text of Durbin Apology
DURBIN APOLOGIZES ON SENATE FLOOR FOR GUANTANAMO BAY ANALOGIES

Tuesday, June 21, 2005

[WASHINGTON, DC] – U.S. Senator Dick Durbin (D-IL) today made the following statement on the floor of the United States Senate:

“More than most people, a Senator lives by his words, words are the coin of the realm in our profession. Occasionally words will fail us and occasionally we will fail words.”

“On June 14, I took the floor of the Senate to speak about genuine heartfelt concerns about the treatment of prisoners and detainees at Guantanamo and other places. I raised legitimate concerns that others have raised, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, about the policies of this administration and whether they truly do serve our needs to make America safer and more secure, whether, in fact, some of the policies might, in fact, endanger our troops, or in some ways disparage the image of America around the world.”

“During the course of that presentation, I read an e-mail from the Federal Bureau of Investigation that was discovered to exist last August, and has now been produced as part of the Freedom of Information Act. After reading the horrible details in that memo, which characterized the treatment of prisoners at Guantanamo, I then, on my own, my own words, made some characterizations about that memo. I made reference to the Nazis, Soviets and other repressive regimes.”

“Mr. President, I have come to understand that was a very poor choice of words. I tried to make this very clear last Friday that I understood to those analogies to the Nazis, Soviets and others were poorly chosen. I issued a release which I thought made my intentions and my inner-most feeling as clear as I possibly could.”

“Let me read to you what I said. ‘I have learned from my statement that historical parallels can be misused and misunderstood. I sincerely regret if what I said causes anybody to misunderstand my true feelings. Our soldiers around the world and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and total support.’”

“Mr. President, it is very clear that even though I thought I had said something that clarified the situation, to many people it was still unclear. I'm sorry if anything that I said caused any offense or pain to those who have such bitter memories of the Holocaust, the greatest moral tragedy of our time. Nothing, nothing should ever be said to demean or diminish that moral tragedy.”

“I'm also sorry if anything I said in any way cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military. I went to Iraq just a few months ago with Senator Harry Reid and a bipartisan Senate delegation. When you look in the eyes of the soldiers you see your son and daughter. They are the best. I never, ever intended any disrespect for them.”

“Some may believe that my remarks crossed a line. To them, I extend my heartfelt apologies.”

“There's usually a quote from Abraham Lincoln that you can turn to in moments like this. Maybe this is the right one. Lincoln said, ‘If the end brings me out right, what is said against me won't amount to anything. If the end brings me out wrong, 10,000 angels swearing I was right wouldn't make any difference.’”

“In the end, I don't want anything that I may have said detract from the love for my country, my respect for those who bravely risk their lives each day for our security, and this Senate which I am so honored to serve as a member. I offer my apology for those offended by my words. I promise to speak out on the issues that I think are important to the people of Illinois and to the nation.”


Ellie

[Joseph P Carey]

Ed,

The S stands for "Surely, all of the above!"


Originally posted by Ed Palmer
What does the "S" stand for?


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v733/Ed15Palmer/capt.jpg
A. Stupid

B. Scum-bag

C. Sorry

D. Sumo wrestler

[Phantom Blooper]

"S" $h*thead! "Can you say Sh*thead,boys and girls?:) Semper-Fi! Chuck Hall

[thedrifter]

The Washington Times <br />
<br />
<br />
Durbin's slanderous charge <br />
By Newt Gingrich <br />
Published June 22, 2005 <br />
<br />
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- <br />
Last week in the...

[thedrifter]

Apology not accepted
Matthew May
June 22nd, 2005


Sen. Richard Durbin took to the floor of the United States Senate late Tuesday afternoon to ostensibly apologize for his offensive, stupid and seditious remarks comparing an American military base to the murderous regimes of the most notorious despots the world has ever seen. Sen. Durbin apologized - but did not retract.

During his floor statement, Sen. Durbin channeled his colleague George Voinovich by shedding a few tears. But more importantly, Sen. Durbin repeated the myth that his speech last week may have been misunderstood by those who were offended by his comparisons, and suggested that these misperceptions – not the remarks themselves - were the reason he decided to apologize.

"Some may believe," Sen. Durbin argued, "that my remarks crossed the line. To them I extend my heartfelt apologies."

Some? What about you, Senator? Are the interrogators at Gitmo just as bad as the SS?

Sen. Durbin, in his quest to retain his party leadership position and in an attempt to perhaps shield himself from censure, revealed an alarming ignorance for historical comparison when he said "I've come to understand that's (the comparisons of American military units to Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union and Pol Pot) a very poor choice of words."

What would the dishonorable gentleman from Illinois have chosen had he the chance to change the speech? That the interrogation tactics being used at American military prisons are more like that of Saddam Hussein's or Idi Amin's? Do those regimes fall more in line with what the Senator intended when he took the floor last week simply because they may not have killed as many people as Hitler, Stalin, or Pol Pot?

In his speech Tuesday, Sen. Durbin had the temerity to quote Abraham Lincoln on the end bringing one out right, and if the end brings him out right all of the criticism he has been taking these last days will not matter. Sen. Durbin thus suggests that, in time, he will be seen as a prophet, that the American military and the Bush Administration have sanctioned murder, torture and physical labor so taxing that human beings cannot sustain life.

As Sen. Durbin slithered away to make the introductory remarks at a fundraising dinner featuring Howard Dean, Senators immediately took to the floor to do what they do best - pat their colleague on the back for his "courage" and the "heartfelt" way in which he apologized. Sen. McCain finally surfaced to accept his apology and joined Sen. Lieberman in pronouncing the matter closed. Sen. Obama rushed to defend and commend his fellow Illinoisan and note that the issues Sen. Durbin raised must be discussed. Everyone lamented the fact that folks in the public eye all regret things that they have said in the past. That Sen. McCain called Sen. Durbin's speech today "courageous" shows he either had the sense beaten out of him during his own military incarceration or that he always has one eye on 2008. Perhaps both. Regardless, Sen. McCain does not have the authority or the standing to close the matter.

Again, this cliché that public figures at times make mistakes when called upon to speak is pure folly. No Senator ambles on to the floor to make an explicit point without prepared remarks in hand. Sen. Durbin, especially, is one of the more prepared speakers in the Senate when it comes to floor speeches - one wonders if the paper on which his speech was written had cues instructing him when to tear up and quiver his voice. Any C-SPAN2 junkie knows that Sen. Durbin consistently and annoyingly speaks not to the Senate itself, but to the camera - as if he is conducting a one-man town hall meeting with the nation. He did so again yesterday. Sen. Durbin is so conscious of where the red light is located on the cameras in the chamber that, out of habit, he probably dives into prepared remarks whenever he finds himself idling at a stoplight.

Public figures regretting public utterances usually do so when their remarks are extemporaneous or perhaps when mistakenly thinking they are saying things not for public consumption. This is not the case with Sen. Durbin. Sen. Durbin seized on an e-mail from the alleged FBI staffer, seized upon the mindset of the current lunatic wing of the Democratic Party and the mindset of the traitor before the speech was written. Sen. Durbin knew exactly what he was saying last week.

Sen. Durbin - or a staffer acting on his behalf - prepared the remarks in question. Sen. Durbin took to the floor of the United States Senate, one of the cornerstones of our Republic, and accused our government and our military officers of engaging in practices that not only did not happen but also were those of the gulag and the death camp. He did so with malice aforethought. His remarks were not misinterpreted nor were they a mistake - he meant to say what he said because they were, and are, what he thinks and believes will help his party out in 2006 and damage President Bush in the short run politically. That Senators allow this craven act to stand is nearly as horrifying as the remarks themselves.

Sen. Durbin can quote President Lincoln until the end of time, which, in and of itself, is offensive when it comes to this issue in particular, and the art of writing and delivering political speeches in general. It will be Sen. Durbin's words last week, however, that will stand until the end of time and they will never be brought out right. Apology not accepted.

Matt May can be reached at matthewtmay@yahoo.com; his blog is http://mattymay.blogspot.com

Ellie

[thedrifter]

Wednesday, June 22, 2005
Open Letter to Senator Dick Durbin
Senator Dick Durbin,

You have once more failed to apologize for slandering our men in uniform of the Joint Task Force at GTMO by comparing them to the monsters who operated the Gulags in the Soviet Union, the Death Camps of the Holocaust, and the Killing Fields of Pol Pot.

It apparently just isn’t in your nature to say, “I was wrong, I should not have said what I said.” Instead, you issued one of those non-apology apologies at which the Democrats have become so proficient, saying:

"I'm sorry if anything that I said caused any offense or pain to those who have such bitter memories of the Holocaust, the greatest moral tragedy of our time...I'm also sorry if anything I said in any way cast a negative light on our fine men and women in the military. I went to Iraq just a few months ago...When you look at the eyes of the soldiers you see your son and daughter. They are the best. I never, ever intended any disrespect for them. Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line. To them, I extend my heartfelt apologies." Yet he continued to defend his remarks by saying "legitimate concerns that others have raised, including Secretary of State Colin Powell, about the policies of this administration and whether they truly do serve our needs to make America safer and more secure."

I see, it was our fault. You apologize to us for our taking offense and then blame us for “believe[ing] that my remarks crossed the line.” You are saying I’m sorry you’re too stupid to accept what I’m saying but it’s true. Predictably your fellow Democrats have leaped to your defense, declaring you to be “couragious” for being “brave” enough to come to the floor of the Senate and face his critics. John McCain said that Your non-apology was “the courageous thing, and I believe we can put this issue behind us." Joe Lieberman said, “To fester this some more is doing a disservice to the Senate and to our country." The Wicked Witch of the West, Nancy Pelosi, echoed your non-apology. "The fact is that Mr. Durbin's comments point to the need for an independent commission," she said. "What are the facts, how do we make judgments about how to change what is going on there, close Guantanamo or clean it up, but the status quo ... is not acceptable."

Once more, we see how much your people hate America. You are far more willing to listen to the rantings of the terrorist inmates and former inmates than the statements of our own government. Well that’s not entirely true, you were quoting an e-mail from an FBI agent to his superiors concerning the treatment of one detainee during interrogation. The problem with this isn’t that you were reading from this e-mail, it was your choice to ignore the U.S. Southern Command’s extensive investigation of detainee treatment which was released almost two weeks prior to your scandalous statement of June 14th.

Let’s examine some of the “abusive practices” of the JTF-GTMO staff.
• The guards are not allowed to walk in certain areas during prayer time to prevent any creaking of shoes from disturbing the detainees while praying.
• Any Koran which gets soiled or wet is immediately replaced.
• The guard who accidently allowed urine to get into the air vent and thus get on a detainee and his copy of the Koran, was reprimanded and assigned to non-prisoner contact “gate duty” for the remainder of his tour.

continued...........

[thedrifter]

Here are the procedures for handling the Koran during a search:

6-5. Searching the Koran
a. To ensure the safety of the detainees and guards while respecting the cultural dignity of the Korans thereby reducing the friction over the searching the Korans. JTF-GTMO personnel directly working with detainees will avoid handling or touching the detainee’s Koran whenever possible. When military necessity does require the Koran to be searched, the subsequent procedures will be followed.
(1) The guard informs the detainee that the Chaplain or a Muslim interpreter will inspect Koran. If the detainee refuses the inspection at any time, the noncompliance is reported to the DOC and logged appropriately by the Block NCO.
(2) The Koran will not be touched or handled by the guard.
(3) The Chaplain or Muslim interpreter will give instructions to the detainee who will handle the Koran. He may or may not require a language specific interpreter.
(4) The inspector is examining to notice unauthorized items, markings, or any indicators that raises suspicion about the contents of the Koran.
(5) The inspector will instruct the detainee to first open the one cover with one hand while holding the Koran in the other thus exposing the inside cover completely.
(6) The inspector instructs the detainee to open pages in an upright manner (as if reading the Koran). This is a random page search and not every page is to be turned. Pages will be turned slowly enough to clearly see the pages.
(7) The inspector has the detainee show the inside of the back cover of the Koran.
(8) The detainee is instructed to show both ends of the Koran while the book is closed so that inspector can note the binding while closed paying attention to abnormal contours or protrusions associated with the binding. The intent is to deduce if anything may be in the binding without forcing the detainee to expose the binding, which may be construed as culturally insensitive or offensive given the significance of the Koran.
(9) How the detainee reacted, observation by other detainees, and other potentially relevant observations will be annotated in DIMS.
b. Handling.
(1) Clean gloves will be put on in full view of the detainees prior to handling.
(2) Two hands will be used at all times when handling the Koran in manner signaling respect and reverence. Care should be used so that the right hand is the primary one used to manipulate any part of the Koran due to the cultural association with the left hand. Handle the Koran as if it were a fragile piece of delicate art.
(3) Ensure that the Koran is not placed in offensive areas such as the floor, near the toilet or sink, near the feet, or dirty/wet areas.
c. Removal.
(1) Korans must be transported by the detainee, in the event the detainee is moved to another cell or block.
(2) If a Koran must be removed at the direction the CJDOG, the detainee library personnel, Muslim interpreter, or Chaplain will be contacted to retrieve and properly store the Koran in the detainee library. The request for the librarian, interpreter, or Chaplain, as well as the retrieval itself, will be logged in DIMS.
(3) If the Chaplain, librarian, or Muslim interpreter, within the needs of the situation, cannot remove the Koran, then the guard may remove the Koran after approved by the DOC (who notes this in the DIMS) IAW the following procedures:
(a) Clean gloves will be put on in full view of the detainees prior to handling.
(b) Two hands will be used at all times when handling the Koran in manner signaling respect and reverence.
(c) Place a clean, dry, detainee towel on the detainee bed and then place the Koran on top of the clean towel in a manner, which allows it to be wrapped without turning the Koran over at any time in a reverent manner. Ensure that the Koran is not placed in offensive areas such as the floor, near the toilet or sink, near the feet, or dirty/wet area when doing this activity.
(4) How the detainee reacted, observation by other detainees, and other potentially relevant observations will be annotated appropriately in the DIMS significant activities menu.
(5) The Koran shall be returned to the librarian, Chaplain, or DOC (in that order).
(6) Korans are the property of the U.S. Government and as such will remain in the cells only to be removed at the CJDOG’s decision.
(7) If a Koran is damaged or destroyed by a detainee, the chaplain in conjunction with a Muslim interpreter will take the Koran from the detainee for a minimum of ten days noted in DIMS. At that point, the chaplain can reissue the Koran to the detainee. The chaplain must ensure the block knows the Koran is being taken to protect the Koran, not punish the detainee.

32-17. Camp Coordinated Contraband Search & Seizure
(3) DO NOT TOUCH THE KORANS.


Mr. Durbin, discomfort and humiliation are not torture techniques. Deprivation of light and communication are not torture techniques. Rap music...well it may be really obnoxious, but I don’t think it qualifies as torture (though some people may disagree). The Manchester papers, taken in a raid of an al Qaeda cell housed in Manchester England describes torture that a “brother” may face:

1. Blindfolding and stripping of clothes.
2. Hanging by the hands.
3. Hanging by the feet [upside down].
4. Beating with sticks and electrical wires.
5. Whipping and beating with sticks and twisted rubber belts.
6. Forcing the brother to stand naked for long periods of time.
7. Pouring cold water on a brother’s head.
8. Putting out lighted cigarettes on the brother’s skin.
9. Shocking with an electrical current.
10. Kicking and punching
11. Attacking a brother with vicious dogs.
12. Making the brother sit on a stake.
13. Throwing in a septic tank.
14. Pulling out the hair and nails...
15. Dragging
16. Tying hands and feet from behind.
17. Utilizing sharp objects, such as a pocketknife or piece of glass.
18. Burning with fire...

Need I continue Mr. Durbin? Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t recall any of this being alleged as occurring at GTMO except the pouring of water on the detainees head, a very mild form of inducing discomfort.

Under Section 18 of the al Qaeda training manual, it says that the brother should”

1. ...the brothers must insist on proving that torture was inflicted on them by State Security...
2. Complain of mistreatment while in prison.

Sound familiar Senator? Do you realize that you have not just offended people by your statements, but you have allied yourself with the enemy? You have taken up their cause. You have made their arguments to the jury of world opinion for them. That you and your defenders in the Democrat party don’t understand this, or that you do and don’t care speaks volumes as to your allegiances. You and your “brothers” have placed your political aspirations above the safety and well-being of the American people and the soldiers seeking to defend them.

The time has come for you Democrats to be called to the carpet for your actions. The public needs to be continually reminded of the hostility that your party has for America, and the sympathy you are showing for our enemies. Many of those “1700 young men” who have been killed in Iraq have not been killed by “insurgents” but by hard core al Qaeda trained terrorists who have infiltrated Iraq via the Iranian and Syrian borders. The same people whose part you are taking. By your continued campaign against President Bush and his Iraq policies, you provide “aid and comfort” to these terrorists even as they are killing the very kids you are so busy bemoaning the deaths of. The Democrats are demonstrably guilty of betraying their trust; violating their oaths to defend and protect the Constitution as Senators and Representatives.

You readily blame us for all the ills of the world. We consume too much energy. We don’t care enough about how the rest of the world functions and thinks. We are too fat. We are too greedy. We live too well. We need to live a more simple less energy centered life. We need to sacrifice for the good of all people.

Senator Durbin, it is not we who are the evil in the world sir. We did not seek to destroy the people of the Middle East, we are not their oppressors, we are not preventing them from voting, we are not strapping bombs onto their young and sending them out to kill innocent civilians, we do not stone rape victims to death. You and your fellow Democrats have chosen to “adhere” to our enemies. You are guilty of treason barring only that this war on terror is not a formally declared war. If you were a man, you would do the right thing, and resign as Senator. I don’t expect that from you, as you have already proven that you cannot even apologize for your actions. I realize that the actual reason for this is that you still do not believe that you were wrong in your statement, and that you meant every word of it.

I do not accept your non-apology “apology” and I decry you as an enemy of America, undeserving of the title of U.S. Senator. Please do us all a favor and go home to Illinois where you belong.

Sincerely,

Will Malven

[tbruyle5]

Sen. Durbin, I am adding my name to this letter. I have read it and agree with every word. I have not always agreed with every opinion you’ve had, but I always considered your opinion. This has ended!! For an educated man as yourself to go down this path, and then to continue after being called on it, tells me your motives have exceed your wisdom. I have a sign on my office wall that I wrote many years ago. It is this:
Knowledge is gained through diligent studies and hard work and is attainable by all.
Wisdom is gained over time through the proper application of knowledge, and is attained by many.
Integrity is gained when wisdom is applied to one’s heart and is attained by few.
I will grant you the first two steps, but your actions prove you failed the final goal. I am sorry for you. You are a disgrace to Illinois. You are a disgrace to the U.S. Senate. You are a disgrace to the citizens of the United States of America. The harm that will come to our citizen, around the world, over the next few weeks, months and years, directly because of your words and how those words are used in other countries, will be on your shoulders!

Thomas B Ruyle
10774 Rt. 111
Medora, IL 62063
Former USMC

[Phantom Blooper]

The American Military Tortured Me <br />
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(Confirmation of US Torture!!) <br />
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Citizen Journal | June 08, 2005 | Rolal Leahcim Nareik <br />
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We were driven onto the island in a bus late at night. They drove us...