The Bush administration, in violation of the Geneva protections to which fighting men are entitled, paraded eight Iraqi prisoners on television. This is a war crime: governments are not supposed to use pictures of prisoners in propaganda. The officials who approved this should be held responsible and put on trial.
Wait — sorry for the error. It was the Iranian government parading British sailors for the cameras. But I’m sure the Left and our major media are going to go ballistic when they see this, right? Because they keep telling us that violating the Geneva Conventions is pretty much the worst thing a government can do. Because the media are so even-handed, they treat all prisoner abuse seriously.
I expect when I wake tomorrow and stumble out to my driveway, that photo will be on the front page of the Washington Post, along with a long analytical article and an outraged editorial. No, two outraged editorials. Maybe even three, plus a shot of a prisoner’s family member dabbing at her eye with a handkerchief.
Otherwise, we might get the idea that the media are willing to look the other way when it’s not U.S. soldiers committing abuse. Or that they are incapable of understanding the difference between officially sanctioned abuse and unofficial, punishable abuse. Or that the Left is so afraid of Islamic terrorism that it ignores or explains away abhorrent actions when radical Muslims do them, but not when Westerners do them.
