And while I'm at it

Mrs. Fixer is out shopping this morning at the Big Three (Kohl's, TJ Maxx, Marshall's) so I'm laying in bed in front of my laptop blogsturbating (I own this word and I expect credit when you steal it. It's spelled F-I-X-E-R). I'll go surf the Net with my pants around my ankles later, but while I'm at it, I have to say a couple things about this Abu Ghraib Prison (Concentration Camp) clusterfuck.

First: The soldiers who directly participated in the abuses should be jailed for the rest of their lives, period. The ones who were mugging it up for the cameras should face the firing squad, period. The Military Intelligence commander and the Military Police commander should also be jailed for the rest of their lives. The Army commander of the local area should be court-martialed. CINC CENTCOM should be relieved of duty and so should the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and his Deputies who knew about the abuses. No retirement, no benefits, you get squat, just get out. That's it for the military side.

Second: All of the "Civilian Contractors" who took part and their immediate superiors should be turned over to the Iraqis to face civil justice for their crimes (hopefully beheading) and their corporations should be banned from bidding on government contracts forever, period.

This is the point: Americans don't do shit like this, PERIOD.

If my CO during Grenada, Col "Stonewall" Bryant, saw me abusing any of the Cuban prisoners under my charge, he would have put me up against the wall and put a bullet in my brain himself. No questions, no trial, because I wouldn't have deserved one. Prisoners are prisoners and we are signatories of the Geneva Conventions, and prisoners are treated accordingly, period. This is black and white. It's about honor and if the enlisted pukes abdicated theirs, the officers should have taken appropriate measures. But it seems this whole Iraq mess was dishonorable from the start.

We have to take the moral high ground back, ladies and gentlemen, and to do that, heads have to roll and it has to be done publicly. Those weak apologies by President Spineless and whatever the fuck that was in Rummy-speak won't cut it. Honor, folks, it's something that you learn when you enlist, something you should have learned from your parents. It's about bearing responsibility for your actions and being accountable for them. It seems accountability went out the window in February of 2001.


Update 09:30 am: I realize my conscience won't let me surf the Net much longer without saying something. I must make the distinction between the treatment of prisoners and what happens to the enemy on the battlefield. Torturing prisoners to get information is illegal. That's fine. But in the heat of battle, there is NOTHING I wouldn't do to ensure the survival of my unit. By golly, if I have to take you apart piece by piece to elicit some scrap of information that would allow me to win the battle, I'll do it. If we're both still alive when it's over I'll do my best to get you medical care for what I've done to you. When it's over and you're my prisoner, you will be treated by the rules of the Geneva Conventions. War is ugly, but when it's over, I'll treat you the way I'd expect to be treated if our roles were reversed. Good, now I'm done with this subject.