Durbin And White House Use The Verbal Atomic Bombs

A big controversy continues to rage over how the U.S. treats enemy combatants — with both sides going for the verbal atomic bombs and razor blades:

The White House and Senate Republicans on Thursday assailed a Democrat for comparing American interrogators at Guantanamo Bay to Nazis, Soviet gulags and Khmer Rouge leader Pol Pot.

It is “beyond belief” that Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin would compare the treatment of dangerous enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay to the death of millions of innocent people by oppressive governments, White House spokesman Scott McClellan said.

“I think the senator’s remarks are reprehensible. It’s a real disservice to our men and women in uniform who adhere to high standards and uphold our values and our laws,” he said……

Defending himself, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat said Thursday it was “just plain wrong” to say he was diminishing past horrors. He said he was comparing interrogation techniques that the FBI report said were used at Guantanamo with those in foreign detainee camps.

“This is the type of thing you would expect from a repressive regime. This is not the type of thing you would expect from the United States,” Durbin said.

Durbin made the comparison after reading an FBI agent’s report describing detainees at the Naval base in Guantanamo Bay as being chained to the floor without food or water in extreme temperatures.

“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,” Durbin said Tuesday.

ETC. So now you have the White House contending Durbin’s remarks insulted the military in general, and conservatives picking up the torch from that. And you have Durban’s comparisons of treatment of U.S. prisoners with the most vicious regimes, with some on the left saying, yes it’s true.

We would say this:

• We agree with Daily Show host Jon Stewart’s contention that using the Nazi card is becoming tiresome in American politics, an overused comparison that makes whoever says it look over the top. The same criticisms about policies can be made quite forcefully without citing the Nazis who were in a un-class by themselves.
• This White House has a tendency to respond to criticism by ignoring the core policy under dispute and instead going on the offensive figuring the best defense is a good offense. In this case, Durbin was criticizing (a)American interrogators, (b)policy makers who enabled or ordered it. He was NOT criticizing every person in uniform, he was NOT criticizing the people out there in the field.

The bottom line is there are a lot of ways White House/Pentagon critics and win people over to their side besides making accusations that really don’t hold up if you look at the historical record. Donald Sensing offers a powerful reminder of what the Nazis actually did. Here are some of the photos from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

And the bottom line is that the White House is playing a verbal shell game since Durbin was not, in fact, talking about the average soldier in the field.

We’d say “a pox on both your houses” but that could get us arrested under the Patriot Act.