More Phony Soldiers Swiftboated

You can tell when the Rightie blogosphere has spun off its axis. The self-delusion and rationalization has finally reached that magical moment when spoiled White Southern Chicks decide that World War II vets’ stories aren’t convenient, and can, therefore be dismissed, since they coincide with points of view with which spoiled White Southern Chicks disagree.

Here’s the inconvenient facts, from The Washington Post:

When about two dozen veterans got together yesterday for the first time since the 1940s, many of the proud men lamented the chasm between the way they conducted interrogations during the war and the harsh measures used today in questioning terrorism suspects.

Back then, they and their commanders wrestled with the morality of bugging prisoners’ cells with listening devices. They felt bad about censoring letters. They took prisoners out for steak dinners to soften them up. They played games with them.

“We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture,” said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler’s deputy, Rudolf Hess.

Blunt criticism of modern enemy interrogations was a common refrain at the ceremonies held beside the Potomac River near Alexandria.

Alas, this is inconvenient to spoiled White Southern Chicks, but not so much as this, in the same story:

“We did it with a certain amount of respect and justice,” said John Gunther Dean, 81, who became a career Foreign Service officer and ambassador to Denmark.

The interrogators had standards that remain a source of pride and honor.

“During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone,” said George Frenkel, 87, of Kensington. “We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I’m proud to say I never compromised my humanity.”

This bothers at least one spoiled White Southern Chick:

Does the Post believe interrogators would have gotten the same information from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed by taking him out to a steak dinner and/or playing games with him instead of waterboarding him (an aggressive interrogation tactic which, btw, saved lives)? Furthermore, does the Washington Post understand that different threats sometimes require different strategies?

I guess since she knows better how to conduct a war than these WWII veterans, they should recant their stories? How would The Washington Post’s understanding of “different strategies” change the World War II vets‘ judgments about the current “threats”? I guess they should just pay attention to the expertise of spoiled White Southern Chicks when making moral judgments about conduct in warfare?

Fortunately, just in the nick of time, the lunatic Boston Herald editor, Jules Crittendon comes up with something so fantastically twisted that even spoiled White Southern Chicks can’t begin to approach it for sheer lunacy. Seizing on ONE LINE of the Washington Post story:

“Nearly 4,000 prisoners of war, most of them German scientists and submariners, were brought in for questioning for days, even weeks, before their presence was reported to the Red Cross, a process that did not comply with the Geneva Conventions.”

Crittendon proves that he’s gone completely off his meds, with the stupendously weird analysis that:

Given the intense interest in criminalizing and prosecuting all transgressions committed in our name in George’s War on Transnationalism, it may be time to consider hauling some of these geezers into the dock to answer for their crimes against humanity.

Which manages to cluelessly and speciously demonize the WWII veterans (who didn’t make the policy, by the by) without once stating the objective, which is (evidently) to DEFEND torture — something that Crittendon is undoubtedly every bit as qualified to bloviate about as are spoiled White Southern Chicks.

Perhaps the psychiatric community stopped offering pre-frontal lobotomies a wee tad too hastily.

Courage.

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UPDATE 10:00 AM PDT: Bush’s PERSONAL buddy-blogger confirms the talking point with this:

It must be said, however, that they faced a different enemy in a different war.

Zowie. Amazing that two such disparate minds could look at the same set of facts and come up with the same specious argument!

Suffering from smearus interruptus, evidently, Ed M. of the Captain’s Quarters (self-appointed naval officer in the Sargasso Sea of his own mind) adds the following ‘trenchant’ analysis to deflect attention from the central point — that World War II is totally different from the current War in Iraq/on Terror (in this war, bullets and bombs don’t kill you, I guess, the laws of physics are suspended, and everyone has to yell “olly-olly-oxen-free” before floating upside down above the palm trees to deliver crippling sarcasm bomblets). First “Special” Ed pulls his Bizarro World™ trump card of acting like he wants to sound prudent, sober and “reasonable” and then turns in a CLASSIC Sneery O’Smear non-sequitur moment as he swivels 150 degrees to attack the patriotism of ANOTHER paper entirely):

… and as I noted yesterday, which the attorneys should review thoroughly to determine the exact boundaries where these techniques cross the line. The existence of those memos do not mean that the administration has broken the law.

One thing is for certain. If today’s New York Times had been reporting during the time of PO Box 1142, it would not have stayed a secret for six decades. It would have been on its front pages in six months.

Golly.

UPDATE: 11:11 PM PDT:

Dumbass hatey-hate makes its last stand as “milblogger” “Uncle Jimbo” post the following bathroom stall grafitti on Blackfive (another of those blogs that Bush invited to meet with him in the Roosevelt Room of the White House last month):

… I am also basically uninterested in their sanctimonious insults to the professionals who have to deal with our current enemies …. Their [our current interrogators (sic)] humanity is not one whit less than the self-benighted* WWII vets, and it is disrespectful for theses (sic) folks to imply otherwise. The government as representative of the American people went out of it’s way to honor these men, and some of them felt obligated to use the occasion to insult those currently working long hours to keep us all safe. Tacky.

You might want to know  what “self-benighted” means.

[* benighted

SYLLABICATION: be-night-ed
ADJECTIVE: 1. Overtaken by night or darkness. 2. Being in a state of moral or intellectual darkness; unenlightened.
OTHER FORMS: be-nighted-ly --ADVERB • be-nighted-ness --NOUN
The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language: Fourth Edition. 2000.]

Wow. I guess Uncle Jimo knows a little something about “tacky.” After all, Jimbo “owns” the military and the government, and those old coots did stuff a long time ago, before smart guys like Uncle Jimbo got out of diapers in time to “protect” us.

So why doesn’t anything about this make me feel safe?

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