The Other McCain

"One should either write ruthlessly what one believes to be the truth, or else shut up." — Arthur Koestler

Answer: Because I Really Do Not Need A Rocket Suppository

Posted on | March 29, 2011 | 4 Comments

by Smitty

Ace asks: “Why Is the Media Covering Up The Kill Team Story?“. It was quite wrong for the media to endanger troops in the W era over Abu Ghraib. If you’ve let your emotional horses out of the barn, and feel that news of what a handful of twistos have done should be used as a reciprocal take-down of the current POTUS, then it’s time to issue a party foul:
Hammurabi kicked the bucket something like 3,750 years ago. That makes the ‘eye for an eye’ approach even older than the US Constitution, and equally intelligible to the likes of Ezra Klein. As a compromise position, why not wait until all of the investigations and court martials have run their course, then do a dispassionate compare/contrast? I have heard the vaguest of rumors concerning Jeremy Morlock (great name for a villain there) but it would be the height of uncool to pass them.
Demanding the Full Ghraib of the Kill Team story right now would lead to unintended consequences. In an era where the Middle East is going sideways, the economy is anemic, the budget deficit is malignant, and Natalie Portman is pear-shaped, do we really need to dwell on the fact that Jeremy Morlock hails from. . .of Wasilla, AK? You risk having Andrew Sullivan demand an accounting of every sperm cell the kid produced in the last five years, just to prove that none of them informed the conception of the most famous special needs child in human history.
In summary, the country is in various stages of undeclared war in multiple theaters. If we can package all the Bush-era butt-hurt about the Iraq war and Abu Ghraib in a two letter pronoun, “Do not let ‘it’ be”:

[Nota bene, for the non-headbangers out there: the Beatallica clip only makes sense if you’ve heard this.]
None of the snarkiness of this post is meant to diminish the seriousness of the issue. You’ve already had one court martial; there may be more to follow. The point I’m trying to hammer home is that stories of military malfeasance (and this one is a full-on doozy) are deeply serious and merit the utmost thoroughness in investigation in our free and open society. Particularly when the Administration likes to talk about how transparent it is. Or used to.
However, when the pursuit of justice crosses over into political scalp hunting, even when arguably justified, you risk an awful lot of collateral damage.
Keep that in mind.

Category: Ace of Spades, Aghanistan, Barack Obama

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