6/17/2005 08:05:00 AM|||Nathan Moore|||

I just saw that the Pentagon was about to release more "abuse" photos. I wish they wouldn't.

Government secrecy is a necessary function of national security. Complete disclosure of all things defense-related compromises the ability of the national government to do one of the things it was actually designed to do: provide for the common defense. I'm not such a stickler when social engineering projects become difficult, as they are not legitimate functions of government anyhow. But the defense of our nation is tantamount.

Guantanomo Bay must stop. Abu Ghraib must stop. And I'm not talking about the alleged "abuse". I'm talking about the disclosure.

What our military is doing is winning a war. Perhaps many are not familiar with the concept of a "war". A "war" is a thing where two sides fight to kill each other and break each other's stuff. The side that wins is the side that makes further losses unacceptable to its opponent. Now, to be fair, this is a sliding scale. Some opponents have higher / lower thresholds of loss than others. It's never the exact same. Each is a bit different. Nowadays, each is a lot different.

I speak in such childish terms because I believe it is the only way to adequately communicate to those who do not understand that this is a serious thing, yet a thing that is incredibly simple in principle. Those who refer to "gulags", and compare our soldiers to Nazis are ignorant both of history and the principles of war, not to mention the nature of our enemy. If mild discomfort is the most cost effective way of obtaining information from a captee, I would say we're doing something right. Dick Durbin, the undistinguished senator from Illinois, thinks that mild discomfort is something that Nazis do. I do not believe that 6 million Jews and 4 million "undesireds" died from mild discomfort.

Senator Durbin is a disgrace to the Senate. Just when you thought that Robert Byrd and Harry Reid had done all they could to defame the body, the golden child wanders out of an Illinois cornfield.

Apparently, the hard left and those who hate Bush with an irrational fervor are not capable of seeing pictures of captees being "embarassed". And that is all. The complaints are that the people we have captured, who were fighting with or supporting those who killed nearly 3000 people three years ago, are being "embarassed". Their religious sensitivies are being damaged. They are tortured by being forced to listen to American music.

They are not being shot. They are not being whipped. They are not being shredded. They are not being hanged. They are not being dismembered alive. They are not being cooked in casket-sized ovens. They are not being gassed.

They are merely being embarassed. Political correctness used to be an annoying sideshow of the political debate. It was silly, and worthy of defeat as are all things innane, but it was not dangerous in any real sense. Well, it is dangerous now, as its application affects the will of the people to fight a necessary war. And all for nothing more than cheap political gain.

Our military prosecutes the soldiers who violate the rules causing this embarassment. I'm not sure we should. A certain amount of looking the other way can be healthy. But it is clear that a certain vocal portion of the populace cannot handle the mildly distasteful things required of us to win against an ephemeral and commited enemy. They don't get it - they can't handle it. I'm willing not to know, still knowing its happening, and knowing we're winning.

UPDATE Perspective for Durbin and his apologists. Real torture here. If you're squeamish, don't click.

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