The ACLU is also demanding that more pictures of the abuse at Abu Ghraib be released. The Defense Department is fighting that. Everybody knows those pictures incite violence against Americans. So why should more of them be fed to the press? We already know what happened at Abu Ghraib, and people are going to prison because of it. Clearly, more pictures of Abu Ghraib help the terrorists, as do Geneva Convention protections and civilian lawyers. So there is no question the ACLU and the judges who side with them are terror allies.(Emphasis nabbed from Media Matters.)
By that broad logic, doing anything that would "help the terrorists," even if it's a side effect of an action that helps American citizens, makes you a terror ally. If, for example, you reported on Abu Ghraib when the scandal first broke, you're a terror ally.
But why stop with egregious, terror-friendly acts like informing the public? All sorts of simple activities aid terrorists in custody. Like feeding them. Should we stop doing that? Are the soldiers that prepare and deliver their food "terror allies"?
I know it's not his main point, but O'Reilly doesn't understand that abandoning the "Geneva Convention protections" he thinks helps terrorists is what gave the administration the wiggle room it needed to use abusive interrogation techniques on prisoners in the first place. The abuse began in Afghanistan and at Guantánamo, where interrogators applied to terror suspects the same techniques applied to US special forces soldiers for training purposes, to harden them against torture if they're captured. (That includes blasphemy and tearing pages of the Bible, acts reminiscent of the Quran abuse observed at Guantanamo.)
When Major-General Geoffrey Miller, who introduced those techniques at Gitmo, was sent to Iraq, the techniques went with him. In Iraq, thanks to lack of training and discipline coupled with pressure to get actionable intelligence against the burgeoning insurgency, the abuse went even more out of control than most Americans realize—allegedly including the rape of minors whose shrieks can be heard on tape.
Not only did the Bush administration and some military personnel help terrorists by creating the conditions for the abuse at Abu Ghraib, they helped by investigating allegations of abuse and then talking about it in public.
This means that not only is Bill O'Reilly, who is against applying the Geneva Conventions to terror suspects, a terror ally, but so are President Bush, Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez and anyone else who supported such a move. According to O'Reilly's logic.
I'm sure O'Reilly doesn't realize this.
Early on in the Bush administration, when it became apparent that all the president did was deceive to push through an agenda that was wholly other than what he promised, I joined the ACLU because Bush One had used it as a red herring during his dirty campaign against Dukakis. O'Reilly's remark reminded me that my membership's up for renewal. I'll be sure to renew it now and even give them some extra money this year. Thanks, Bill.
DISCLAIMER: I'm not sure I want the rest of the Abu Ghraib photos, etc., to come out. Do I want to know what happened? Yes. Do I want the rest of the world to know? Not sure. But I want government transparency, and I'm going to choose it over the alternative—not that anyone's asking. And while I don't support everything the ACLU does, by and large I'm on their side.
UPDATE: In addition to the JAG lawyers you may've heard raised a fuss about the treatment of prisoners, add a few other military lawyers. We're sure they're just traitors in uniform. Unlike that brave Karl Rove, who corrected a false story he thought was true by outing a CIA agent working on WMD, which has nothing to do with national security.
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