Kudos to Dale Farrar and his assessment of the Iraqi prisoner abuse issue (letter, May 16). I do not condone this abuse, and I’m sure that those responsible will be punished, but this is clearly a tempest in a teapot.
Certain Arab media expressed outrage when this was discovered. Are these the same media that recruit children for suicide bombing missions? And were they outraged over the recent savage murder of Nick Berg? Or the murders of pregnant Israeli Tali Hatuel and her four children by Palestinian terrorists?
The nonstop coverage of this by the “mainstream” American media and their Democratic Party allies is being done for one reason – as a means to get President Bush defeated in November. The calls for still more investigations and for the ouster of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld got me thinking.
These prisoners are still alive. The same cannot be said of the innocent victims from Ruby Ridge and the Branch Davidian compound, some of whom were children. Janet Reno was head of the Justice Department and ultimately responsible for those assaults, but I don’t recall her or Bill Clinton being hounded by these same media anywhere near the level that is now being done.
It’s too bad that the mainstream media don’t show the same zeal in reporting on Democratic administrations as they show to Republican ones.
Don Stickney, Auburn
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