[Peace-discuss] Durbin's "total support" for US soldiers

[C. G. Estabrook]

[Although he accepts the propaganda position that "We were
clearly at war" after 9/11, Sen. Durbin made some obviously
true remarks in the Senate about the US torture and
incarceration policies <durbin.senate.gov/gitmo.cfm>.  But he
received no support from congressional Democrats (such as that
fiery liberal spirit, Sen. Obama), so he's now backtracked on
what he did say.  The administration successfully made his
remarks, rather than their crimes, the issue. --CGE]  

  Durbin 'regrets' Gitmo remarks
  By Rowan Scarborough
  THE WASHINGTON TIMES
  June 18, 2005

Sen. Richard J. Durbin expressed a conditional "regret"
yesterday for his remarks linking Guantanano Bay
interrogations to Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot after
Vice President Dick Cheney and the American Legion unleashed
another day of rebukes of the Senate's No. 2 Democrat.
    Mr. Durbin had refused to apologize for his Nazi speech in
a Senate debate Thursday. But as the high-ranking Democrat and
his party continued to feel a political backlash, Mr. Durbin
issued his third -- and most contrite -- statement yesterday.
    "I have learned from my statement that historical
parallels can be misused and misunderstood," said the Illinois
senator. "I sincerely regret if what I said caused anyone to
misunderstand my true feelings: our soldiers around the world
and their families at home deserve our respect, admiration and
total support."
    Hours earlier, Mr. Cheney kept up the pressure on Mr.
Durbin, and the nation's largest veterans groups called on the
senator to apologize.
    "Senator Durbin's remarks could very well make him the
'Hanoi Jane' of this conflict," said American Legion National
Commander Thomas P. Cadmus. His reference was to actress Jane
Fonda, who visited North Vietnam during the war and posed for
photographs in an anti-aircraft battery.
    "I am totally outraged by his hideous slight of those he
should be honoring for their selfless devotion to this
nation," said Mr. Cadmus, who leads the 2.7-million-member,
nonpartisan group.
    Mr. Cheney said on a Nashville radio station that "for him
to make those comparisons was one of the most egregious things
I'd ever heard on the floor of the United States Senate."
    The vice president told the "Steve Gill Mornings" radio
show that the 520 detainees at Guantanamo are "very violent
and evil people ... They're out to kill Americans and if you
put them back on the street that's exactly what they'll do.
All the hand-wringing that we've heard from Durbin and others
strikes me as totally inappropriate."
    Congressional Democrats have been mostly quiet on the
issue, declining to defend or condemn one of their leaders.
Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, Nevada Democrat, took to
the Senate floor Thursday to talk of his long friendship with
Mr. Durbin and to criticize the "noise machine of the far
right." He did not specifically address his deputy's Nazi speech.
    Asked by Mr. Gill why Democrats are largely silent, Mr.
Cheney said, "I think they're swallowing hard."
    Mr. Durbin, in the process of being rebuked by Senate
Armed Services Chairman John W. Warner, Virginia Republican,
for "insulting" American troops, appeared on the Senate floor
Thursday. Rather than apologize, he reread his Nazi-Soviet
gulag-Pol Pot remarks and explained that he was only referring
to interrogation techniques described in a letter by an FBI
agent. He blamed the flap on the "right-wing media."
    His hometown newspaper, the Chicago Tribune, also
chastised Mr. Durbin in an editorial in yesterday's editions
for his Nazi analogy.
    "To suggest I'm criticizing American servicemen, I am
not," Mr. Durbin said. "But the FBI agent made this report ...
I was attributing this form of interrogations to repressive
regimes."
    In his statement yesterday, he said, "More than 1,700
American soldiers have been killed in Iraq and our country's
standing in the world community has been badly damaged by the
prison abuses at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo. My statement in
the Senate was critical of the policies of this administration
which add to the risk our soldiers face."
    Tuesday night, Mr. Durbin, after reading the FBI agents
letter, said on the Senate floor, "If I read this to you and
did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what
Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would
most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis,
Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or
others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is
not the case. This was the action of Americans in the
treatment of their prisoners."
    Mr. Durbin also lumped in Guantanamo "torture techniques"
with President Franklin Roosevelt's decision to authorize the
internment of Japanese Americans during World War II.
    The American Legion posted a statement on its Web site
calling the senator's speech "outlandish remarks against U.S.
military personnel."
    "There are lies and there are damn lies," said Mr. Cadmus.
"Sen. Durbin knows better and owes every man and woman in the
United States Armed Forces an apology for his totally
inaccurate remarks comparing our sons and daughters to crimes
of Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin and Pol Pot."
    Together, those dictators are responsible for the deaths
of millions of innocent civilians.
    "I would encourage Sen. Durbin to visit Guantanamo -- not
a VIP tour -- but receive POW/MIA training from the United
States Army and spend his August recess working alongside of
the very Americans he defamed," Mr. Cadmus said.
    In criticizing Mr. Durbin, the Legion was joining the
nation's other large veterans group, the Veterans of Foreign
Wars, which issued a critical statement on Thursday. The
2.4-million-member VFW is open to ex-military members who
served overseas in a war zone.
    
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