Hey Thanks Guys

Big shout-out and sincere thanks to John Yoo and Abu Gonzales, two fun and swinging moral relativists whose rewriting of national policy regarding torture and the Geneva Conventions has led to the increased likelihood of incidents like this:

U.S. forces on Tuesday recovered the bodies of two American soldiers reported captured by insurgents last week. An Iraqi defense ministry official said the men were tortured and "killed in a barbaric way." Al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility for killing the soldiers, and said the successor to terror leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi had "slaughtered" them.

The claim was made in a Web statement that could not be authenticated. The language in the statement suggested the men were beheaded.

U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said the remains were believed to be those of Pfc. Kristian Menchaca, 23, of Houston, and Pfc. Thomas L. Tucker, 25, of Madras, Ore. [...]

The director of the Iraqi defense ministry's operation room, Maj. Gen. Abdul-Aziz Mohammed, said the bodies showed signs of having been tortured. "With great regret, they were killed in a barbaric way," he said.

There's a "chicken-or-the-egg" argument that will be made about who tortured who first and about how we have to fight fire with fire. But to be sure, when you unequivocally state that torture is an acceptable and necessary part of standard military practice, you don't have much of an ethical leg to stand on when your troops are treated the same way. And it disgusts me that this is so.

More here and here.