Uh-oh. I think you're about to have a John Hawkins problem.

Ha! And all along I thought Sweden was suni. Speaking of freaks in Europe, I saw Amelie once. To say Audrey Tautou is weird is putting it mildly, but anything would be when compared with that flick.

As a related aside to Tautou I have to address this gem from the mcn link you posted:

"Roger Ebert called it a 'delicious pastry of a movie, a lighthearted fantasy in which a winsome heroine overcomes a sad childhood and grows up to bring cheer to the needful and joy to herself. You see it, and later when you think about it, you smile.'"

Yes, but a smile brought on by laughing at French filmmaking is not the same as being touched by its efforts.

Funny.

I was wondering why no one was coming to the aid or speaking for Army Pfc. Lynndie England. She pleaded guilty yesterday to prisoner abuse charges, and faces many years in prison.

She, with little education, no authority, and zero training as a prison guard, becomes the poster child for our depravity. While the authors of the American policy toward Iraqi detainees remain virtually untouched.

The authors are Gonzales (now U.S. attorney general), who drafted the policy; President Bush, who approved it; and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who put it into effect.

If these guys are your heros I suggest you go find another comic book to read.

Nice, so much for supporting the troops.

jacob

Jacob,
As an active duty US Army NCO who has been to Iraq twice, I refuse to come to the defense of PFC England. She is an American Soldier. She attended the same use of force classes, Geneva convention familiarization, and Enemy Prisoner of War courses that every deploying Soldier is required to attend prior to deployment.

Yes, the chain of command was broken. Yes, more people in real authority need to be brought up on charges regarding this incident. But she was there, posing in the pictures and humiliating enemy prisoners. Soldiers.

As Americans, we are rightly or wrongly, held to a higher standard. When we act in such a manner, we lose credibility with the civillian population of the nation we are trying to help. Her actions, and the actions (or inactions) of the people in command, bring real discredit on the United States and the Army, which I have been proud to be associated with for 19 years.

Dan, I admire some of what you say but what legitimate investigation would point the finger (solely) at the troops.

It's like the one gunman theory (Kennedy) if that is what you want to find then you will succeed in finding the evidence to support your position.

I say again you have no farther to look than these guys:
The authors are Gonzales (now U.S. attorney general), who drafted the policy; President Bush, who approved it; and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, who put it into effect.

As Americans, we are rightly or wrongly, held to a higher standard.
I lament that this higher standard doesn't seem to apply to those mentioned.

jacob

Saying the President & Defense Secretary are responsible for the individual actions of soldiers is silly, & would make any war impossible to wage. If anyone should have been canned, it's the (female) general in charge of Abu Ghraib. But Abu Ghraib is a stark lesson to the world that in the American army, there is accountability. England isn't some fall-girl, she knew what she was doing.

(Note that none of these 'fire Rumsfield' types said a peep about Clinton & Wesley Clark's devastating high-altitude bombing of Serbia)

Amen, brother.

The tone of this discussion seems more suited to Little Green Footballs. I'd prefer more pictures of Muslim women in miniskirts acting in bad Turkish movies.

BTW, I just saw pictures of Attaturk's mausoleum. I admire anyone who could transform a calcified empire into a country that can make truly horrid movies where muslim women wear miniskirst (I think I'm obsessed) but I think that tomb is overdone. It makes King Mausolo's own and Emperor's Hadrian's, look tiny. Only Pharaoh's Khufus, is larger.

What is is about anatolians and huge tombs?

This satire is too close to the truth, and that is very sad.

He was a head of state, not some piece of gash

Ok...now a couple of coworkers just stood up to look over the cubiewalls wondering what the heck I'm hysterically laughing at.

o.my.

"If these guys are your heros I suggest you go find another comic book to read."

Jacob, you aren't recommending we re-read the Clinton comic book are you? I think the adult book stores are only selling them used these days...

"The tone of this discussion seems more suited to Little Green Footballs."

I visit LGF a lot. Very serious folks, locked in eternal, near Dantesque struggle with islamo-fascists and moonbats, but so over-subscribed that a blog newbie like me can't post there, because registration is closed--permanently, it would seem. Aside from that, LGF is OK, though truly relentless in content.

I'm wondering what you meant by your comment. Essentially the same?

Redhand: LGF registration issometimes early in the morning for a couple of hours. Be vigilant & you can register

Nicely framed, Jeff. I especially like the remark about Sweden (Part of my ancestry is Danish and Norwegian and we didn't like the Swedes even before they became Humanist Muslimoids.

I have noticed,watching reruns of Sherlock Holmes mysteries, how much more human is the sense of justice that Victorian Sherlo and Doc Watson had. When they witnessed from hiding a blackmailed woman shoot her blackmailer and then leave the scene, they did not bother to call the cops because it seemed to them that justice had been done. He deserved it. But I guess that's just the cowboy in me (or the Victorian gentleman).

Spitting on Saddam seems mild. I myself would demur at plugging him up the choo-choo path. Ick. (And that's a very specific, not a generic Ick!).