[Preechr]

Honestly, the biggest problem I have with the public debate on American "War Crimes" is that it looks just a little too similar to the public debates on everything else we've been having lately. Yellowcake, War for Oil, Plamegate, retired Generals, Abu Ghraib, Gitmo... the list goes on and on... All of these SCANDALS wind up being, more than anything else, political muckraking.

That the "War Hero" Murtha is at the forefront here makes me nauseous. Murtha is a creep, and his "War Hero" status makes John Kerry look like Rosie the Riveter... as nobody could make Kerry look like Jessica Lynch, much less Audie Murphy.

Slamming Marines in the brig and clapping them in shackles goes WAY beyond the spectacle "endured" by the dust mote of the Plame family. I have had my fill of Democrat pseudo-scandal, and this fits the pattern of the immediate past much to closely for me to avoid suspicions that there is no more scandal here than has been in any of the other efforts to cast the war, and thus the Bush Administration, in a negative light.

If I am wrong, fine. Prosecute anyone guilty of war crimes and move on to win the war on the high road. If I am right, then Murtha needs to be sitting in a brig somewhere, alongside whatever Democrat hacks came up with this plan. If I am right, and it turns out that these soldiers acted within the code of military conduct, then I want investigations into the Democratic Party and the media.

War is a serious business. People die. I feel I can be a libertarian and still object to "Freedom of the Press" and "Freedom of Speech" when it is abused in such a way. We have laws against lying that results in theft of property or loss of life, and I see no reason to extend the press or any politician any more liberty in a time of war (ESPECIALLY in a time of war) than the liberties they enjoy in peacetime.

If a political party campaigned for an election on the basis that we should burn all gays or ship all the blacks back to Africa in hopes the race dies of AIDS, the violence that would stir would be unnacceptable... If the wholesale media is involved in such a thing, then it should be judged to have violated the contract it holds with the society that supports it. I feel this sort of political attack, if it proves to be unfounded in reality, is just that disgusting.