Letter to Newsday time!

As acquaintances know, I am always frothing spittle about something or other. But it's only about once a year that I get annoyed enough to actually write to the newspaper about an issue. I actually have a decent publication rate, too. So anyway, I just wrote to Newsday about a couple of closely related issues that could make the Rove/Libby scandal look like small potatoes. Keep an eye out over the next few days.

To The Editors:

The Bush Administration has gone to court to block the release of further images from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. These photos and video document women being raped, Iraqi guards sodomizing children as Americans stood by and/or filmed, and other heinous acts. Republican senator Lindsey Graham has said that they're evidence of "rape and murder." Even Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld has said that these photos depict "acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman."

Meanwhile, the President is threatening to veto the Senate military appropriations bill if it contains an amendment setting up a commission to investigate abuses like the ones captured in these photos. He doesn't even want the Senate to create rules regarding the humane treatment of our prisoners at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib--the majority of whom committed no crimes. The Administration claims that the investigations and rules will cost too much, and will "[divert] resources from the war."

President Bush says that he will make sure that we don't properly investigate, prevent, or even see the evidence of child rape by our forces - or he will cut off funding of our national defense resources. Is this cover-up of rape and torture really more important than our national security now? Sad to say, our president seems to think so, and it nauseates me.

- Josh
(name, address, and phone supplied)