Shame

If there were any more ways to be more disgusted over the recent events in Iraq, I haven't found them.

Lynndie R. England, a prison guard who has been prominent in photographs that led to an outcry over treatment of inmates at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, said in a television interview broadcast Tuesday night that she acted on instructions from superior officers.

So now, like we've heard so many times in the past, she was just "following orders". Can we blame her? Can we blame any of them? Of course not. I love how the "superiors" thought the prisoner abuse was funny enough to take pictures of. The kicker is no one in this group had heard of the Geneva Convention (not enough time during training or something). So far, there is nothing in this criminally insane war that has made the first ounce of sense to me, and it just gets worse and worse.

The body of Nicholas Berg, 26, a self-employed telecommunications businessman from West Chester, Pa., was found Saturday near a highway overpass in Baghdad, the same day he was decapitated. In a grisly video posted on an al-Qaeda-linked Web site, after pushing Berg to the floor, men severed his head using sawing motions with a big knife and held it up for the camera. They said his killing was in response to the abuse of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison (see above paragraph). Berg's body was being flown to Dover, Del., on an Air Force plane, the military said.

I find it's too hard to even write much about this except to say this is a nightmare that will never end. Its repercussions will last for decades. But hey, didn't those oil prices come down!! Yep, we showed them.

Contributor Michael Smith submitted a powerful commentary on this story in this week's Rant, called "Who's In Charge Here?" Check it out. Brandon Jones sees it from a slightly different perspective in this week's Lettercol.

"Virgin Vision" vandal arrested.
Regular readers may remember back in PCR #206 our report on the vandalism done to the "Virgin On the Bank Building" (actually the Ugly Duckling Car Rental building) in which the "head and shoulders" of the "miraculous" Virgin Mary image in the windows had been knocked out by large metal pellets.

Recently arrested is 18-year-old Kyle Stanley Maskell, who attends Clearwater High School. He has been charged with felonly criminal mischief. After some friends and family found a slingshot in his room and newspaper articles dealing with the incident strewn about, a confrontation eventually drew a teary confession. Evidently, Maskell, a ward of several foster homes, had nothing to do one night, but felt like he wanted to vent some anger at the world. He took his slingshot and some BBs and the Virgin Mary apparition attracted his attention in the wee hours of the morning. Supposedly, he didn't truly intend to cause so much damage, he just started hurling the large pellets and the window shattering followed.

The saddest thing is there was just no real reason for this. No conspiracy, no statement. Just some bored punk with a slingshot. And a local landmark--admittedly one fraught with controversy and not just a little carnival atmosphere--is destroyed. Many many people from all over the world visited that building because it meant something to them. It should not have been taken from them and this kid with anger control management problems deserves a wee bit more than a "criminal mischief" charge, felony notwithstanding.