by Phillip Fears

Created on: September 05, 2007

When I was a young kid, I avidly read comic books. Spiderman was one of my favorites, and Sgt. Rock of Easy Company my least favorite. But, I did read Sgt. Rock on occasion, and recent events have triggered a memory of one. In this comic, Sgt. Rock is taken captive by the Nazis and is being interrogated. When violence fails, the Nazis send in a beautiful girl to try to lure the truth out of Rock. She's probably why I remember this one, as she was drawn rather sexily. I also remember thinking how diabolical those Nazis where to use her in that way. Now that information about US interrogation tactics leaks out of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, we can see that I wasn't the only one reading Sgt. Rock that year. Perhaps that story resonated with the young Karl Rove as well. At any rate, the story that we are using sexy young CIA contractors to vamp the poor Muslim guys is certainly disturbing.

This also extends to our rather tepid reaction to the recent capture of British military personnel by Iran. Honestly, how could we possibly lecture the Iranians on their treatment of the British, when the whole world knows about our water-boarding and sleep deprivation techniques.
Finally, we have once again shown ourselves, as a nation to be represented by a pack of moral hypocrites. We howl with moral indignation for the extradition of Tre Arrow from Canada for what amounts to a series of property crimes. Certainly damaging and dangerous acts, but property crimes none the less. At the same time we can block the extradition to Venezuela and allow the release of Luis Posada Carriles, a man who is generally believed to have been involved in the blowing up of a plane with 73 people on board. This is more than twice the body count at Virginia Tech, and we let this guy walk? The only explanation seems to be that he worked for the CIA, we don't want to give Chavez credit for his trial, and the dead were Cubans. Can you imagine the outrage in this country if the positions were reversed? If Hugo Chavez was blocking the extradition of a mass-murderer of US citizens? Fox News would blow a gasket.
I truly am ashamed of the people who lead this country, mainly because they are trying very hard to make me ashamed of being American. We cannot let them do this. Vote, agitate, but do not stay the course.

Learn more about this author, Phillip Fears.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.