“Since 1950 the USA has been the chief administrator of suffering and cruelty to the human race.”

You must not get out too much or read the newspaper.

I only wish that the USA had been the worst in the world for the past 60 years, because that would mean that the world was much more peaceful and just than it really was. I am the first to admit that servicemen and women are not innocent babes in the meadow, but compared to some of the monsters that have turned up the past three score years, the world should give thanks to the US each day for it’s gentle hand in dealing with foreign countries and citizens. Most countries that have such tremendous power tend to use much more stick and much less carrot.

This type of action is a predictable outcome of war. It has happened in all wars and by all sides in all wars. This is why war is to be avoided at all cost. We did choose the Iraq war. Even if we felt Saddam was a real threat to the US, there were still other options left. Senator Levin (no pacifist himself) made just this point in is opposition to the war.

Maybe no one cares, because, just maybe, everyone feels a little guilty.

The subsidized healthcare vs. suicide angle is a good point to make. Why are we more threatened by something like that than we are the undermining of certain principles?

One of these two things really can be closely associated with Communism, but guess which one most loudly is.

Michael,

I would not say priests routinely molest boys, and I would not say members of the military routinely murder civilians. I would not say the Catholic Church molests boys, and I would not say the U.S. military kills civilians. Cover-ups happen often enough in both the Catholic Church and the military for me not to object if someone says the Catholic Church covers up sex abuse or the military covers up murders.

While the abuse rate among Catholic priests is shockingly high — I have seen figures as high as 7 percent of priests being abusers in some areas — by far the majority of priests have never molested anyone, and by far the majority of men in our military have never murdered anyone, or so I believe.

It seems as unfair to me to speak as if all men (and women) in uniform were murderers as it would to speak as if all priests were sexual predators.

The story is credible, but I would accuse the military personnel who killed the prisoners of killing people, and the military (although not the entire military) of covering it up.

If “our boys” did this routinely, and nobody really cared, there would be no need for a cover-up.

Cover-up is the homage which vice pays to virtue, to paraphrase La Rochefoucauld.