Iraqi Prisoner Scandal Hurting U.S. Credibility

The worst thing has happened to the war effort in Iraq. A group of American dopes — dodos, morons and stupid, actual criminals — have been caught horribly mistreating Iraqi prisoners.

Now it's bad enough that they did this — you heard President Bush say it was despicable — and they should be prosecuted to the max. In the words of Richard Armitage (search), the assistant secretary of state, when speaking about the crooks in the corrupt U.N. Oil for Food program: they should hang.

But what is so bad about this is that the Europeans and Arabs are going absolutely nuts over it. This incident, these pictures are being represented as the emblem of the U.S. efforts in Iraq.

The Brits are saying, "See, we told you." The French are saying the same thing, and you can only imagine how they are playing in the Arab world on Al Jazeera (search).

I think Americans look at those pictures in disgust. These aren't the Americans they sent to Iraq to make things right. This isn't the American way of doing things.

But as of now... the world is going to say these pictures are not an aberration, but the real story.

So the guilty people in these pictures have committed one enormous crime — abuse of prisoners — and an even more serious and damaging crime, which is undermining the effort of the U.S. in Iraq.

That's My Word.

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