“Double Standard” Doesn’t Do It Justice

This, I guess, is what bothers me about the purported outrage over treatment of Iraqi prisoners by American troops. Today there was a demonstration in London by supporters of Osama bin Laden and others who chanted, “We are terrorists,” and “Bomb London, bomb New York,” while celebrating the September 11 attacks. The protest was directed against supposed atrocities committed by coalition troops:
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Is this our freedom? Well, no, I don’t suppose anyone would say that. But the fact that the people who abused Iraqi prisoners are being punished rather than praised, and the fact that the abused prisoners were not, in fact, injured, let alone burned alive or crushed under tons of rubble like the September 11 victims, are among the results of our freedom.
What standing do people who openly applaud mass murder have to protest against the abuses at Abu Ghraib? And how genuine can their “outrage” possibly be?

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