Tuesday, November 15, 2005

Would that the Roman People Had A Single Neck....

It is rather outrageous that some have dared compare George Bush to Der Fuhrer. As every historian will tell you, it is simply, flatly, wrong to continue discounting the legacy of one Gaius Germanicus, popularly known as Caligula:

"Two Iraqi men who were arrested in Iraq in 2003 but never charged with crimes say that U.S. troops put them in a cage with lions, pretended to execute them in a firing line and humiliated them during interrogations at multiple detention facilities.

Sherzad Khalid, 35, and Thahe Sabber, 37, say they were brutally beaten over several months at U.S. facilities such as Camp Bucca, Abu Ghraib prison and another detention facility at the Baghdad airport. They said the abuse occurred when they were unable to tell U.S. troops where Saddam Hussein was hiding and did not know about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

The two men are plaintiffs in a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Human Rights First against Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld and top military commanders in Iraq. The suit contends that U.S. policies during the war allowed abuse and torture. Both men say that they were tortured and degraded for months before they were released.

"That was a terrifying period for me," Khalid said through an interpreter yesterday, slowly recounting being shoved into a lion's cage at one of the presidential palaces in Baghdad three times before soldiers lined him up for a mock execution. "I was wondering if it could be real that the American army would act this way."
... (Josh White, "Abuse Included Use of Lions, Iraqis Allege," Washington Post, Nov. 15, 2005).

I know, I know, Caligula probably did not appoint his favorite horse to the Roman Senate, as is widely alleged by some historians. But don't you get it? Every good disciple has to surpass his mentor. Hence Michael Brown, FEMA boss.

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