July 22, 2005

Inside the Ring

Soldiers from Massachusetts and Hawaii who work at the U.S. military detention facility at U.S. Naval Base Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, gave visiting home-state senators a piece of their mind last week.
    
Sens. Edward M. Kennedy, Massachusetts Democrat, and Daniel K. Akaka, Hawaii Democrat, met with several soldiers during a visit led by Armed Services Committee Chairman Sen. John W. Warner, Virginia Republican.
   
 Pentagon officials said soldiers criticized the harsh comments made recently by Senate Democrats.
    
Sen. Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, the Senate's No. 2 Democrat, last month invoked widespread military outrage when he compared Guantanamo to the prison labor systems used by communist tyrant Josef Stalin, Cambodia's Pol Pot and Adolf Hitler.
    
"They got stiff reactions from those home-state soldiers," one official told us. "The troops down there expressed their disdain for that kind of commentary, especially comparisons to the gulag."

Hooah!
These men have been asking for this for a long time and it's high time they were held accountable for their irresponsible criticisms.
(Still can't believe Kennedy was dumb enough to show his face to these fine soldiers after what he's said about them, but it's only fair that the "accused" be allowed to face their accusers and set the record straight.)