From: keyser72@mac.com Subject: Date: April 21, 2005 3:53:51 PM CDT Hankblog

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Sooners: Making Aggies look good by comparison for decades

From the "What the hell is this man smoking?" department, via Norbizness (amongst others) we bring you Senator James Inhofe:

"I'm probably not the only one up at this table that is more outraged by the outrage than we are by the treatment," the Oklahoma Republican said at a U.S. Senate hearing probing the scandal.

"These prisoners, you know they're not there for traffic violations," Inhofe said. "If they're in cellblock 1-A or 1-B, these prisoners, they're murderers, they're terrorists, they're insurgents. Many of them probably have American blood on their hands and here we're so concerned about the treatment of those individuals."


Um, Senator, maybe they don't teach you how to read up there in Oklahoma, so we'll spell it out for you nice and slow.

Via Josh Marshall (again, amongst others identifying the asinine):

Of course, according to American military intelligence officers who spoke with the ICRC, 70% to 90% of the detainees in Iraq were there by mistake.


So they're murders, insurgents, and terrorists...unless, well, they aren't. And of course we know that Inhofe will rush right out to make sure that his oversight will be corrected in the official record. And the media will point it out (to someone's credit, the Yahoo story linked above does list the numbers in the very next paragraph).

Tom Tomorrow also points out
another bit of insanity from the Sooner Senator:

From the Senate hearing on Iraqi prisoner abuse, a few moments ago:

JAMES INHOFE (R-OK): All kinds of accounts are coming out now, many are fictitious I would suggest, one was about a guy being dragged out of a barbershop, this was in the Washington Post this morning, they talked about the person doing this had AK47s...are our troops issued AK47s?

LT GEN LANCE SMITH: They are not, sir.

Hah! Gotcha, lying liberal media! Here's the article, which Inhofe has clearly proven to be factually flawed, right?

Not exactly.

BAQOUBA, Iraq (AP) An American soldier stands at the side of an Iraqi highway, puts his AK-47 on fully automatic and pulls the trigger.

--snip--

''We just do not have enough rifles to equip all of our soldiers. So in certain circumstances we allow soldiers to have an AK-47. They have to demonstrate some proficiency with the weapon ... demonstrate an ability to use it,'' said Lt. Col. Mark Young, commander of the 3rd Battalion, 67th Armor Regiment, 4th Infantry Division.


So not only does the Senator think that it's ok to torture and possibly murder the innocent, he sidesteps the fact that with W.'s folly going to lengths unexpected by anyone among the chickenhawks, we can't afford or are otherwise unwilling to equip our soldiers overseas with the necessary firearms to be able to defend themselves. They've got to pick up what they need along the way.

You have got to be frigging kidding me? How is it this dip has been in the Senate this long? Even Sooners aren't that clueless, are they? I suppose we'll find out in November. Inhofe is not running for re-election. If they put someone in there with half a brain, and a full conscience, then we'll know.