Barry Farber
Monday, May 10, 2004

Educated people around the world know that Americans are the “nicest” warriors in history. We’re the ones who dismantle torture chambers; remember? We’re the ones who close those dungeons down. We’re the ones who liberate concentration camps, feed the starving, tend to the ill and dying, teach the kids “candy,” “chewing gum,” and “What’cha know, Joe?”

And, if it’s Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower in charge, he’ll march the “non-involved” local folk from their homes to and through the camps to witness the gaunt bodies stacked like cord-wood in order to: a) give them a righteous stomach-full, and; b) make sure they don’t try in their lifetimes to try to tell the world it didn’t happen.

That’s what the EDUCATED people around the world know. Focus on that for a few seconds! And then, let it go. Forget it! At least forget it until the world becomes perfect. The “best” in anything are widely hated. And for no other reason!

The educated people know what is. The educated know you go to France if you want a really good quiche. You go to Russia if you want caviar. You go to Italy if you want to hear quality singing in the shower. You go to Finland if you want your war debts repaid. And you go to America if you want the world’s best treatment of prisoners of war. (A few other countries treat their prisoners as humanely as we do, but America’s wealth enables us to provide better meals, medical care, etc.)

That’s what is. But in the real world, what IS doesn’t count. What counts is what your enemies can MAKE of what is. And what our enemies can make of the American mistreatment of Iraqi prisoners is limitless.

“We’ve always known these 'democracy-preaching' infidels are the worst people on earth” is the message reverberating in every language spoken by Moslems, from Arabic to Indonesian. “And now the Americans have ADMITTED that they’re the worst people on earth! Listen to their apologies and their groveling for our forgiveness!”

It’s rough to be led away after being pronounced “The Worst” to know in your heart from your history that you’re really “The Best.”

Only the smart and the brave around the world can now be expected to rise up and shout, “This is not America! What we see in those pictures does not square with America’s lifelong tradition of humane treatment of war prisoners.”

Don’t expect to hear that from the Arab Street, any mosque in the world, allies who cheer our military prowess only when we’re liberating THEM, or even Democrats who know they need a few good disasters to win back the White House and Congress.

The only group that could shout them down doesn’t exist. That would be the International Association of Former Enemies of America who Were Lucky Enough To Become American Prisoners of War!

Is this the ultimate disaster that impales America’s credibility and moral authority deep into the future? No way!

Enemies have a much better chance of demonizing you when history’s wind is with them. Where is any previous accusation of American mistreatment of prisoners? It doesn’t exist. By the second weekend of the “Humiliation” scandal the denouncements already began to ring hollow.

No matter how hard our enemies – over there and over here – try to nail us on this one, the effect will be a little like pouring Chanel No. 5 perfume on a healthy skunk. You’ll achieve a certain momentary fragrance, but it’s a losing battle.

The perfume of America’s past will waft pleasantly over the arena when the enemies run out of stink bombs.

And the Dump Rumsfeld campaign looks like a boxer who tired early in round one. Those top Democrats crying for Rumsfeld’s removal seemed to gag on their own insincerity and opportunism.

The truth is no helpless girl scout shivering in a mine field on a cold night. The word is out worldwide: “No matter what they say about America, get there if you can. And send money back to those of us who can’t go. And if there’s ever another world war and America’s on the other side, by all means try to get yourself captured by THEM and nobody else.”

A veteran of OSS, the forerunner organization of the CIA, told me how they got all the vital information they desired from the German soldiers they’d captured in early 1945. They knew that every single German had been warned to fall, if possible, into American hands and definitely not into the hands of the Russians.

The OSS did not use torture, mistreatment, sexual humiliation or angry dogs. They simply dressed up one of their own men in the uniform of a Russian colonel and let him hang out around the prison camp saying things like “Da” and “Niet” and making what sounded like other Slavic utterances.

The German prisoners looked bug-eyed when they saw him. And when the Germans would ask their GI captors, “Who’s he?” the American would casually explain: “Oh, that’s Colonel Volkov. He’s our liaison with the Russian Army. All Germans who refuse to cooperate with our interrogators are handed over to Col. Volkov. He has a bus coming Tuesday night to take them all to a Soviet prison camp over in the Russian sector.”

Barry Farber is heard weekdays 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. on the Talk Radio Network, www.talkradionetwork.com.