The Scrutinator

United Press International Defense Correspondent Pamela Hess (no raving neo-con) describes what she saw in Iraq. Worth your time to watch, but beware: she describes some pretty horrific violence.

Some of what she says...

I found incredible idealism and incredible humanity over there...

I don't think Americans understand the incredible savagery and the violence that American military officers are seeing every day over there and ... I think that is really centrally the key to why they're so confident and so determined and so optimistic.

One officer, Captain Matt Tracey, ... said ... "Every morning I wake up and I feel like I'm pushing a little girl out of the way of a bus. And I pick her up and I bring her to the other side of the road, and I've saved that little girl." He said, "Every day I feel like that." And, in fact, that is what's happening there. ...

It's real evil, and that's a hard word I think for people here to hear, ... but I'm just not sure ... what other word there can be for people who are shooting kids in the face.

There were a whole class of people there who are professionally violent, who worked for Saddam Hussein. ...

She gets choked up and says, "this is very unprofessional..." No apology necessary. I'm glad she cares enough about civilization over barbarity.

Keep in mind that what she's describing is really Saddam's brand of Stalinism: systematic, brutal oppression. He perpetrated it for decades, with hundreds of thousands dying with no voice.

Hat-tip Hot Air.

By The Scrutinator @ 10:56 PM