Here is a quote from the Fox news piece on a new John Kerry endorsement, the whole story is here:
Presumptive Democratic nominee John Kerry on Friday collected the endorsement of the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, a police union that backed President Bush in the 2000 election.
"After three and a half years of disappointing leadership under George Bush, we need to change course in November and elect a president with a real record of supporting police officers and a lifetime of standing with law enforcement," IBPO President David Holway () said in a statement provided by the Kerry campaign.
Now I was a LA Police Officer for a while and have some experience with "police unions." First of all they are not interested particularly in Law Enforcement as a primary reason for their existence. Their main political goal is to continue to reinforce and strengthen labor laws and collective bargining laws. I quit the LAPD union when I got fed up with all of the ploitical contributions going to nothing but liberal democrats, who were really weak on crime, but really strong on passing more laws helpful to unions.
All that to say, whenever you see "police unions" making poliical endorsements, remember that they do not reflect the political views of about 80% of the actual police officers on the street.
The democrats attempt to lay the blame for the abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the feet of President Bush continues to amaze me (welll at least a little), especially from John Kerry, who constantly reminds everyone who will listen that he served with honor in the Vietnam war.
A couple of points and a question:
First of all, I was an LA police officer and know a little bit about jails and handling prisoners. The abuses that have been forthcoming are abhorent and have been, as they should be, roundly and thoroughly criticized by all Americans and all of the military and political apparatus of the this administration. This is so clearly the actions of a small group of disturbed military personnel who violated the most basic aspects of prisoner control.
The excuses coming forth that the MP's were (1) poorly trained, and (2) did not have a working knowledge of the Geneva Conventions, is nothing more than the excuses of people trying to cover themselves (i.e. the commanding general) or blame shift (i.e. the perpertrators of these atrocities). What sort of training is required, beyond common sense that prisoners are not to be abused and humilitated (the word spreads in a prison like this and it isn't long until prisoners sieze an opportune moment for revenge). What sort of "working knowledge" of the Geneva Convention is required to know that what they did was thoroughly and patently wrong?
The people involved should be court martialed and sent to hard labor in some forsaken desert military prison for their crimes. The commanding general (a woman) should be held accountable as normal in the military, reduced in rank to the lowest possible level and dishonourably discharged (but since she is a woman, I wonder what her actual punishment will be?)
However, to claim that Secretary Rumsfeld and President Bush hold some "chain of command responsibility beyond initiating a swift and thorough investigation and even swifter justice for those involved, is absurd.
In relation to this, here is a question for John Kerry. "You have claimed in several venues that in Vietnam soldiers were routinely committing acts of atrocities. In your opinion does that mean that President Johnson (a democrat) fostered and atmosphere for such atrocities? Should he be held accountable personallty in the history books? A legitimate question all things considered I think.