Let's look at torture.

The Democrats and the media played up the Abu Ghraib scandal even though it was clearly an isolated instance of prisoner abuse which, while deplorable, did not come close to what Saddam Hussein committed during his dictatorship. Yet you hardly hear a sound from Democrats or the media on how thankful we are that this man is no longer torturing people.

Let's take a look back, shall we? via Newsweek

"One former prisoner he talked to, Anwar Abdul Razak, remembers when a surgeon kissed him on each cheek, said he was sorry and cut his ears off. Razak, then 21 years old, had been swept up during one of Saddam Hussein’s periodic crackdowns on deserters from the Army. Razak says he was innocently on leave at the time, but no matter; he had been seized by some Baath Party members who earned bounties for catching Army deserters. At Basra Hospital, Razak’s ears were sliced off without painkillers. He said he was thrown into jail with 750 men, all with bloody stumps where their ears had been. “They called us Abu [Arabic for father] Earless,” recalls Razak, whose fiancee left him because of his disfigurement."

No humilating pictures, but I'd say Razak wins the "I really got tortured" award over anyone at Abu Ghraib.

No one is sure how many men were mutilated during that particular spasm of terror, but from May 17 to 19, 1994, all the available surgeons worked shifts at all of Basra’s major hospitals, lopping off ears. (One doctor who refused was shot.)

It is hard to measure the depth of Saddam’s wickedness or the devastation he wreaked. In Baghdad last week, silent families wandered through Saddam’s jails and dungeons, looking for long-lost loved ones. They were convinced there had to be an underground prison, somewhere. But the jails were empty. At the Abu Ghurayb Prison, neighbors had witnessed convoys of buses carrying prisoners away before the first American bombs began to fall. Where to? No one seemed to know.

Issa was tortured for simply not joining the Baath Party:

As part of the prison routine, Issa was tortured daily, sometimes twice a day. Battery acid was spilled on his feet, which are now deformed. With his hands bound behind his back, he was hanged by his wrists from the ceiling until his shoulders dislocated; he still cannot lift his hands above his head. The interrogators’ goal: “They just wanted me to say I was plotting against the Baath Party, so they could take me and execute me. If they got a confession, they would get 100,000 dinars [roughly $40].”

Even paying bribes didn't keep one from this:

Kubba’s money insulated his family from mayhem, but it did not shield him from witnessing the almost casual slaughter of his people. Last week he recalled a “scene that haunts me still.” Kubba was driving his Mercedes through Basra’s Saad Square when he came upon some 600 men who had been detained while police checked their IDs. According to Kubba, “Chemical Ali” Hassan al-Majid, Saddam’s half brother and the tyrant of southern Iraq, stopped and inquired, “No IDs? Just shoot them all.” Kubba watched as “they shot over 600 people in front of me.”

The fates of thousands of others are buried in Saddam’s numerous prisons. One of the most notorious was the IIS prison at Haakimiya, near a bustling commercial area in downtown Baghdad. A nondescript five-story building notable only by the extra barbed wire on the roof, the Haakimiya Prison is actually 10 stories. Belowground are interrogation cells where unspeakable horrors were committed. NEWSWEEK’s Liu, prowling the dank and empty halls, ran into a former inmate, Mohsen Mutar Ulga, 34, who was searching for documents about his cousin, executed under Saddam. Ulga said he was sentenced to 12 years in jail for belonging to an armed religious group called “the revenge movement for Sadr,” referring to a martyred Shiite cleric. He had been arrested with 19 others; the lucky ones were executed right away. The rest were tortured with electric cattle prods and forced to watch the prison guards gang-rape their wives and sisters.


THIS, my friends, is torture. THIS is what we took down. THIS is what the Democrats seem to be arguing that we shouldn't have gone to war for. They now say this man was not a threat. They would rather rail against America for an isolated incident than be grateful that we saved a country from THIS.

Next time a lefty tells you that this war is a failure, show them this.

Ask them if stopping this was a failure?