Durbin's Morgenthaler endorsement

An email from her campaign,

New Endorsements With just one week to go before Illinois voters head to the polls, United States Senator Dick Durbin has endorsed Jill Morgenthaler for Congress in Illinois ’ 6th District.

Senator Durbin said:

“ Jill Morgenthaler is a mom and a patriot who served her country for 30 years in the armed forces with tours in Iraq, Bosnia, Germany and Korea .

"Over the last few years, running Illinois ’ homeland security department, Jill’s made our state safer with innovation and a can-do attitude.

Jill’s combination of commonsense Illinois values and homeland security experience make her just the right person to represent the 6th district. I lend her my support in the Democratic primary, and I look forward to helping her win in November.”

Jill has also been endorsed by the Pioneer Press, Daily Herald, Sun Times, and the Chicago Tribune.

How Durbin and Morganthaler square their words will be something Roskam should ask.

Colonel Morganthaler,

Figen shared with me what it was like to spend 7 months under Iraqi occupation. As she told me the horrors of living in Kuwait under the occupation, I realized that if we had not had the first war, Saddam may have been impossible to stop with the oil under his total control. The men who did terrible things to the Kuwaitis, especially the Kuwaiti women are very similar to the men we are fighting. As people get upset about Abu Ghraib, one thing that should never be forgotten: these are men who have murdered Americans and would continue to murder Americans if given the opportunity.

Sen Durbin, (PDF file)

When you read some of the graphic descriptions of what has occurred here -- I almost hesitate to put them in the record, and yet they have to be added to this debate. Let me read to you what one FBI agent saw. And I quote from his report:

On a couple of occasions, I entered interview rooms to find a detainee chained hand and foot in a fetal position to the floor, with no chair, food or water. Most times they urinated or defecated on themselves, and had been left there for 18-24 hours or more. On one occasion, the air conditioning had been turned down so far and the temperature was so cold in the room, that the barefooted detainee was shaking with cold....

On another occasion, the [air conditioner] had been turned off, making the temperature in the unventilated room well over 100 degrees. The detainee was almost unconscious on the floor, with a pile of hair next to him. He had apparently been literally pulling his hair out throughout the night. On another occasion, not only was the temperature unbearably hot, but extremely loud rap music was being played in the room, and had been since the day before, with the detainee chained hand and foot in the fetal position on the tile floor.

If I read this to you and did not tell you that it was an FBI agent describing what Americans had done to prisoners in their control, you would most certainly believe this must have been done by Nazis, Soviets in their gulags, or some mad regime -- Pol Pot or others -- that had no concern for human beings. Sadly, that is not the case. This was the action of Americans in the treatment of their prisoners.

I'd like to know if those abused at Abu Garib murdered Americans as Morganther said, if she believes they would continue, and if so, does she think Durbin ought never forget?

Update: Colonel Morgenthaler from today's Trib.

Morgenthaler does not support a pullout of troops and said she believes it is likely the U.S. will have to maintain a presence of 30,000 troops because of its national interests in the region. The surge is working, she said.

“What the surge is not capable of is bringing the political solutions to Iraq. I don’t know if democracy is exportable. I think it has to be homegrown,” she said.

She's a Democrat I could support. If Durbin agrees, he should say so.

Now, I wish she'd express some regret on the those Abu Garib comments and instead quote the Taguba report on the real heros from that sad public-relations defeat,

4. (U) The individual Soldiers and Sailors that we observed and believe should be favorably noted include:

a. (U) Master-at-Arms First Class William J. Kimbro, US Navy Dog Handler, knew his duties and refused to participate in improper interrogations despite significant pressure from the MI personnel at Abu Ghraib.

b. (U) SPC Joseph M. Darby, 372nd MP Company discovered evidence of abuse and turned it over to military law enforcement.

c. (U) 1LT David O. Sutton, 229th MP Company, took immediate action and stopped an abuse, then reported the incident to the chain of command.

I don't think you'll find soldiers like this in any other Army in the world.