This is Floyd Wynne with THE VIEW FROM HERE 5-11-04

What price honor?

Every American was shocked when they saw the pictures of the Iraqi prisoners being used for a purpose.

That’s exactly what it was......used for a purpose.

No one has yet had an answer as to why not only was the mistreatment done....but who took the pictures.....under whose orders and under whose command. Those are the answers that may be forthcoming in the first of a series of courtmartial's later this month.

But the misdeeds of a few should not be allowed to dishonor the young men and women fighting the insurgence in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

But, in all fairness one must ask......where is the outrage to human decency when roadside bombs....kill our young people.....when innocent people, intent only on humanitarian duties, are massacred and their bodies dragged through the streets and then hanged on a bridge.

Where is the outrage as bomb are thrown into crowded cafes or elsewhere and innocent human beings are slaughtered?

It seems to be only when Americans do misdeeds that the world rises up in condemnation.

Is our sense of honor and decency a handicap in this terrible war on terrorism? The answer obviously is yes. The terrorists have no compunction to using any and all means of killing to further their ends. It doesn’t matter that women and children are killed in the process.

America.....open your eyes to the terrorist threat. It is all around the world.....and it did come home on the fateful day in September three years ago.

The terrorist camps in Afghanistan turned out thousands of men after teaching them how to kill. Those thousands have spread around the world during the last decade....and now have begun their terrible deeds of destruction.

America has done nothing but cut and run ever since Vietnam all the while being the only superpower in the world. Even then...we were divided on the conflict....and the voices decrying the attacks on My Lai....called massacres.....led us to eventually cut and run.

A downed helicopter and the bodies of American servicemen dragged through the streets...drove us out of Mogadishu...remember.

Where were the criticisms of the death march at Bataan that claimed over ten thousand lives? Where were the criticisms of the Germans for the atrocities of the Holocaust?

We live in a dangerous world....and at the moment...here at home in an intensely political world....where one political faction has done nothing but hurl invectives and criticize every action that the current administration makes....in the hopes of gaining some political edge.

We have our brave young people fighting and dying in Iraq for the very freedom that we not only enjoy....but at times use for personal gain.

Yes.....we do have honor. That is the flagship of America....but it can also destroy us. Honor must be exercised along with duty and country.....but as one famous general once said....there is no substitute for victory.

Let’s not let the misdeeds of a few misled people color our views of what we wish to accomplish in bringing freedom to the 25 million people of Iraq.

Those misdeeds will be punished.....but the conflict must be won or terrorism will become a way of life....not only abroad, but here at home as well.

Yes....honor.....but at what cost?

This is Floyd Wynne and that’s THE VIEW FROM HERE.