# Is the whole of Congress on dope? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 10, 2006, 4:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-whole-of-congress-on-dope/363826 "2006-07-10T04:21:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Syntropy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Syntropy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Syntropy)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 10:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-whole-of-congress-on-dope/363826/21 "2006-07-10T22:24:06Z")
[QUOTE=flickster] WTF While this one case is vile and if the **individuals** are found guilty - they will be punished. But to say that most of the violence is being committed by us. Do you not watch the news? Every day there are stories of slaughter of innocents on buses, in markets, in mosques, etc by sectarian extremist. Do you not classify that as violence? [/QUOTE] Do you not possess the ability to see a sentence in context and view it as sarcasm? ---
**Author:** ![flickster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/7bcc69/32.png) [@flickster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flickster)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 11:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-whole-of-congress-on-dope/363826/22 "2006-07-10T23:27:48Z")
[QUOTE=Maureen] Do you not possess the ability to see a sentence in context and view it as sarcasm? [/QUOTE] > [@Maureen](#): > > Yes. In spite of this troubling little trifle of a girl raped and murdered and her family murdered by our soldiers, we’re making real progress. Most of the violence is committed by us now. I can be about as sarcastic as they come, but your attempt missed me. ---
**Author:** ![Syntropy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/65b543/32.png) [@Syntropy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Syntropy)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 11:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-whole-of-congress-on-dope/363826/23 "2006-07-10T23:36:31Z")
Okay…then would you take my word that what you took to be a serious statement was, in fact, me taking a facetious swipe at an elected official’s attempt to downplay a very serious issue? Hyperbole, one might even say? ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2006, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-whole-of-congress-on-dope/363826/24 "2006-07-10T23:42:40Z")
I see the tactic of merely calling the incident “troubling” and then quickly moving on to some boilerplate cheerleading for the war as dismissive and borderline evasive but I don’t see it as a positive spin. It was more like an attempt to simply change the subject and avoid talking about something that can’t help but be bad PR for the Iraq campaign. This is a technique that all politicians are practiced at. They give a token one or two word response and then change the subject in the next breath. Usually they try to fillibuster the change of topic long enough so that the viewers (and hopefully the interviewer) will forget what the actual question was. It’s extremely aggravating to me as a viewer. It always pisses me off that so many interviewers allow them to do it and won’t drag them back on topic. ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 1:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-whole-of-congress-on-dope/363826/25 "2006-07-11T01:04:20Z")
[QUOTE=Diogenes the Cynic] It was more like an attempt to simply change the subject and avoid talking about something that can’t help but be bad PR for the Iraq campaign. [/QUOTE] It begins to look like it may be more than just a PR disaster: [Iraq says to ask U.N. to end US immunity](http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-07-10T210647Z_01_KAR040738_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-RAPE.xml) > [@](#): > > Iraq will ask the United Nations to end immunity from local law for U.S. troops, the government said on Monday, as the U.S. military named five soldiers charged in a rape-murder case that has outraged Iraqis. > > In an interview a week after Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki demanded a review of foreign troops’ immunity, Human Rights Minister Wigdan Michael said work on it was now under way and a request could be ready by next month to go to the U.N. Security Council, under whose mandate U.S.-led forces operate in Iraq. > > “We’re very serious about this,” she said, adding a lack of enforcement of U.S. military law in the past had encouraged soldiers to commit crimes against Iraqi civilians. > > “We formed a committee last week to prepare reports and put it before the cabinet in three weeks. After that, Maliki will present it to the Security Council. We will ask them to lift the immunity,” Michael said. ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 1:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-whole-of-congress-on-dope/363826/26 "2006-07-11T01:45:28Z")
[QUOTE=KGS] Having GOD on your side is all the justification certain people need to turn a blind eye to rape, torture, and murder. [/QUOTE] It’s my understanding that the soldier(s) involved have been arrested, are facing trial, and if found guilty could be sentenced to death. Is this a new definition of “turning a blind eye” that I am not familiar with? ---
**Author:** ![Revenant\_Threshold](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/f1d935/32.png) [@Revenant\_Threshold](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Revenant_Threshold)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 1:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-whole-of-congress-on-dope/363826/27 "2006-07-11T01:53:45Z")
[QUOTE=Weirddave] It’s my understanding that the soldier(s) involved have been arrested, are facing trial, and if found guilty could be sentenced to death. Is this a new definition of “turning a blind eye” that I am not familiar with? [/QUOTE] Not that I agree with **KGS** entirely, but seeing as how the soldiers concerned will be tried by a _military_ court for breaking a military-based rule, it’s perfectly reasonable to say that members of government are attempting to ignore it. That the soldiers are to be tried has absolutely nothing to do with the government, beyond the setting of laws in the first place. ---
**Author:** ![Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/e36b37/32.png) [@Airman\_Doors\_USAF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Airman_Doors_USAF)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 1:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-whole-of-congress-on-dope/363826/28 "2006-07-11T01:55:28Z")
[QUOTE=Squink] It begins to look like it may be more than just a PR disaster: [Iraq says to ask U.N. to end US immunity](http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=newsOne&storyID=2006-07-10T210647Z_01_KAR040738_RTRUKOC_0_US-IRAQ-RAPE.xml) [/QUOTE] That’s perfectly legitimate, as long as the judicial body remains apolitical. As soon as they start charging US soldiers willy-nilly simply for being in Iraq with war crimes I will again voice my objection. That’s what the objection was in the first place, after all. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 3:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-whole-of-congress-on-dope/363826/29 "2006-07-11T03:25:28Z")
[QUOTE=Weirddave] It’s my understanding that the soldier(s) involved have been arrested, are facing trial, and if found guilty could be sentenced to death. Is this a new definition of “turning a blind eye” that I am not familiar with? [/QUOTE] **Congressman Lugar** (who has no involvement with the prosecutions) is the one turning a blind eye. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-whole-of-congress-on-dope/363826/30 "2006-07-11T03:26:43Z")
Sorry, Senator Lugar. (Not “Luger.”) ---
**Author:** ![KGS](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/90ced4/32.png) [@KGS](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KGS)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-whole-of-congress-on-dope/363826/31 "2006-07-11T03:58:09Z")
[QUOTE=Revenant Threshold] Not that I agree with **KGS** entirely, but seeing as how the soldiers concerned will be tried by a _military_ court for breaking a military-based rule, it’s perfectly reasonable to say that members of government are attempting to ignore it. [/QUOTE] Thing is, if our troops weren’t over there in the first place, this incident _never would have happened._ The gov’t know it, and that’s why they’re so mealy-mouthed about it. Lucky for them, most of the American public is too apathetic and brainwashed to give a shit…but if our nightly news entertainment starts pushing aside the Duke Rapists for the Iraq Rapists, people _will_ start to give a shit. And the election’s in four months. Frankly, I’d _love_ to see these child-raping motherfucks tried under Iraqi law. Don’t they still hold public beheadings? Or stonings? I’d love to watch the executions live on Al-Jazeera. Hell, make it a PPV event. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 3:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-whole-of-congress-on-dope/363826/32 "2006-07-11T03:59:09Z")
[QUOTE=Onomatopoeia] **Is the whole of Congress on dope?** [/QUOTE] That might actually be an improvement . . . ---
**Author:** ![Weirddave](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/919ad9/32.png) [@Weirddave](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Weirddave)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 4:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-whole-of-congress-on-dope/363826/33 "2006-07-11T04:41:22Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Sorry, Senator Lugar. (Not “Luger.”) [/QUOTE] Yea, he’s a pistol all right. ---
**Author:** ![Onomatopoeia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/onomatopoeia/32/4145_2.png) [@Onomatopoeia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Onomatopoeia)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 5:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-whole-of-congress-on-dope/363826/34 "2006-07-11T05:00:37Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Sorry, Senator Lugar. (Not “Luger.”) [/QUOTE] Oops! :eek: Thanks for the correction. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 2:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-whole-of-congress-on-dope/363826/35 "2006-07-11T14:56:55Z")
[QUOTE=KGS] Frankly, I’d _love_ to see these child-raping motherfucks tried under Iraqi law. [/QUOTE] Jailhouse tip, guys: “Saddam the Slug” has the best cigarettes! 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e99b99/32.png) [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Diogenes_the_Cynic)\ **Post date:** [July 11, 2006, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-whole-of-congress-on-dope/363826/36 "2006-07-11T15:04:39Z")
[QUOTE=BrainGlutton] Jailhouse tip, guys: “Saddam the Slug” has the best cigarettes! 😃 [/QUOTE] That’s the good news. The bad news is…he prefers jelly. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-the-whole-of-congress-on-dope/363826.md?page=1)