"Some may believe that my remarks crossed the line. To them I extend my heartfelt apologies."It took Durbin, the Democrat's Senate whip, an entire week to decide whether he ought to rescind these words he used to describe the American treatment of potential terrorist detainees at the Pentagon run Naval base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
"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".When called upon at the time to apologize to American troops in service to their country at the dangerous detention facility, Durbin refused, and, the very next day he reread his outrageous remarks to the Senate and demanded that President Bush be the one to apologize.
"This administration should apologize to the American people for abandoning the Geneva Conventions and authorizing torture techniques that put our troops at risk and make Americans less secure".Republican Senators, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, among others, condemned the comparison that Durbin made and noted that his false comments have endangered American troops even more. No Democrats found fault with Durbin's speech, and a number of them came to his defense, including the Democrat leader of the Senate, Harry Reid. Senator Reid blamed the troubles of Dick Dubin on the Republican "noise machine of the far right". Finally, on Tuesday, a fellow Democrat and fellow politico of Illinois, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley, said about Durbin's remarks:"I think it's a disgrace to say that any man or woman in the military would act like that."
A week later, now that Senator Durbin has been lionized in Aljazeera and all the media outlets of the Muslim world for his "frank" words, he has finally decided to apologize. How will he undo the harm done to America by those scandalous comments during the past week, when he and the Democrats were standing firmly by them?
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