The Redhunter

Earlier this week, it was the Bush administration's legal advisers, who had the audacity to write opinions on the legal limits of "enhanced interrogation techniques." They dared to include as legal for use against terrorists procedures that are part of our own Special Forces' training. Then yesterday the Obama administration could not resist its instinctive temptation to renege on its original pledge that it would not go after CIA and military interrogators who, as the administration put it, were simply following orders and guidelines determined from above.

Today, the very legacy of the American Warrior is directly under assault as part of that same process.

The Obama administration agreed late Thursday to release dozens of photographs depicting alleged abuse by U.S. personnel during the Bush administration of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At least 44 pictures will be released by May 28, making public for the first time images of what the military investigated at facilities other than the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Defense Department officials would not say exactly what is contained in the photos but said they are concerned the release could incite a Mideast backlash.

A Mideast backlash? The Obama administration -- and those at the Pentagon not standing up in vociferous defense of its warriors -- had better buckle up for an American backlash. Pay attention here.

The photos, taken from Air Force and Army criminal investigations, apparently are not as shocking as the photographs from the Abu Ghraib investigation that became a lasting symbol of U.S. mistakes in Iraq. But some show military personnel intimidating or threatening detainees by pointing weapons at them. Military officers have been court-martialed for threatening detainees at gunpoint.

The photos are not egregious. Not even rising to the level of panties on heads. But no matter. The assault is on. And your president -- your Commander in Chief -- supports it.

The release of these images serves no practical purpose, except perhaps for "enhanced prosecution techniques" against our own. Understand clearly that the purpose of the release -- and the Obama administration's decision to do so willingly if not energetically -- is to denigrate the American Warrior and to further the assault on the American psyche.

Those we were detaining (rather than summarily executing in the field, mind you) were being locked away at a time when beheadings were commonplace, men were being killed by slowly lowering them into 55-gallon drums of acid, and teens refusing to join al-Qaeda in Iraq were being crucified -- literally crucified -- in the public square and given just enough water to keep them alive and their public suffering great enough to serve as AQ's example to the rest. The children of resistant families were baked in ovens, folks.

And our boys are the evil ones? Not on your bleeping life. Not on my watch. Not on our watch.

From the indispensable Jake Tapper of ABC News, consider this context.

The photographs are part of a 2003 Freedom of Information Act request by the ACLU for all information relating to the treatment of detainees -- the same battle that led, last week, to President Obama's decision to release memos from the Bush Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel providing legal justifications for harsh interrogation methods that human rights groups call torture.

Courts had ruled against the Bush administration's attempts to keep the photographs from public view. ACLU attorney Amrit Singh tells ABC News that "the fact that the Obama administration opted not to seek further review is a sign that it is committed to more transparency."

No. It is a sign that the Obama administration holds no perceived loyalty to the American Warrior and is, in fact, putting them under assault in a display of loyalty instead to the ACLU. Is your mind calculating this?

Where is our Secretary of Defense?

The Department of Defense announced in a letter addressed to the federal court on Thursday that it would release the photos.

In a copy of the letter posted on the ACLU's Web site, acting U.S. Attorney Lev L. Dassin said that 21 photographs would be released and that the government "also is processing for release a substantial number of other images."

Mr. Gates, if you cannot muster the principle and courage to stand against this, then our support for you as the remaining adult on the newly formed children's playground may well have been misplaced. You have instantly become indistinguishable from the rest.

This has me so angry I'm practically spitting out my own teeth. I've had enough. Apologizing to Europe and the Muslim world for America, the warm reception of Chavez, blaming America for Mexican drug cartels' murderous rampages, and the threat of prosecuting Bush administration officials because of their legal opinions on what does and does not constitute torture.

And now, the American warrior class is openly and clearly in the crosshairs in a media campaign to denigrate them and cast dishonor upon them and, once again, America.

The aim of the release is to assault America in the court of public opinion, using the wholly owned media PR subsidiary as the armored assault vehicle. And the administration, through its acquiescence, is at minimum enabling this, choosing consciously to end the public defense of the American warrior class and its very legacy. Perhaps the administration is acting with willful disregard for them by taking direction from the ACLU/Soros/Moveon.org hard Left in a form of electoral quid pro quo. At worst, the administration is directly aligned with them and acting in concert rather than taking direction from them.

Either way, the principled defense of the warrior is over, by choice of the Obama administration in directing the Pentagon to end the defense short of SCOTUS. It is an outright abdication.

I say no. Not now, not ever. The Left got away with an all-out assault on the American veteran and military service during Vietnam. It will not happen again. And most certainly not from the military's own Commander in Chief. Not without a bold, determined, and passionate challenge the likes of which have never been seen.

For the exodus of good men and women from a military under assault from its own administration is likely to begin as service commitments come to an end. Retention just took a hit, as officers and NCO's alike begin to understand that they have been left in the wind. Recruiting just got more difficult.

The next logical step for this anti-military administration is to submit the American Warrior to the jurisdiction of a kangaroo International Criminal Court. Don't think the American Warrior isn't watching and thinking. International law, rather than American sovereignty, is all the rage these days in the White House after all.

The Warrior will begin to question precisely what it is that he risks all to defend. And when faced with the fact that he may remain undefended in doing so, his risk expands and the once-booming clarion call to service reduces to distant whispers.

And that will be . . . the end.