NY Times Outrage

This Cartoon by McCoy is outrageous to the point of making me sick.  Given the concerted, and successful, effort on the Right to have Ted Rall removed from the electronic NYTimes, I feel a similar outcry should be raised by all people of good conscience (Right and Left) against the publication of this kind of rubbish.

I did not see this addressed in other diaries; my apologies if it has been.

My letter to Mr. Okrent follows; please write one yourself--feel free to borrow what you like:

Mr. Okrent:

I have sent a version of the following to the Editor, but as the public's representative on the Times' staff, I want you to be aware of my feelings on the matter as well:

I write in simple outrage regarding Mr. McCoy's latest cartoon, lampooning the war crimes committed in Abu Ghraib.  His clear implication is that the torture and abuse was, in some way, justified.  This is offensive in the extreme.  

Leaving aside the many intelligence experts who insist that torture leads to bad information, and even under the microscopic possibility that only actually guilty individuals were tortured, the actions sanctioned by US officials at Abu Ghraib were criminal, immoral and unbecoming to any nation.

This summary sexual and physical abuse engaged in by United States citizens can never be justified.  To imply that anything less than engaging in these atrocities amounts to being "soft" on these suspects (suspected of what? on what evidence?) is vile.

The Times should be embarrassed.  Mr. McCoy should be ashamed.

To you, Mr. Okrent, I add the following:  Given the organized avalanche of mail of all types that the NYTimes received in an effort to have Ted Rall removed from the online edition, this offering by Mr. McCoy should be given special attention.  

Never in my life did I expect to see the NY Times publish such vile garbage.  The very idea that there was no choice left to our soldiers and mercenaries but to sexually assault and humiliate the prisoners in their charge is nauseating.  The cartoon is nothing less than apologia for war crimes.

To my knowledge, Mr. Rall was never guilty of such base implication--though doubtless his taste in critique was harsh to some.  To my knowledge, Mr. Rall never defended an atrocity.  Mr. McCoy's work should be banned from the pages of the Times, electronic or otherwise.  He has clearly lost his sense of judgment.