"So stories of the abuse of Iraqi prisoners dominate news in every country of the world."
"Indeed but Bush, Rumsfeld - the two neo-conservatives with good wholesome American values..."
"How would you define American values?"
"Well, from what these two have done I would define them as violently anti-Muslim...You remember Dasht-e-Leili where Taleban soldiers who had surrendered were suffocated, with US complicity? They were suffocated in sealed cargo containers and their bodies strewn in the sand. Let me quote from Time magazine: "595 members, part of the Fifth Special Forces Group, had been with Dostum, a Northern Alliance warlord, at the surrender negotiations and then again at the actual surrender at Yergana. Over the three days that the first convoys of dead began arriving at Sheberghan, Special Forces troops were in the area...In mid January John Heffernan and Jennifer Leaning of the Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), a Boston based group, met by chance in Kabul with two Red Cross officials - one a senior official based in ICRC headquarters in Geneva. The Geneva official told them that the Red Cross had, they recall her saying; grave concerns' about the treatment of prisoners by US forces and their allies. They are a cruel nation."
"Ah, so this is not new?"
"Nope - and you know this explains to me why they didn't want to be signatories to the International Court of Justice. I think they knew their soldiers."
"But the US is so humane in its own borders..."
"They have different standards once they go out of their country. The US performs competitively with other Western nations when performance is within its borders but once outside it is totally different. The same applies to Israel by the way."
"But if they are so anti-Muslim then why do Muslim countries support these two men?"
"Because they are scared. They think they maybe attacked and they have given ample reason to be attacked - I mean they are all non-democratic countries whose rank and file citizens want a more representative government."
"OK, but why is the Saudi government giving the US cheaper oil so that Bush may win the elections."
"They have denied it."
"I know they have but no one argues about the close ties between the Bush family and the al-Saud family."
"No indeed. There are lessons to be learned here, right?!"