Vincent Emanuele, ex-US Marine, confesses that his actions and those of his brothers-in-arms helped create ISIS:

…I can’t help but think of the small kids [in Iraq] my fellow marines would pelt with Skittles from … MRE packages. Candies weren’t the only objects thrown at the children: water bottles filled with urine, rocks, debris, and various other items were thrown as well. I often wonder how many members of ISIS and various other terrorist organizations recall such events?

Moreover, I think about the hundreds of prisoners we took captive and tortured in makeshift detention facilities staffed by teenagers from Tennessee, New York and Oregon. I never had the misfortune of working in the detention facility, but I remember the stories. I vividly remember the marines telling me about punching, slapping, kicking, elbowing, kneeing and head-butting Iraqis. I remember the tales of sexual torture: forcing Iraqi men to perform sexual acts on each other while marines held knives against their testicles, sometimes sodomizing them with batons. …

A fine article for forwarding to neocon friends this Christmas as our thoughts turn to a manger near the scene of these atrocities. (Thanks to Bill Martin for the link.)

The Best of Becky Akers