Why Are The Bushies Shocked Over Children In Iraqi Prisons When We Have Children In Prisons in the U. S.?

Sadly, No! is shocked over a report that there were child prisoners in Iraq:

Dr. Condoleezza Rice, October 8, 2003:

Saddam would have remained in power -- with all that entails: More mass graves, more children in prison, and more daily depredations of the Iraqi people. [Emphasis added]

President Bush, April 16, 2003:

Two weeks ago, the Iraqi regime operated a gulag for dissidents, and incredibly enough, a prison for young children. [Emphasis added]

President Bush, July 10, 2003:

We discovered a prison for children -- all aimed at -- for Saddam Hussein to intimidate the people of Iraq. [Emphasis added]

Germany's Spiegel Magazine, July 4, 2004 [Original in German -- our translation. -S,N!:]

US Soldiers said to have abused jailed children

According to the International Red Cross, more than one hundred children find themselves in Iraqi prisons, including the notorious Abu Ghraib prison. According to a report aired on the TV program "Report," [see here -S,N!] coalition troops are also thought to have abused children and minors.

According to a press release issued by the network that broadcast the report:

In an exclusive interview granted to Report Mainz, Samuel Provance, a non-commissioned officer who served in the Abu Ghraib prison, US military intelligence officers harrassed a young girl in her cell. Military police intervened only when the 15 to 16-year old girl had been partially undressed. [...]

Suhaib Badr-Addin Al-Baz, a reporter for the Al-Jazeera network who spent 74 days at Abu Ghraib, says that a girl of approximately 12 years of age was beaten by US soldiers. [...]

UNICEF has confirmed that Iraqi children have been imprisoned by foreign troops in Iraq.

What? How hypocritical! There are plenty of children in U. S. prisons, and the Bush administration knows it. Prisons are big business in the U. S. The number of minors in state prisons has more than doubled in the past 12 years, according to a study by the Justice Department February 27, 2000. The main reason there are more juveniles in jail is due to prosecutors and judges having more options to try them as adults. The Common Dreams article From Texas to Abu Ghraib: The Bush Legacy of Prisoner Abuse reported that when Bush was Governor of Texas he "flouted the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child by choosing to execute juvenile offenders, a practice shared by only Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Yemen. Significantly, in 1998 a full 92% of the juvenile offenders on Bush's death row were ethnic minorities. "