As a retired military officer with combat experience, I find it utterly disgusting to read every day how badly the Iraq war is progressing and how guilty our service personnel are portrayed in the unjust, uncivilized treatment of captured Islamic Jihad terrorists both in prison camps and in the treatment of terrorist women and children.

Yes, as in Vietnam, Islamic women and children engage and kill our fighting men and women. The press reports center on providing the most sensational events even before they are investigated as to their truthfulness.

Our troops are labeled as being guilty without the completeness of any Article 32 investigation.

Having spent eight months in Iraq as a volunteer to assist the military in security, I can assure your readers that these one-sided, anti-U.S. press releases serve only as an instrument by which radical Arabic news agencies print large, bold headlines depicting our service personnel as monsters. I have seen those articles and they are sickening.

Believe it or not, our troops are sick and tired of hearing anti-war rhetoric and pay little attention to those who publish it. These troops know how much their efforts are appreciated by the people of Iraq as they observe it daily in the faces of mothers, children and accomplishments in schools, hospitals and local businesses. Their goals are to assist the Iraqi people to form a government which they so desperately desire and deserve.

In time of war, our press should support our troops and the newly elected Iraqi government by printing articles of successes vice sensationalizing isolated failures. To consistently print anti-war sentiments of those who are in disdain of our position in the Iraq war is wrong. How can one say that they support our troops and yet state that what our troops are doing is immoral, unjustified and that they should be brought home now?

This is the complete balderdash and the troops know it.

It is time to highlight the gross atrocities which these Islamic radical Jihad terrorists practice on a daily basis. The New York Times recently reported that the two U.S. soldiers who were captured were abused. In fact, their bodies were mutilated with their eyes being torn out.

This truth must be reported to leave little doubt as to the difficulty our soldiers face while performing their assigned missions. The consequences we face as a nation if we fail to understand this violent Islamic creed to wage war and destroy those opposed to their mission is alarming. We must defeat these radicals preferably on their territory before they once again reach our own shores.

Many left-wing American Civil Liberties Union members glee with excitement upon receiving press reports highlighting alleged abuses of Iraq citizens. More than 90 percent of these “reports” are untrue and are provided by outside sources including the Jihad terrorist prisons and anti-U.S. Arabic countries such as Syria, Iran and Sudan.

Our Red Cross has an office a few meters from the Guantanamo prison detention facility and have substantiated only two possible abuse events which may, repeat may, be cause for appropriate punishment. The ACLU would have one believe that thousands of alleged violations of abuse have occurred and that these reports were provided by our Naval Investigating Service, FBI and other government agencies.

However, what they fail to tell you are the names and organizations of those who filed these alleged violations; namely, the prisoners themselves or other Arabic news agencies. Do not be misled by ACLU members who have never been in Iraq, never personally witnessed these military abuses and fail to mention or divulge the sources of these so-called tortures.

The media, including the ACLU, tend to report that our troops are guilty of crimes without waiting for the complete investigation by appropriate authorities to determine guilt or innocence. All valid incidents of substantiated “torture” will be investigated by those who are in command to do so and if found guilty, they will receive appropriate punishment.

The anti-war media, ACLU and peace activists should never forget that those freedoms which they enjoy were provided to them through the sacrifices of millions of American troops. I recall the numerous times our troops would say, “Let those anti-war media, ACLU and peace activists come join us in our convoys and observe firsthand the tortures we face from the terrorists including those who are captured and in prison cells.”

The troops are not holding their breath; however, they will be victorious.

Tom Kelly, a resident of Blue Hill, is a retired Navy captain.