Posted on 05/08/2004 6:49:37 PM PDT by where's_the_Outrage?
President Bush wants you to know he's upset with Donald Rumsfeld. Though the president is standing by his man, he had his press aides put out the word that he called the defense secretary on the carpet last week over the Iraqi prisoner abuse scandal.
Rumsfeld, it turns out, never told the president about the pictures. And that has Bush pretty doggone mad.
The photographs, after all, made the difference. Without them, the Bushites could still go around the country blithely declaring that things are going just fine in Iraq, despite some "rough patches" brought on by a "violent few." Without the photos, the president would never have been forced to give interviews on Arab TV or to apologize -- apologize, for heaven's sake! -- to Jordan's King Abdullah. Without the pictures, it would have been business as usual.
Darn those pesky images!
Let's be clear about what happened at the Abu Ghraib prison. This wasn't the sort of hazing to which Detective Andy Sipowicz (Dennis Franz) routinely subjects criminal suspects on ABC's "NYPD Blue." This was abuse and torture that violate basic standards of human decency, much of it aimed at Iraqis who were not accused of terrorism.
The military investigation cited "numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses," including forcing male detainees to masturbate for the cameras and sodomizing at least one detainee with a chemical light or a broomstick.
Perhaps the most disturbing thing about the pictures is the smiling visages of American soldiers as they force naked Iraqi men into degrading sexual poses. They remind me of photographs of lynchings from the bitter days of Jim Crow, when white Southerners brought their families out to watch the torture and execution of black Southerners, as if they were going to the circus. In those photos, too, the torturers are all smiles.
The White House acknowledges that Rumsfeld alerted the president several weeks ago -- if not months ago -- to a sweeping investigation of complaints of abuse and torture of prisoners by U.S. soldiers, not just in Iraq but also in Afghanistan. But Bush never bothered to read the full report. For that matter, neither did Rumsfeld. He complained in a TV interview that the documents comprise "a mountain of paper."
So neither man had any deep and abiding concern over the fact that U.S. soldiers were emulating some of the torment employed by Saddam Hussein when he held prisoners at Abu Ghraib. Before the release of the photos, neither seemed to care that abusing Iraqi prisoners -- forcing them into just the sort of humiliating poses that are most offensive in the Islamic world -- would only set back the cause of establishing a pro-Western democracy in Iraq.
By last week, not just Democrats but also Republicans were beginning to suggest that Rumsfeld be fired. It is, admittedly, a prospect with a certain appeal: Who would mourn the sacking of the swaggering, cocksure defense secretary?
But it wouldn't change a thing. Rumsfeld is no errant incompetent in an administration full of hard-nosed realists, men and women dedicated to righting their policies when they discover that things have gone awry. No, indeed. The secretary of defense is a perfect representative of a group of people so convinced of their own righteousness that they are untroubled by even the most inconvenient facts.
Nor would Rumsfeld's resignation change this ugly truth, only now becoming visible to the American public: Inevitably, inexorably, occupation breeds barbarity and inhumanity in the occupier, like a virus that flourishes in dark places. As the French became ever more savage in their attempts to pacify the Algerians, as the Japanese brutalized the Chinese in World War II, so will more young American men and women become brutish in their treatment of Iraqis.
Bush and administration officials are working hard to portray the outrages at Abu Ghraib as isolated examples, just a few soldiers gone bad. Would that it were so. Under certain circumstances, many of us have the capacity for barbarity.
Whether Rumsfeld stays or goes, the U.S. occupation of Iraq is bound to grow uglier still.
the U.S. occupation of Iraq is bound to grow uglier still.
Okay we have heard that already, you got anything else Cyn?
My question too... A camera records the side that is being filmed but does not record the motivation of the filmer. We are only seeing the one side. And worse, we are crucifying one while ignoring the other.......
as the Japanese brutalized the Chinese in World War II,
The witch did include Japan.
FMCDH
I don't believe an Army Ranger would make such a foolish statement. I made it thru Parris Island and AIT at Lejune. We never had the phase that dealt with mutual mastubation or shoving broomsticks up each other's ass.
Good Lord, where have human decency standards gone?
I would trust that in a time of war that soldiers would be the focus of human abuse, more than civilians, however I am sure that if such an abuse case were to happen in the life of American citizens that Cynthia wouldn't even blink an eye toward it.
You don't suppose that worse atrocities occur state side do you?
Tell us what you really think *L*
Apples and f*ck*n' oranges, you dilly broad!
No one is saying that any of this was a "good thing!" But noooooo....all you moonbats wanna blame this for all the ills of Iraq!
Just pilin' on, dammit!
AND they've both got the dreaded, eeeevul 'R' after their names.
She really thinks she has one. Everyone else can plainly see otherwise.
That's a good point. The ubiquity of digital cameras was something that did not exist in previous wars. Obviously some of these pictures were staged by some very immature soldiers who wanted to portray themselves as "bad-asses" to their friends back home. It's a shame because they really stained the honor of the United States and have done irreparable harm. Let's hope the measures taken against these bad apples are swift and stern. I served in the U.S. Marine Corps and this whole episode is a major embarrassment.
This is sexual perversion, the military has no billets for the kind of deranged people who performed these deeds.
The damage this has done to our proud military is beyond comprehension.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.