Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: tejek who wrote (572578)	5/6/2004 5:32:00 PM
From: DuckTapeSunroof	Read Replies (3) \| Respond to of 769670

Presidential advisor Karl Rove "believes that it will take a generation for the United States to live this scandal down in the Arab world." [2] The Washington Post reports that "U.S. officials said Rumsfeld and the Pentagon resisted appeals in recent months from the State Department and the Coalition Provisional Authority to deal with problems relating to detainees." [3] The Post also links the culture that fostered torture to Rumsfeld, in a searing editorial excerpted below. Amazingly, Rumsfeld still doesn't seem to see that the despicable acts at Abu Ghraib prison amounted to torture. According to Salon.com: "My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday. "I don't know if it is correct to say what you just said, that torture has taken place, or that there's been a conviction for torture. And therefore I'm not going to address the torture word." [4] Here are key excerpts from the Post editorial: Mr. Rumsfeld's Responsibility THE HORRIFIC abuses by American interrogators and guards at the Abu Ghraib prison and at other facilities maintained by the U.S. military in Iraq and Afghanistan can be traced, in part, to policy decisions and public statements of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. Beginning more than two years ago, Mr. Rumsfeld decided to overturn decades of previous practice by the U.S. military in its handling of detainees in foreign countries. His Pentagon ruled that the United States would no longer be bound by the Geneva Conventions; that Army regulations on the interrogation of prisoners would not be observed; and that many detainees would be held incommunicado and without any independent mechanism of review. Abuses will take place in any prison system. But Mr. Rumsfeld's decisions helped create a lawless regime in which prisoners in both Iraq and Afghanistan have been humiliated, beaten, tortured and murdered -- and in which, until recently, no one has been held accountable. The lawlessness began in January 2002 when Mr. Rumsfeld publicly declared that hundreds of people detained by U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan "do not have any rights" under the Geneva Conventions. That was not the case: At a minimum, all those arrested in the war zone were entitled under the conventions to a formal hearing to determine whether they were prisoners of war or unlawful combatants. No such hearings were held, but then Mr. Rumsfeld made clear that U.S. observance of the convention was now optional. Prisoners, he said, would be treated "for the most part" in "a manner that is reasonably consistent" with the conventions -- which, the secretary breezily suggested, was outdated. . . . The Taguba report and others by human rights groups reveal that the detention system Mr. Rumsfeld oversees has become so grossly distorted that military police have abused or tortured prisoners under the direction of civilian contractors and intelligence officers outside the military chain of command -- not in "exceptional" cases, as Mr. Rumsfeld said Tuesday, but systematically. Army guards have held "ghost" prisoners detained by the CIA and even hidden these prisoners from the International Red Cross. Meanwhile, Mr. Rumsfeld's contempt for the Geneva Conventions has trickled down: The Taguba report says that guards at Abu Ghraib had not been instructed on them and that no copies were posted in the facility. The abuses that have done so much harm to the U.S. mission in Iraq might have been prevented had Mr. Rumsfeld been responsive to earlier reports of violations. Instead, he publicly dismissed or minimized such accounts. He and his staff ignored detailed reports by respected human rights groups about criminal activity at U.S.-run prisons in Afghanistan, and they refused to provide access to facilities or respond to most questions. In December 2002, two Afghan detainees died in events that were ruled homicides by medical officials; only when the New York Times obtained the story did the Pentagon confirm that an investigation was underway, and no results have yet been announced. Not until other media obtained the photos from Abu Ghraib did Mr. Rumsfeld fully acknowledge what had happened, and not until Tuesday did his department disclose that 25 prisoners have died in U.S. custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. Accountability for those deaths has been virtually nonexistent: One soldier was punished with a dishonorable discharge. On Monday Mr. Rumsfeld's spokesman said that the secretary had not read Mr. Taguba's report, which was completed in early March. Yesterday Mr. Rumsfeld told a television interviewer that he still hadn't finished reading it, and he repeated his view that the Geneva Conventions "did not precisely apply" but were only "basic rules" for handling prisoners. His message remains the same: that the United States need not be bound by international law and that the crimes Mr. Taguba reported are not, for him, a priority. That attitude has undermined the American military's observance of basic human rights and damaged this country's ability to prevail in the war on terrorism. [The full editorial is at:] washingtonpost.com Footnotes: [1] Friedman's complete column is at: nytimes.com [2] Rumsfeld Chastised by President for His Handling of Iraq Scandal nytimes.com [3] Bush Privately Chides Rumsfeld Officials Say Pentagon Resisted Repeated Calls for Prison Changes washingtonpost.com [4] "Abuse"? How about torture salon.com

To: tejek who wrote (572578)	5/6/2004 11:13:50 PM
From: Johannes Pilch	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 769670

Unbelievable.......we agree on something! Nope. I do not agree with you. You simply hate anything to do with Bush. So it is to be expected that my considered critique and rejection of one of Bush’s staff would superficially converge with your utter hatred. We reject Rummy for different reasons. You wish to replace him with a pansy, one like yourself. I wish to replace him with someone who is willing to fight this war instead of going window-shopping down Madison Ave. I see........you think torture is a good thing. Why am I not surprised! We are dealing here with terrorists, tejek. People whose lives mean so little to them they are willing to blow themselves up simply to murder kids. The way to get a terrorist’s attention is to terrorize him, to present him something worse than death. It is not a good thing. It is war. But of course, you think getting rid of Saddam was a good thing because he liked to torture his people. Indeed. Hmmm........I sure there is some logic in there but I guess you have to be a genius like you to figure it! As usual, you guess wrongly.