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Politics : Don't Blame Me, I Voted For Kerry -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Bearcatbob who wrote (21272)	5/8/2004 11:22:52 AM
From: ChinuSFO	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 81568

Doesn't matter what you think. Read what the world thinks and then wonder if we all are the same people. And think about "what" the people are saying, not about "who" the people are. Saturday, 8, May, 2004 Editorial: Under Fire When one of Washington’s most thick-skinned veteran insiders apologizes publicly, something must have gone seriously wrong. Donald Rumsfeld may have worked hard yesterday to assume an air of confidence and authority in his successive appearances before the Armed Services Committees of both the Senate and the House, but his core confession was inevitable. Serious crimes have taken place on his watch. The man who appeared so smug when he took the credit for the swift and easy coalition victory over Saddam’s armies knows that he must also own up to the failures. Rumsfeld looked uneasy sitting before the US legislators knowing that his Defense Department has fumbled time after time over the security and administration of the country. While he has been in charge, murder, torture and humiliation were heaped on Iraqi detainees almost as a matter of course. The loathsome pictures from Abu Gharib prison destroyed at a stroke any right the Americans may have had to claim the moral high ground. It was no good saying that Saddam was so very much more brutal, ordering 2,000 executions at that prison in a single day. The Americans could not afford to behave at all improperly — and the American public has been as shocked as everyone else by the pictures. That is about the only gratifying aspect of this sickening scandal: Americans are not without a conscience. The key questions yesterday were if the Defense Department knew as early as January of the abuse of prisoners, why the White House was apparently not informed, and why legislators were not even made aware of the crimes on an informal basis. The silence from Rumsfeld’s department could very easily be taken to mean that it condoned, if not actually encouraged, this barbaric treatment of detainees. Were this to be true then Arabs will see the whole US military effort as rotten right through, from the minute the first GI’s boot thudded down on Iraqi soil. Rumsfeld’s suggestion that an independent inquiry be set up into what happened is a waste of time, and Iraqis simply do not have time to waste. This is a country lurching toward chaos while the people some hoped would help to save it and show it the way to a new, honest and peaceful future now stand revealed as liars, torturers and murderers. No inquiry is needed. Rumsfeld can worry over how it all came about during his retirement from politics which ought to start in the next few days. Whether he meant US soldiers to behave in such a bestial way to their prisoners is immaterial. It happened while he was in charge. If he resigns without fuss, perhaps he may begin to redeem himself by making a tiny contribution to the restoration of America’s good name in the world. arabnews.com