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

To: jlallen who wrote (573903)	5/11/2004 12:49:39 PM
From: Land Shark	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 769670

This is not the “aberrant behavior of a few” undisciplined MP’s Rumsfeld has to Go By Mike Whitney Al-Jazeerah, May 11, 2004 The one picture tells the whole story. It is a photo taken at Abu Ghraib that shows a number of men standing around in military fatigues while three naked prisoners, chained together lie on the ground. This is the case against Donald Rumsfeld “in a nutshell.” One of the men in fatigues (who has his hand on the throat of one of the Iraqi prisoners) has already been identified as a private contractor. The other men are CIA interrogators, military Intelligence agents or Military Police. Regardless of their rank or status, they are seen conducting what must have been a “routine interrogation.” This is not the “aberrant behavior of a few” undisciplined MP’s. These are men who are carrying out their duties according to policy decisions made at a much higher level. As we can see, none of the men are concealing their actions from the cameras (that were apparently used with great regularity) which reinforces the notion that none of them believed that what they were doing was either wrong or counter to the usual methods of performing interrogations. This was just SOP. (Standard Operating Procedure) They knew they had nothing to fear if the pictures were released because their behavior was consistent with the instructions they had received from higher ranking officers. What the photo demonstrates is that the activities (torture and abuse) at Abu Ghraib were not at all exceptional; they were part of a normal process for extracting information that was approved up the chain of command; a chain that goes all the way to the Pentagon offices of Donald Rumsfeld. As Senator Carl Levin has observed, it is not a matter of “a few bad apples,” we are concerned about the broader application of policy. This is a policy that tells the world that we will do whatever it takes to achieve our narrow objectives. The photos reflect that the policies now abandon our core beliefs and take an approach that amounts to “anything goes”. The ethos that now pervades the entire defense establishment can be seen in these photos. It is an attitude of permissiveness towards the “wanton, sadistic” brutality of detainees that is in clear violation of our responsibilities under the Geneva Conventions and to our basic commitments to human rights. America has been disgraced by the activities at Abu Ghraib in a way that is incalculable. The regimen that Rumsfeld has installed throughout his prison system has dragged our flag and our most deeply felt values through the mud. If this is an illustration of American justice, we are no better than the terrorists. When we see these photos of prisoner abuse, and hear the stories of “rape and murder” that are now being investigated, we should reconsider the comments of George Bush in his State of the Union Speech; “If this is not evil, than evil has no meaning.” It’s time for the President to live up to his impassioned rhetoric and clean up his own nest. Rumsfeld has to go!