The other day I was chided for noting the Democrats were turning the Abu Gharib mess into a partisan issue.
Go read the NY Times Op-Ed page today.
Go read the remarks by almost every Democrat.
Go read your liberal bloggers.
Then come back here and apologize to me. There is nothing that the Democrats will not latch on to in an attempt to regain their power.
CadillaqJaq
You’re right, there is nothing that the liberal media and Dem leaders will latch on to in order to regain lost power: 1,720 or more links on Google asking for the resignation of nearly everyone in the GWB administration (maybe excepting the Sergeant at Arms in the House or the WH chef).
AL Quaeda etal must love it when they get that type of support for their efforts.
ape
yeah. tha’s the key message here.
those evil liberals. trying to get elected. using facts and stuff. challenging dear leader on his record, in the sense of “the effect of his actions as president”
this all reflects very badly on them indeed.
SAO
And, sad little hypocrite you are, John. You haven’t bothered to reply to my charge that you had NOTHING to say about the massacre in Fulluja except how it pertained to your political rival- Marcos Zuniga.
Gregory Litchfield
SAO:
I didn’t realize Mr. Cole had an obligation to respond to every single spittle-flecked rant you manage to come up with.
James W
John, you neither deserve nor should get an apology of any sort.
Both Republicans and Democrats having been scathingly critical of Rumsfeld’s handling of Abu Ghraib incidents, and yet your contention is that this is some sort of one-sided political vendetta. From the Post:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A6870-2004May6.html
“Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld’s handling of the Iraq prison abuse scandal brought him under withering fire yesterday: Prominent Democrats, including presidential candidate John F. Kerry and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, demanded his resignation, while senior Republicans fumed over his failure to alert them to the brewing crisis.
While the mishandling of this situation is certainly a political opportunity for Democrats (and why not?), the real issue is that it was, well…mishandled. Very badly.
And yet you’re implying that these are groundless charges, the Dem’s are just making hay, same-old, same-old. Just want back in power, right?
Shameful.
The facts emerging about the Abu Ghraib scandal may be inconvenient for a vigorous partisan like yourself, but they remain facts nonetheless.
Oliver
Heaven forbid we want to stop incompetence leading to death and pain. We must be “partisans”.
JKC
John, I’d be curious as to what would constitute a suitably “non-partisan” response to the outrage of Abu Ghraib.
As you said earlier, the Bush administration is responsible for what’s happened in Iraq, good and ill.
James W.
er…”neither deserve nor WILL get…”
And one more note to CadillacJaq: Lots of things may offer encouragement to our enemies.
That fact alone is an unconvincing argument against anything critical of our prosecution of this war.
It’s been said before that freedom has many costs, and if the fact that our dissent offers some intangible comfort to those who wish to kill us is among them, that’s simply the cost of a free society, and one that on balance is entirely worth bearing.
ape
for truly patriotic technocrats, idiosynchratic assessment of the size of a problem is this season’s most compelling style.
compelling evidence of systematic sadistic abuse? that’s one for the bottom of the in-tray.
war? cheap. very cheap. not too many soldiers needed. perhaps $10bn more than that. perhaps 10,000 or so more soldiers. but that’s all.
Josh Martin
SAO, what massacre in Falluja?
JKC
By your criteria, John, Tacitus has turned into a partisan hack, shamelessly politicizing Abu Ghraib. I find that one hard to swallow.
smitty
Oliver the partisan rides to the (oh so predictable) rescue… once again.
norbizness
And Thomas Friedman and Jane Galt/Asymmetrical Information… it’s craziness! Otherwise sane people are turning into partisan Democrats! It’s like 28 Days Later or The Stand!
BTW, I don’t think Rumsfeld should resign for THIS, when there are plenty of other things that highlight his incompetence.
ape
google search revelation! ‘rumsfeld resign’
crumbs there’s a lot of commies out there!
i never knew so many people hated america. actually, almost everybody hates america. sh#t. i
hate america. sorry.
tell me again – exactly how many commies are there in the house of representatives?
wreckers! wreckers everywhere! again and again liberals spoil our wonderful patriotic projects.
are there no depths to which the left will not sink, with their dreadful liberal media? for how long must we endure their criticism of Dear Leader?
he that can fly like the strongest bird and land on an ocean! he who has defeated all evil monsters, right on time! he who has brought democracy! he who invented freedom and stays the course! he who can speak in extemporaneous compound sentences (sort of, with only slight reliance on repetition) when defending rummy:
Secretary Rumsfeld is a really good Secretary of Defense. Secretary Rumsfeld has served our nation well. Secretary Rumsfeld has been the Secretary during two wars. And he is — he’s an important part of my Cabinet, and he’ll stay in my Cabinet.
although he did state that he was “not satisfied” with his conduct over the abuses. why does Bush grasp at any straw – no matter how partisan – to attack his administration?
partisanship reaches the very centre of the white house! i am shocked.
JohnColeHasChanged
John Cole used to be a lot closer to Dean Esmay, but he’s clearly a Jay Redding now, and headed for an Emperor Misha.
I’ll bet John’s gonna be surprised when the Rapture Bus comes and it doesn’t stop for him.
John Cole
SAO- I have no idea what you are talking about. I must have missed your comment.
As far as Tacitus is concerned, he is entitled to his opinion. However, the overwhelming knee-jerk response from the partisdans on the left make it damn clear who the real target is- and it aint Rumsfeld. Rumsfeld is just a path tho Bush.
And Oliver- as one of the most partisan bloggers out there, feigning concern about ‘death and pain’ is amusing. You know what this issue is about for you- getting Bush out of office. Try to refute that, and I will laugh in your face.
capt joe
After the comparsion of Kim Jong Il (dear leader) and an American president, how can one respond?
Pray, ape (much your species), where are the millions of americans locked in concentration camps, the starving screcrows thoughout hte whole country.
Please. you have proved John’s most excellent point. Moral equivalence, moral confusion. the left’s greatest problem.
JKC
L Paul Bremer: another partisan hack.
Oberon
Let’s see, members of the military are caught torturing Iraqis, which is (a) wrong, and (b) very bad for our war effort.
But anybody who points this out is just a partisan Democrat who’ll latch onto anything to regain power.
Riiiiight.
Oliver
I think your commenters are doing a pretty good job ripping your “argument” to shreds John. Yes, I’m partisan (and admit it, unlike many of the so-called “independents” out there) – but I’ve given kudos to Rumsfeld in the past. No mas.
Gary Farber
I’m pretty unclear why the fact that Oliver Willis wants to see President Bush voted out of office is relevant, to, well, anything at all.
Let alone to what it has to do with our treatment of prisoners, and our revealed, goddammit, war crimes, about which the hearings have been being broadcast all morning, without comment from you.
I’m not clear if you think all these Republican Senators are also without credibility. Why are they shouting at Rumsfeld? Why, John?
It must be their partisanship.
CadillaqJaq
It’s not about attacking anyone’s credibility: it’s about making a statement that many liberal Dems are making the Abu Ghraib incident into a highly political attack on GWB and using their pissdom for Rumsfeld as the means.
Or am I confused? I acknowledge there are Republicans who are just as upset, dozens of them have posted here recently. I recognize that there are liberal Dems that are ligitimately upset, but many others appear to me to be more upset at GWB/Rumsfeld (and looking at the Google results, every other single person in GWB’s administration) and not too upset with the handful of idiot service people who are ultimately responsible.
Andrew J. Lazarus
I was proud of the NY Times today. Extra points for having Anthony Lewis outline the sequence from “We don’t need to follow the Geneva Convention” to “Any citizen may be incarcerated on Presidential say-so, no matter what the Bill of Right ans Magna Carta say” to the torture chamber. ABsolute power plus no accountability equals atrocity has been an equation of human behavior since the dawn of time.
It was the deliberate policies of the Republican Administration, especially Secy Rumsfeld, that brought this terrible shame upon the United States.
You are sounding like the idiot-mayor in a disaster film like “Jaws” and “Dante’s Peak”, instead of looking at the horrible facts on the ground.
Ricky
Yes, Andrew, ’tis something to be proud of……we’re “this close” to being incinerated on command if we oppose the admin.
[backing away, shaking head]
Patrick
WAR CRIMES? You’ll have to look back to VietNam and you buddy Kerry to find war crimes, friends. Stacking bungholes and collaring the odd Arab are not warcrimes. Lining them up against the wall and putting one in their temple would be a war crime. GMAFB. It’s a war, and it is our duty to end it as quickly as we can which is why the information those folks may hold is needed. Half of you sound like the caller to Rush today who whined about the “torture” pictures of Saddam, getting his physical exam from a physician during booking.
And, to summarize Rummy this afternoon, it wasn’t until the limpwrists had pictures to pose in front of that this story (released by the DoD in February) got traction. Donks posing for political gain, nothing more or less.
JKC
Ricky:
“Incarcerated” and “incinerated” are not synonyms.
Thought you might find that interesting.
Chris P
This pretty much sums up my take on this entire thread thus far:
“Politics: n. Strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles.”
~ Ambrose Bierce, writer(1842-1914)
Ricky
Thanks, JKC, we need more net nannies pointing out misspellings.
[sigh] Sorry for mistyping the ridiculous allegation that the admin would incinerate people on a whim, instead of typing the ridiculous allegation that the admin would incarcerate people on a whim.
Andrew J. Lazarus
The handful of service people (it’s growing into a bigger hand as the investigation continues) are ABSOLUTELY **NOI** ***ULTIMATELY*** responsible. What sort of bizarre soncept of accountability is this? What about the idea that the captain is responsible for the crew, leaving aside Abu Ghraib is an outgrowth of policies that this Administration adopted deliberately (as outlined below). Why else would the captain go down with the ship; wasn’t it the third mate who was supposed to see the iceberg?
You have it backwards: we are not complaing about the behavior of the Bush Administration because we are partisan Democrats; we are partisan Democrats because we do not like the behavior of the Republican Administration, and we knew we would not like it in advance.
I would think that point is obvious. Your argument would just as legitimately suggest we could ignore all of Churchill’s knee-jerk, albeit eloquent, pre-war diatribes against the Nazis, because he was a highly partisan anti-Nazi.
Now, why Rumsfeld is responsible:
1. Rumsfeld is PERSONALLY responsible for our refusal to honor the Geneva COnvention at Gitmo (and, we are finding out, elsewhere). He announced this publically, and even suggested that the Convention is obsolete. By refusing to acknowledge ANY rights of prisoners, even the rights of alleged unlwaful combatants to contest such designation, Rumsfeld essentially declared our detainees captives who could be abused at will.
2. Rumsfeld also is ultimately, if not personally, responsible for the refusal to open our prisons to the ICRC, which would have been at least partial compliance with treaty obligations we have assumed. Rumsfeld sent a clear message that there would be no neutral oversight
of prison conditions.
3. I understand Rumsfeld and Cheney wished to make much more extensive use of the night-and-fog Padilla Doctrine, that US citizens can be snatched up anywhere and imprisoned indefintely, and that even US citizens are without rights. I wonder what has been done to Padilla?
4. Rumsfeld failed to act upon Bremer’s complaint that we had too many prisoners in Iraq and that many were held for no reason.
5. Rumsfeld failed to act on stories in the open media about suspicious deaths at Bagram.
I could go on, but this is enough. Evidence shows that Rumsfeld made it perfectly clear that post 9/11 the United States Government is free of any obligations under its own laws or international law. Not only should be resign, if he does not, and is not fired, he should indeed be impeached.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Let me get this straight, Patrick: sodomy of detainees isn’t a war crime?? Funny, when it was Saddam running a torture chamber and a rape room, the rule was it was so atrocious that all concepts of state sovereignty had to fall before the need to save the Iraqi people. Wow!
You guys are sick. Well and truly sick. It’s gross seeing a guy sneer about limpwrists while he’s jerking off to Abu Ghraib S&M porn. Torture is almost useless as an investigative tool (largely because of false positives), and that’s official army doctrine. It’s main appeal is to sickos.
I do agree, the story only got traction because of the pictures. However, with Gen. Taguba’s report classified, the public release in February made no mention of just how bad the situation was.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Ricky, the Administration argued before the Supreme Court that it has the right to incarcerate citizens at will, which, frankly, does mean on a whim.
Even Justice Scalia seemed to feel this was going too far. I predict a 9-0 repudiation of the Bush klettres-de-cachet doctrine.
I know, I know; they won’t go after Rush and Savage listeners, so it’s OK.
Ricky
No, Andrew, they’re just coming after you.
Tighten up the tinfoil hat & you’ll be safe.
The rest of us are going to hell because of the Republicans.
Ricky
Sorry, put a smiley face at the end of the previous: :)
Rick
Stop, Andrew! You’re scaring me!
Cordially…
Rick
Stop, Andrew! You’re scaring me!
Cordially…
Rick
See? I’m trembling so much, my Post action has a hitch.
Nash
John,
Agreed, they are politicizing this for their own gain. They are finally operating at the same low level as their opposition did, e.g., over Kosovo. It’s politics. It will continue to be politics. I think they finally understand there are no rules they need to follow.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Well, the question, Rick, is do you want to live in a country where the law of the land is habeas corpus and the right to a trial or not.
I’m sure there’s some country where the government has unlimited rights to put people in jail, but it’s still a free country and the right isn’t abused. But you know, offhand, I can’t think of such a country. I can only think of dictatorships. Maybe if I take off the tinfoil hat, or you could suggest one. (In Israel, for example, administrative detention may be challenged in court and must be periodically reviewed at a hearing where the detainee can defend himself.)
The question is, are we going to keep the structure of a free society, or are we going to switch to the structure of a dictatorship, I know, I know, it’s just tinfoil hat crazy to think there’s a problem with switching over to a dictatorship, not when it’s under the wise and brilliant guidance of the Republican Party.
Rick
AJ, I’m more afraid of the power of the IRS. But we’ve lived under that power for three generations, and are doing OK.
Freepers five years ago were making your points in re: the last admins use of government power to crush us all. The fringe ain’t Left, and it ain’t Right; it’s its own little world.
Cordially…
Random Numbers
This is further evidence of the coming collapse of the DNC. I expect a breakup and recombination within the next two decades.
John Cole
It was the deliberate policies of the Republican Administration, especially Secy Rumsfeld, that brought this terrible shame upon the United States.
And that really says it all.
Terry
In a comment above the inimitable and dependable lefty cipher, Mr. A.J. Lazarus, says, among other piffling things: “It was the deliberate policies of the Republican Administration, especially Secy Rumsfeld, that brought this terrible shame upon the United States.”
If by this comment he means that the disgraceful treatment accorded these Iraqi prisoners was a result of the current Administration’s decision to go into Iraq, then he may have a point. Obviously, if we hadn’t gone into Iraq, these prisoners would not have been exposed and subjected to such outrageous treatment.
I rather suspect that he has something else in mind, however. He is apparently trying to tie this shameful incident to a policy decision to not abide by the Geneva Conventions in our handling of prisoners in Iraq. This is absolutely not correct. The decision announced relative to the Geneva Conventions was quite explicit in that it applied only to Al Qaeda fighters and not to the Iraqi prisoner environment. In fact, I believe there was testimony on this at today’s hearings. Also, there has been no showing that the International Red Cross was denied admission to the prisoner facilities; in fact, at today’s hearings, that was acknowledged by one of the Democrats on the Senate Committee.
Ricky
And, they knew it would happen…..it’s not that they’re reacting out of partisanship, you know.
Andrew J. Lazarus
I’m sorry that I think you are being sarcastic, John.
In the next few days, the new pictures and videos will leak. But we aren’t stopping there. esp since honorable members of the Armed Forces will see it’s safe to come forward.
We’ll hear about atrocities at Bagram.
We’ll hear about atrocities at Gitmo.
It will sink into public consciousness that the Red Cross, David Kay, Paul Bremer, and Colin Powell have been warning Rumsfeld and the President of abuse since January.
They didn’t care because (1) they feel detainees rights’, as our rights, exist only so far as the United States Government deems; (2) as the sheriff says in “Body Heat”, everybody’s always looking for a reason the rules don’t apply to them; (3) despite torture’s mediocre record as an investigative tool, they hoped to develop useful information via torture or the threat of torture; (4) they were overly sympathetic to the very stressful situation of the guards; (5) some of them seem to take vicarious sadistic glee. Didn’t you all have to read “The Lord of the Flies” in high school?
Luckily for you, you’ll be able to pre-dismiss all of the new information, because it will provide ammo for the partisan Democrats, and must therefore be ignored and the bearers of bad news ridiculed.
You’re in danger of becoming a fanatic, John, one of those people who forge a group identity out of the ability to believe the impossible or disbelieve the obvious. Your reasoning is as bankrupt as Western Communists’ dismissing the stories of Stalin’s gulag because they came from partisan anti-Communists or from disillusioned ex-Communists (i.e., turncoats).
Andrew J. Lazarus
Terry, the Red Cross says it was not admitted to the blocs in Abu Ghraib where most of the abuse took place.
John Cole
I am sorry, Andrew. I guess I missed where I condoned the behavior at Abu Gharib.
When the reports come out, I will take a position.
I understand you feel strongly about the abuses- so do. I am going to hold off on the lynch mob mentality until I know what happened, and by whose authority.
BTW- it could be said that the clinton administration had a flippant, dismissive, frat-boyattitude about Christians. Is that why they burned down WACO?
I would never make a statement like that, but that is pretty much the accusation that you are making about Abu Gharib.
Calm down- we will get to the bottom of this- and if it was Rumsfeld’s fault, other than because of his occupying the position of SecDef, I will call for him to go, too. Right now, though, this is a pretty shallow and obvious attempt at election year manuevering.
Terry
To follow up on the incomplete and misleading comments of Mr. Lazarus relative to what the Red Cross has said on the issue, following are comments off of the Bloomberg wire by Pierre Kraehenbuehl, Director of Operations for the ICRC:
“To our knowledge, the organization [International Red Cross] was given access to all people detained in Iraq,” Kraehenbuehl said.
“The Red Cross didn’t resort to ‘public denunciation’ since the U.S. has made progress in addressing `some of the issues,’ he said.
“The Red Cross only resorts to public denunciation when we feel it’s the only means we have left and that dialogue has failed,” Kraehenbuehl said. “Through our interventions, we did see impacts taking place.”
Andrew J. Lazarus
General Taguba’s report says we hid prisoners at Abu Ghraib from the ICRC [excerpt found at Billmon].
Andrew J. Lazarus
A small correction: I should indeed have said that we denied the Red Cross access to the prisoners, by our own admission, NOT that the Red Cross had complained. My 4:00 pm comment is wrong.
Patrick
Andrew,
Wait for the investigation before drawing conclusions about guilt or innocence. And since you seem to be convinced that the pre-scripted abuses were carefully sketched out on the back of a White House paper dinner doily at the weekly “how can we take over the world while killing as many dark-skinned people as possible” meetings, how exactly should we treat a few thousand assorted Arab detainees who were trying to kill your fellow American citizen-soldiers (Iraq and Gitmo)? Throw up some prefab Red Roof Inns? How much per night should a terrorist get in comp room service?
It’s a fucking war! I take the opposite tact to most who say this “catastrophe” (several Dem Senators today) will set us back a few hundred years and enrage our foes. I’m betting there are more than a few of those fighters who may be smart enough to think “hey, if I keep shooting at the infidels, they might arrest me and snap a broom handle off in my ass.” Might just take the heart out of their fight.
I about lost it today with the repeated whining about the “supression” of the free press. Nobody manages the news better than the Democrats, and we’ve got two Clinton terms to prove it.
Just suggesting it, s’all. We’ll look back at this in a year or so and see who was right.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Patrick, you are one sick, twisted dude. If the broom handles don’t work, how about raping their children? (Some rumor we’ve done that.)
I thought we were in Iraq to close down the torture chambers, not run them for your perverted benefit.
BTW, if your idea about how to win wars had merit, we’d be speaking German. Actually, you’d be speaking German, probably very fluently. I’d be dead.
Dean
It just struck me:
So, we could hide a handful of prisoners in ONE building complex from ICRC inspectors—-but w/ just a little more inspection by the UN, we would have known for sure, in a country the size of California, whether there were WMD?
Doesn’t this seem a mite contradictory? Or was there a General Taguba in the Republican Guard waiting to provide a 53 page report on exactly what happened?
Terry
For Mr. Lazarus…”Checkmate,” your ass. The post of your’s on which I was commenting, the 4:00PM one, was absolutely incorrect, which I see you now acknowledge at your post timed at 5:00PM. Beyond that, a single reported instance of “hiding” prisoners from the Red Cross does not a widespread practice make; the military fully recognizes that such an incident was totally inconsistent with Army Doctrine and policies.
Kimmitt
“When the reports come out, I will take a position.”
The reports only come out when there is massive public outcry. Remember that the Taguba report was illegally classified as Secret and largely ignored until 60 Minutes ran the photos.
Patrick
Andrew,
You paint us as bad people, with a very broad brush. A very small number of bad jailors do a very small number of bad things to a very small number of bad guys, and it’s akin to our deciding to keep the rape rooms and torture chambers in full production. I repeat, try waiting until the investigation is done before deciding we’re guilty.
As for your German reference, if criminals have nothing to fear from being caught and incarcerated, what’s the point? Oh, I forgot. We’re going to rehabilitate them. “Repeat after me, Ali. Allah is not the only god. Other religions are permissible. Now, you’re free to go. Try not to kill anyone or we’re going to make you do the Stations of the Cross next time”.
smitty
right now, a j lazarus is spewing partisan sperm all over his shorts.
smitty
i enjoy a j lazarus’s long posts — the longer the better. the more time self-deluded morons like lazarus spend spinning their partisan bullshit, the safer the republic is.
Kimmitt
“A very small number of bad jailors do a very small number of bad things to a very small number of bad guys, and it’s akin to our deciding to keep the rape rooms and torture chambers in full production.”
This is not a defensible position. From the Taguba report:
“”[B]etween October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility (BCCF), numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force.
Kimmitt
My link for the Taguba report didn’t work.
Patrick
I’m not sure I agree with the “systemic” implication of either the briefing or the whole text Taguba report. From the whole text report: “This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force (372nd Military Police Company, 320thMilitary Police Battalion, 800th MP Brigade), in Tier (section) 1-A of the Abu Ghraib Prison (BCCF).” Systemic abuse performed by only “several” members of the force? That doesn’t match any definition of systemic that I can find.
Systemic def: affecting an entire system; “a systemic poison”.
This sounds more like a tumor than a systemic disease.
Kimmitt
My understanding is that the abuse was systemic but that there was only enough evidence to bring charges against a certain set of people.
Also, due to the presence of independent contractors, there could be abuse which was outside the Pentagon’s authority to prosecute.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Terry, you will have to explain more slowly why hiding prisoners from the Red Cross is better when we admit to it than they catch us. Well, maybe a little. Replace the 4:00 post with the 5:00 post.
Other than hope, is there any reason to think this is an isolated incident? Not really. At first, that’s what I believed— before I learned that Myers. Rumsfeld, and GWB were warned months ago. I can’t imagine that Bremer and Powell would have been pleading (unsuccessfully) with the Cabinet for relief from the acts of a dozen privates and sergeants in the reserves.
Chris P
“If the broom handles don’t work, how about raping their children? (Some rumor we’ve done that.)”
Dude, don’t even go there! You say yourself, right here, that this is rumor. Don’t throw it out there as legitimate argument or you’re just as sick as you claim Patrick is. You have really gone off the deep end on this one.
Andrew J. Lazarus
Sorry…
The bad news, Chris: tomorrow’s papers admit to videos of young boys being raped. (Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) warned us this was coming.)
The good news is that at least so far the reports say the rapes were conducted by Iraqi guards, so there’s no contamination of homosexuality in our own forces.
Chris P
“NBC News reported the new photos show U.S. soldiers severely beating one Iraqi almost to death, the rape of young boys by Iraqi prison guards, a U.S. soldier apparently raping an Iraqi woman and the inappropriate handling of a dead body. Those accounts could not be confirmed Friday night.”
and
“Graham also said there was new information related to “rape and murder. We’re not just talking about giving people a humiliating experience.” Senate sources said later, however, that the videotape does not show those acts.”
Based on the fact that accounts could not yet be confirmed and that the videotape does not show what it is said to show, I will withhold judgement for the time being. But, if these accusations are proven true, then there needs to be major housecleaning over this. Anyone even remotely connected to these crimes needs to be prosecuted to the fullest extent possible. Heads need to roll.
BTW, I think Rumsfeld deserved to have his ass reamed by McCain, Graham, et. al. for keeping this in the shadows or, as he put it, not having “read the report yet.” However, I still maintain that his resignation at this time would be premature. First, we need to figure out exactly what went on and exactly who was responsible. Like Kimmitt alluded to, we can’t prosecute everyone if there’s only enough evidence to bring charges against a few and we have to take into account that there were not only U.S. soldiers at Abu Ghraib, but Iraqi guards and independent contractors, who could just as easily have perpetrated these crimes.
Kimmitt
“Dude, don’t even go there! You say yourself, right here, that this is rumor. Don’t throw it out there as legitimate argument or you’re just as sick as you claim Patrick is. You have really gone off the deep end on this one.”
The irony is that, given your (quite reasonable) record of just not being able to quite believe it, then having it turn out to be true . . .
Chris P
Can’t resist rubbing a little salt in the wounds, eh Kimmitt?
Kimmitt
No intention to do so; I think that all of us were caught utterly off guard by this.