Monday, July 25, 2005
We all need to keep in mind that the troops are people just like you and me. Remember that when the rhetoric gets too heated
In yet another not-so-stunning example of Bush administration’s unshakeable belief that they are above the law, Saturday’s Columbus Dispatch reported that the Defense Department has refused to turn over photos relating to the Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal to the ACLU. In doing so, Rummy and his chummies are in direct violation of a court order to do so.
In early June, Judge Alvin K. Hellerstein ordered the DOD to turn over the photos in response to a FOIA request from the ACLU. The ACLU wants the photos to determine the full extent of the abuse prisoners have been forced to endure.
There are only two reasons for the DOD’s refusal to relinquish these records, and neither of them are good news for the Bush administration. First, to this point, no senior level commanders other than the female Army Reserve general, Brigadier General Janice Karpinski, in charge of the facility have been disciplined in connection with the photos that first appeared in a CBS 60 Minutes story aired on April 28, 2004. It’s possible, however unlikely, that other officers have been stupid enough to let themselves be caught on film engaging in this behavior. That's reason one.
The second and more frightening reasaon is that the photos we have seen so far are just the tip of a gigantic and horribly ugly iceberg. This kind of activity is not something you get away with without people in charge knowing about it or condoning it, and it’s not, as Rush Dimwit said when the photos first surfaced, “blowing off a little steam.” This is TORTURE, plain and simple. It is illegal, it is morally wrong and it’s use by any nation or group, especially by soldiers wearing the Stars & Stripes on their shoulder, cannot be excused and should not be tolerated.
The majority of the prisoners in Abu Ghraib, were not only not involved in specific acts of terror, the had no connection to any of the insurgent cells active in Iraq. That explains why so many were released in the days since this story broke.
The DOD needs to release those photos immediately so we, the people of the United States, can see what the Bush administration has been doing to people of a sovereign nation in our name. These practices, which are obviously condoned, if not ordered by the White House, do not result in useful intelligence of any kind. At the same time, the mistreatment of Arabs simply because they are Arabs accomplishes nothing but the further enaragement of Muslims, both moderate and fundamentalist, and adds to the ranks of the terrorists rather than isolating them, which should be our goal.
Sources:
“U.S. defies court in suit over photos,” Columbus Dispatch, Sat. July 23, 2005,
USA Today Online."Prisoner Abuse Timeline." May 9, 2004. http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/iraq/2004-05-09-timeline-abuse_x.htm
FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, speech (1941)
A radical is a man with both feet firmly planted, in the air;
A conservative is a man with two perfectly good legs who, however, has never learned to walk forward;
A liberal is a man who uses his legs and his hands at the behest, at the command of his head.
