"I told him I was equally sorry that people who have been seeing those pictures didn't understand the true nature and heart of America."
Does this better represent "the true nature and heart of America"?
At the dingy Corner Club Saloon they think she has done nothing wrong. "A lot of people here think they ought to just blow up the whole of Iraq," Colleen Kesner said. "To the country boys here, if you're a different nationality, a different race, you're sub-human. That's the way girls like Lynndie are raised. Tormenting Iraqis, in her mind, would be no different from shooting a turkey..."
Tearing down and disbanding the prison strikes me as a good symbolic gesture. Too late, too little, yes, but it's better than Bush's non-apologies, and it's refreshing to hear the idea coming from a frustrated congressman. Congressmen SHOULD be getting frustrated by current events, at least if they're going to represent my interests....
1. A whole hell of a lot of courts-martial, as many of them publicized as is possible.
2. A purge of essentially all the political appointees in the DoD, and maybe some of the military higher-ups too. Josh Marshall recently pointed out that that deranged creep Boykin, who regards himself as being in a holy crusade against Islam and claims to have photographs of Satan hovering over Mogadishu, is still in charge of defense intelligence. This can't be good.
3. To stop playing cute semantic and legal games to end-run Geneva Convention protections, US Constitution protections where applicable, etc. about the treatment of war prisoners. At the very least, stop being so damn unapologetic about it. How long did it take to even start holding the hearings on the Guantanamo prisoners?
4. Say, while I'm suggesting improbable bold actions, we could maybe take a look at our own prison system right here in America, where we seem to sort of tacitly assume that getting raped is part of the deal and make it into a funny joke.
Failing #2, we could, of course, eject the entire Bush Administration, which would be nice for other reasons too.
I could add something about general Iraq policy but, really, I don't think I have anything constructive to offer there. I doubt that pulling out immediately is the best of all possible policies, but, on the other hand, pulling out immediately would be better than what we are doing now. Which comes back to ejecting the administration, really.
One of the two or three decent things the Bush admin has done (the other I know of is the Sudan peace agreement, although it's looking now like that just gave the SudGov the opportunity to open a new front in the war on its own citizens) was passing an anti-prison-rape bill. I'm afraid I don't know anything at all about how that is supposed to be enforced, or really anything beyond the title, so I suppose it could be another "Clean Skies".
I actually thought that the press conference was pretty good, at least by Bush's standards (the soft bigotry of low expectations). I think Bush was actually taken aback by the pictures - that they might have actually gotten through to him in the way that a bazillion guys who know anything at all about the Middle East couldn't. In isolation, the conference could be a useful first step to something real.
On the other hand, I'm also sure that real follow-up on things like the state of the American gulag is something Bush is intellectually incapable of, and that no one in the Bush cabinet is going to be interested in doing (possible exception of Powell, but he's too much of a wuss to win a serious internal fight against Rummy and Cheney).
OK, so this is probably really obvious? But does it strike you as strange that we went into Iraq ostensibly to 'save' the citizens from that mean and nasty dictator who was abusing and raping and otherwise maltreating them, and we, well...yeah, you get the point. Never mind.
While backpedaling from last year's "Mission accomplished" stunt, our president said: "A year ago, I did give the speech from the carrier saying that we had achieved an important objective, that we had accomplished a mission, which was the removal of Saddam Hussein. And as a result, there are no longer torture chambers or rape rooms or mass graves in Iraq."
I'm assuming what he meant here was that there are no more locally owned and operated torture chambers or rape rooms left in Iraq. I'm fairly sure this is part of the Wolfowitz/Pearle/Cheney plan for turning Iraq into a beacon of western values for the middle east. What we see here is the ground floor for the Americanization of all sectors of the Iraqi economy. You start by driving the mom-and-pop rape rooms and torture chambers out of business and putting up big-box outlets that use poorly-trained and underpaid labor from out of town. Sure, they may offer better hours and lower prices, but the initial benefits turn sour in about 18 months when the locals realize they have even higher unemployment and lower wages than they did before, all while the profits leave the community. From the consumer's point of view, the initial convenience of a one-stop shop for all their rape/torture needs starts to wear off when they realize they've sacrificed quality, customer service, and above all choice.
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timeasmymeasure
no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 09:23 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-07 03:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-07 10:44 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 09:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 10:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-06 11:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-07 10:19 pm (UTC)1. A whole hell of a lot of courts-martial, as many of them publicized as is possible.
2. A purge of essentially all the political appointees in the DoD, and maybe some of the military higher-ups too. Josh Marshall recently pointed out that that deranged creep Boykin, who regards himself as being in a holy crusade against Islam and claims to have photographs of Satan hovering over Mogadishu, is still in charge of defense intelligence. This can't be good.
3. To stop playing cute semantic and legal games to end-run Geneva Convention protections, US Constitution protections where applicable, etc. about the treatment of war prisoners. At the very least, stop being so damn unapologetic about it. How long did it take to even start holding the hearings on the Guantanamo prisoners?
4. Say, while I'm suggesting improbable bold actions, we could maybe take a look at our own prison system right here in America, where we seem to sort of tacitly assume that getting raped is part of the deal and make it into a funny joke.
Failing #2, we could, of course, eject the entire Bush Administration, which would be nice for other reasons too.
I could add something about general Iraq policy but, really, I don't think I have anything constructive to offer there. I doubt that pulling out immediately is the best of all possible policies, but, on the other hand, pulling out immediately would be better than what we are doing now. Which comes back to ejecting the administration, really.
Prison rape
Date: 2004-05-08 04:52 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-09 03:15 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-09 11:21 pm (UTC)Mild dissent
Date: 2004-05-07 01:19 am (UTC)On the other hand, I'm also sure that real follow-up on things like the state of the American gulag is something Bush is intellectually incapable of, and that no one in the Bush cabinet is going to be interested in doing (possible exception of Powell, but he's too much of a wuss to win a serious internal fight against Rummy and Cheney).
no subject
Date: 2004-05-07 07:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-10 10:25 pm (UTC)I'm assuming what he meant here was that there are no more locally owned and operated torture chambers or rape rooms left in Iraq. I'm fairly sure this is part of the Wolfowitz/Pearle/Cheney plan for turning Iraq into a beacon of western values for the middle east. What we see here is the ground floor for the Americanization of all sectors of the Iraqi economy. You start by driving the mom-and-pop rape rooms and torture chambers out of business and putting up big-box outlets that use poorly-trained and underpaid labor from out of town. Sure, they may offer better hours and lower prices, but the initial benefits turn sour in about 18 months when the locals realize they have even higher unemployment and lower wages than they did before, all while the profits leave the community. From the consumer's point of view, the initial convenience of a one-stop shop for all their rape/torture needs starts to wear off when they realize they've sacrificed quality, customer service, and above all choice.