Looks like Rumsfeld "approved" the interrogation plan at Abu Ghraib so reports the New Yorker Magazine on Saturday, May 15th: http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact Let's see who steps up and takes "accountability" for this one.
I said from the beginning this was not something that six or seven reservists from rural Maryland cooked up on their own. I am disappointed at how the administration and their surrogates like Sean Hannity have tried to shift the blame to "a few bad apples." The leash girl's claims that the pictures of her were staged at the orders of military intelligence are looking more and more true. Now the Pentagon brass is desperately floating stories of sex orgies and the like to draw the scandal-hungry media's attention. Maybe the reservists were also out of control, but the public and congress are not up in arms over some consensual sex. The ironic thing is that the interrogation methods were probably justifiable under the circumstances. Typically however, Republican "hawks" were not prepared to defend themselves against the media, but folded immediately and started looking for scapegoats. Kind of like they did in Fallujah. And with al-Sadr, who is now a hero of mythic proportions, courtesy of the administration's bumbling. This is looking more and more like Vietnam. Not tactically, but in the sense that the troopers are being backstabbed by politicians and the brass.
While I don't expect you to suddenly convert to liberalism, nor do I think you should do so necessarily, don't you think the FACT that the liberals who suggested that we not go into Iraq, that it would be another Vietnam, that the effort was poorly planned, etc. should be given some credit now for their foresight? What I find very perplexing is how so many right wingers continue to support Bush and Company and give them Carte Blanche approval, and equally offer instant dismissal of those who oppose Bush despite all the facts about Iraq and the war. This attitude that is so pervasive that Bush can do no wrong in the eyes of the right wing is downright middle ages. Give credit where credit is due, blame where blame is due. Stop the party line and begin to think independently. Re Sean Hannity: Hannity would make a fine "Youth for Hitler" leader.
True. And as several military leaders have said on more than one occasion . . . we can win the War "tactically" . . . but it does not look so from a "strategic" point of view. And that's this whole mess in a nutshell.
Nice choice of words in the rebuttal from Pentagon - none of the words false, wrong or untrue were used ... The reservists had very serious disciplinary problems - would not salute, were using non-standard mix of uniform etc. Hell, where I was in the military - at a regional NATO HQ - we always mixed civilian and regular uniforms - unless we knew the brass were coming in for a visit. Perhaps the guards at the prison were especially selected for duty based on recorded unregular behaviour so it was easy for them to take the heat it something went wrong. How is that for a conspiratorial theory ?