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OfflinePhred
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JFK on Rumsfeld
    #2663196 - 05/11/04 12:43 PM (19 years, 10 months ago)

http://www.scrappleface.com/MT/archives/001704.html#001704

Kerry: Rumsfeld Should Quit to Display U.S. Justice

(2004-05-11) -- U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld should resign immediately to demonstrate to the global community how the American justice system works, according to Democrat presidential hopeful John Forbes Kerry.

"Our system of justice says that a man is innocent until drummed out of office through the outcry of his political opponents," said Mr. Kerry. "Our troops are fighting and dying so that someday Iraqis and Afghanis will enjoy that kind of justice, unhindered by the grinding cogs of so-called 'due process of law'."

Mr. Kerry added that when he becomes president, he'll fire any cabinet member who won't quit after his political opponents call for his resignation.

"The world is watching us," said Mr. Kerry. "We must demonstrate that, in a free nation, justice is blind and deaf."




pinky


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Offlinephi1618
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Registered: 02/14/04
Posts: 4,102
Last seen: 13 years, 10 months
Re: JFK on Rumsfeld [Re: Phred]
    #2663305 - 05/11/04 01:07 PM (19 years, 10 months ago)

Uh huh.

Politicians call for resignations all the time; they love to point out the weaknesses of their political opponents. This is nothing new.


In any case, I agree with Kerry. Generally, shit like this is only punished if the army that does it loses the war. We claim to have a more equitable system, and claim that we are conducting the war for at least partly humanitarian reasons. Torturing Iraqis, some of whom were just picked up at check points and none of whom have had the benefit of legal process, looks real bad.
Let's show the world we are serious about what we say.
Rumsfeld's the top man; he should resign.

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OfflineDoctorJ
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Re: JFK on Rumsfeld [Re: Phred]
    #2663373 - 05/11/04 01:23 PM (19 years, 10 months ago)

Is that real, or another satire?

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InvisibleinfidelGOD
illusion

Registered: 04/18/02
Posts: 3,040
Loc: there
Re: JFK on Rumsfeld [Re: Phred]
    #2663467 - 05/11/04 01:43 PM (19 years, 10 months ago)

You're Fired!
by Peter Beinart

The New Republic

http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20040517&s=trb051704
_________________________________________________________

Americans remain divided about the war in Iraq. And they remain divided about President Bush. But surely people of goodwill from both sides of the great red-blue, hawk-dove divide can put aside their differences and agree on at least one thing: Donald Rumsfeld needs a new job.

Start with his response to last week's torture revelations at Abu Ghraib prison. President Bush, mindful of the p.r. catastrophe unfolding around him, quickly denounced the abuses. To illustrate Bush's outrage, White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan noted on Monday that the president had called Rumsfeld to demand action against the soldiers responsible for "these shameful and appalling acts." And how did Rumsfeld show his indignation? When asked the same day about Army Major General Antonio Taguba's now-famous report on Abu Ghraib, Pentagon spokesman Lawrence DiRita said Rumsfeld hadn't read it. An accusation against a few troops, DiRita explained, "isn't necessarily something" Rumsfeld and other top Pentagon brass "would get involved with." When Rumsfeld himself took the podium the following day, he said the guards' behavior at Abu Ghraib went "against everything that they're taught." That only proved he hadn't read the Taguba report, which says the military police (MPs) at Abu Ghraib were doing just what the intelligence officers running the prison told them to. As Brigadier General Janis Karpinski, the woman ostensibly in charge of Iraq's prisons, told "Good Morning America," "the MPs were given instructions [by military intelligence] on what they needed to do, and those instructions started to be very effective."

But Rumsfeld's reaction to Abu Ghraib pales next to his responsibility for it. Consider the conditions at the prison: It didn't have enough guards, the guards it did have were poorly trained, and they were demoralized by repeated extensions of their tours of duty. Sound familiar? America's failure at Abu Ghraib--like its failure to secure Iraq's borders, stop post-war looting, and provide the security necessary for reconstruction--all stemmed, in part, from too few troops on the ground. And the United States had too few troops on the ground, in large part, because of Rumsfeld's determination to use Iraq as a showcase for the lean, high-tech U.S. military of tomorrow. In particular, the United States was woefully short of the specialized, noncombat troops you need to occupy and rebuild a country after a war--like prison guards. Yet, Rumsfeld never made training such troops a priority--in part, because he believed a grateful, compliant Iraq wouldn't need much nation-building. And, in part, because he considered such work unmanly and morale-sapping--better left to the wimpy pseudo-armies of Western Europe. (The ones that have largely stayed out of Iraq.) So Rumsfeld famously dismissed General Eric Shinseki's suggestion that the occupation might require "several hundred thousand" troops, and tried to shut down the Army War College's peacekeeping institute in the run-up to the largest peacekeeping operation in U.S. history. Of the many disasters that followed, one was Abu Ghraib.

The soldiers assigned to Abu Ghraib hailed from the 372nd Military Police Company, based in Cumberland, Maryland. Arriving in Iraq in May 2003, they performed routine police functions, including directing traffic. They expected to return home quickly, which wasn't surprising given that the Pentagon's initial, wildly na?ve deployment plans called for U.S. troop levels to drop from 130,000 to roughly 30,000 by the fall. Instead, as The New Yorker's Seymour M. Hersh has reported, in October they were sent to guard the prisoners at Abu Ghraib. In December, they learned their tour had been extended, and, in April, they learned it had been extended again.

As Taguba would later detail, Abu Ghraib and another prison, Camp Bucca, were "significantly over their intended maximum capacity." The guard unit, by contrast, was "undermanned." By the end of his time at Abu Ghraib, Army Reserve Staff Sergeant Chip Frederick told "60 Minutes II," "There was only five soldiers, plus two noncommissioned officers, in charge for those 900--over 900 inmates."

And the few troops who did guard Abu Ghraib were, in Taguba's words, "poorly prepared and untrained." Most were reservists and had never received the prisoner-of-war training given to active-duty troops. Two members of the 372nd were prison guards in civilian life and were therefore put in charge. But most had no experience guarding prisoners at all. According to his father, Specialist Jeremy Sivits "never had any military police training"; the Army had trained him as a mechanic. Specialist Sabrina Harman's father said she was sent to Iraq straight from boot camp. Before that, she was an assistant manager at a pizza place.

Abu Ghraib was a dangerous place. According to Taguba, "There were numerous mortar attacks, random rifle and [rocket-propelled grenade] attacks, and a serious threat to soldiers and detainees in the facility." But, despite that, according to Frederick, "we had no support, no training whatsoever. And I kept asking my chain of command for certain things ... like rules and regulations. And it just wasn't happening." According to Taguba, "Few, if any, copies of the Geneva Conventions were ever made available to MP personnel."

Up Frederick's chain of command was Karpinski. According to Hersh, she had never run a prison system before. And it showed. Under pressure to learn about the Iraqi insurgency, intelligence personnel essentially took over Abu Ghraib's Cellblock 1A. They told guards to "soften up" (i.e., terrify) inmates so they would be easier to interrogate. And they told Karpinski--the nominal head of Iraq's prison system--not to visit the cellblock. Cellblock 1A, she told "Good Morning America," was "not run by my command."

Obviously, Rumsfeld disapproves of torture. He also disapproves of the street-level anarchy that has empowered fundamentalist militias, stopped reconstruction in its tracks, and turned Iraqis against the United States. But both are the result of his refusal either to send the American troops necessary to win the peace in Iraq or to get those troops from somewhere else. This, despite the loud prewar warnings from nation-building experts--both inside and outside the military--that he was placing ideology above experience. Some might ask whether America can afford to change defense secretaries in a time of war. But there's a more important question: Can America win this war with the defense secretary it has now?


_______________________________________________________


so everyone's in agreement. Rumsfeld must go.

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Offlinephi1618
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Registered: 02/14/04
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Re: JFK on Rumsfeld [Re: infidelGOD]
    #2663517 - 05/11/04 01:52 PM (19 years, 10 months ago)

From The Economist
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?story_id=2647493

Quote:


Iraq

Resign, Rumsfeld
May 6th 2004
From The Economist print edition


Responsibility for errors and indiscipline needs to be taken at the top



YOU are fighting against international terrorists in a battle that both they and you describe as being one about values. You fight a war against Saddam Hussein at your initiative, not his, and you say that it is a war about law, democracy, freedom and honesty. A big metaphorical banner hangs above both wars proclaiming that your aim is to bring freedom, human rights and democracy to the Arab world. All of that sets admirably high standards for the conduct of your forces as well as of your government itself. Now, however, some of your own armed forces are shown to have fallen well below those standards. What do you do?

One answer is exactly what George Bush has done in response to revelations of torture and humiliating treatment of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib jail (see article): to make it clear, in public, that you find such action abhorrent and unacceptable, and that the perpetrators of it will be punished. That has also been the approach of the British government in response to the publication of photographs that may well be fakes but that could nevertheless indicate that genuine abuses have taken place (see article). Yet such statements are not enough, especially in the American case. The scandal is widening, with more allegations coming to light. Moreover, the abuse of these prisoners is not the only damaging error that has been made and it forms part of a culture of extra-legal behaviour that has been set at the highest level. Responsibility for what has occurred needs to be taken?and to be seen to be taken?at the highest level too. It is plain what that means. The secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, should resign. And if he won't resign, Mr Bush should fire him.

Why He Should Go

That recommendation will elicit several different responses. One, from critics of the war, will be to point out that the highest level is in fact held by Mr Bush, and that it is the president who should go. The answer is that the electorate has a chance to dismiss Mr Bush in November, while Mr Rumsfeld is an unelected official who, if he is loyal to Mr Bush, ought to want to take the bullet in order to protect his boss. Another response, though, will be to say that the expulsion of Mr Rumsfeld would be disproportionate: wars always bring some abuses, for the soldiers who take part in them have been trained to kill, and the important question is whether the abuses are properly punished when they occur. A third response would be a cynical one: perhaps he should go, it may be said, but he won't. It's an election year. Get real.

The cynics may be proved right; they usually are. But these are exceptional circumstances. The pictures of abuse, especially the one on our cover of the hooded man wired as if for electrocution, stand an awful chance of becoming iconic images that could haunt America for years to come, just as the famous photograph of a naked girl running during a napalm attack did during the Vietnam war. One way of dealing with that risk is by countering it with your own iconic act: ejecting the man at the head of the Pentagon, the man most identified with America's use of military power during the past three years. He is also, however, the man most identified with the wider culture to which these abuses may be connected.

That approach was epitomised by the setting up of a prison camp at Guant?namo Bay in Cuba in 2001. The decision to detain combatants caught in Afghanistan for an indefinite period, with no access to lawyers and no legal redress, was understandable as a short-term response to the threat of terrorism and to ignorance about who might actually be terrorists, but it was nevertheless both wrong and disastrous for America's reputation. It was wrong because it violated the very values and rule of law for which America was supposedly fighting, and soon produced evidence of double standards: some American citizens captured in Afghanistan were allowed to stand trial in American courts in the normal way, but such rights were denied to mere foreigners, every single one of whom was labelled as a dangerous terrorist by Mr Rumsfeld, regardless of any evidence. It has been disastrous for America's reputation because of that hypocrisy but also because it has become a symbol of a ?we'll decide? arrogance.

The Geneva conventions that have governed the treatment of prisoners of war for decades were waved aside. And the argument used to justify America's rejection of the new International Criminal Court?that its soldiers would be vulnerable to unreasonable persecution, with necessary military actions defined as crimes?looked ever more hollow. Thanks to Guant?namo, critics could argue that America really does need the check of the ICC, and that its claim that abuses would readily be dealt with in domestic courts was also hollow.

The domestic courts are now gradually taking on the issues raised by Guant?namo, with a ruling awaited from the Supreme Court. And the promise by Mr Bush and Mr Rumsfeld this week that abuses in Iraq will be punished is no doubt sincere. It may be that the shoulder-shrugging pragmatists are right when they say that abuses are an inevitable consequence of war; and it may be that they would have happened regardless of Guant?namo. But the culture that it represented, with all prisoners considered guilty until proven innocent, with dubious interrogation methods widely considered to be condoned, could well have had an influence on the attitudes and behaviour of lower ranks. To stem such an influence right now, and to offer an indubitable demonstration to all Iraqis of the importance America places on eliminating such abuse, Mr Rumsfeld must take responsibility.

To June 30th and January 2005

Some may worry that a change of defence secretary now would further endanger the effort in Iraq. The opposite is the case, for although Mr Rumsfeld is rightly credited with a successful steering of the conventional war a little over a year ago, he and his team have also been responsible for many of the blunders since then: appalling post-war planning, inadequate troop numbers, excessive deBaathification, and more. For that reason, if he were to go it would be unwise to replace him simply with one of his own team, such as Paul Wolfowitz.

As the recently retired British envoy to Iraq, Sir Jeremy Greenstock, writes in this issue (see article), nothing is easy in an Iraq mired in violence and with fractured and volatile political groupings. But the political course now set, of handing more authority to a new, UN-picked interim government after June 30th in preparation for elections next January, is the right one. All efforts must be made to prevent that course from being disrupted or blocked by violence, by sectarian divisions or by Iraqi mistrust of the whole process.

This week, things seemed to be improving as an Iraqi-led force began to police Fallujah, the rebellious Sunni town to which the Americans had laid siege, and as the main Shia rebel, Muqtada al-Sadr, was becoming more isolated by his fellow Shias. Mr Bush's television broadcasts condemning the abuses at Abu Ghraib and promising punishment probably helped cool the atmosphere, though he ought also to have offered a straightforward apology. Better still if he and Mr Rumsfeld were now to demonstrate one of the true American values: that senior people take responsibility.




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OfflinePhred
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Re: JFK on Rumsfeld [Re: DoctorJ]
    #2663739 - 05/11/04 02:51 PM (19 years, 10 months ago)

Scrappleface is a satirical site, just as The Onion is a satirical site.

pinky


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OfflineFrankieJustTrypt
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Rumsfeld is the designated fall guy [Re: Phred]
    #2663972 - 05/11/04 03:58 PM (19 years, 10 months ago)

WASHINGTON -- One of the timeless truisms in the Harry Truman legacy was the presidential credo: "The buck stops here."

While there is plenty of blame to go around for the horrific handling of the Iraqi prisoners in the notorious Abu Ghraib prison, President Bush bears the ultimate responsibility for what happened on his watch.

Under questioning recently, White House press secretary Scott McClellan refused to say whether the president took responsibility for the disgraceful acts against prisoners in Iraq, though Bush has apologized for the degradation of the Iraqi prisoners, saying their treatment was "a stain on our country's honor and our country's uniform."

Bush apparently had no advance clue about the potential fallout of the Baghdad prison abuse. McClellan says the president didn't even know about the pictures until he saw them on TV, though Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld knew about them back in January.

Since it is an election year, Bush obviously does not want to be saddled with an international scandal.

He already has received some digs from Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts -- his apparent Democratic opponent -- in the November election. Kerry said that if he were president he would "not be the last to know."

Meantime, McClellan has been dodging and weaving under the bombardment of Watergate-style questions:

"What did the president know? And when did he know it?"

All we know is that Bush was told last January that an investigation into the Iraqi prisoner abuses had begun. But apparently there was no follow-up until the public revelations last week.

The January inquiry resulted in a devastating Pentagon report by Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba in early March. The New Yorker Magazine's intrepid Sy Hersh got the report and published it.

The revelations were not new to the International Red Cross, which says it had repeatedly beseeched Pentagon officials for a softer approach to prisoner interrogations but to no avail. The Red Cross has concluded that the abuse was "tantamount to torture."

Since the revelations, the White House has been engaged in frantic damage control against the firestorm that erupted after the atrocities were first shown on CBS-TV's "60 Minutes II" last Wednesday.

Rumsfeld is obviously the designated fall guy in the prison debacle.

In testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee Friday, he expressed his deepest apology to the Iraqi victims of the abuses and suggested that they be compensated.

But mainly he appeared to be trying to get the president off the hook by taking "full responsibility."

"These events occurred on my watch," he said. "As secretary of defense, I am accountable for them."

It's doubtful that Rumsfeld can assuage critics calling for his resignation.

Although Bush said Thursday he stands by Rumsfeld, the secretary is probably expendable if the political fallout gets too hot.

Rumsfeld certainly shares much of the blame for the lack of discipline and control in the military prisons.

But aside from such chain-of-command responsibility, the defense chief should bear a larger blame because of his boisterous proclamations two years ago that U.S. treatment of detainees wouldn't be guided by the Geneva Conventions regarding prisoners of war. Rumsfeld also arbitrarily deemed that Army regulations on the interrogation of prisoners would not be observed.

That conveyed a message down the line that "anything goes" when dealing with detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and other places where U.S. interrogators have stashed prisoners. (I wonder where Saddam Hussein is being held.)

Human rights groups have registered frequent complaints about the treatment of more than 600 detainees at the U.S. prison in Guantanamo and have been ignored.

The prisoners are literally in limbo without contact with their families, much less a lawyer. The U.S. Supreme Court will decide how this squares with the Constitution.

History shows the buck has stopped with other presidents who trusted the people enough to admit their mistakes.

Among them was John F. Kennedy who took responsibility for the aborted Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba in 1961.

In 1980, President Carter said "the responsibility is fully my own" for the ill-fated rescue mission to win the freedom of the American hostages in Iran.

President Reagan took the blame when the Marine barracks were blown up in Beirut in 1983.

In 1987, he took responsibility for the Iran-Contra scandal involving the illegal sale of arms to Iran to fund the anti-government Nicaraguan rebels.

To restore America's damaged global image -- where our words about freedom and democracy have been made a mockery -- Bush must take some personal responsibility.

And that takes courage.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/172703_thomas11.html


--------------------
If you want a free lunch, you need to learn how to eat good advice.

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Invisibleafoaf
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Re: JFK on Rumsfeld [Re: Phred]
    #2664281 - 05/11/04 04:59 PM (19 years, 10 months ago)

it still amazes me that people can't spot the scrappleface
satire as just that.


--------------------
All I know is The Growery is a place where losers who get banned here go.

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InvisibleinfidelGOD
illusion

Registered: 04/18/02
Posts: 3,040
Loc: there
Re: JFK on Rumsfeld [Re: Phred]
    #2664368 - 05/11/04 05:14 PM (19 years, 10 months ago)

Scrappleface is a satirical site, just as The Onion is a satirical site

scrapplefeces is nothing like The Onion. The Onion is actually funny.

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InvisibleinfidelGOD
illusion

Registered: 04/18/02
Posts: 3,040
Loc: there
Re: JFK on Rumsfeld [Re: afoaf]
    #2664370 - 05/11/04 05:15 PM (19 years, 10 months ago)

yeah, when your readers can't tell if you're being satirical, you have a problem

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Offlinephi1618
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Registered: 02/14/04
Posts: 4,102
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Re: JFK on Rumsfeld [Re: infidelGOD]
    #2664556 - 05/11/04 05:51 PM (19 years, 10 months ago)

if you read the quotes attributed to Kerry, it's pretty clear they're fake. It's satire, and the political point is obvious.

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Invisibleafoaf
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Re: JFK on Rumsfeld [Re: infidelGOD]
    #2664859 - 05/11/04 06:54 PM (19 years, 10 months ago)

:chuckle:


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All I know is The Growery is a place where losers who get banned here go.

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OfflineDoctorJ
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Re: JFK on Rumsfeld [Re: Phred]
    #2666869 - 05/12/04 01:17 AM (19 years, 10 months ago)

Quote:

pinksharkmark said:
Scrappleface is a satirical site, just as The Onion is a satirical site.

pinky




well, I kinda figured, but it wasnt really explicitly labeled. Never can be too sure, I wouldnt put it past any politician to say something that dumb.

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