Rummy!

[telkanuru]

As loath as I am to start another political catfight (tireur and epeemike are carrying the last one on in good form), what do you think should happen to our good old SecDef? Should he take the fall, or is saying sorry enough? Did he say sorry? What did he know, what should he have done?

My opinion:
I don't particularly like him, and it looks like he purposfully sat on it and did nothing. Moreover, he's shirking the blame that is obviously his. I don't think his resignation would be a bad thing, but I'm not rabidly calling for it 'cause I have my fingers crossed that he won't be there next January anyway.

[whtouche]

Originally Posted by telkanuru

I don't think his resignation would be a bad thing, but I'm not rabidly calling for it 'cause I have my fingers crossed that he won't be there next January anyway.

I agree with this.
Technically we'd be better off if the whole Bush war chest were gone. Specifically wolfowitz, that guy is a MANIAC.
Nothing specific to any of this whodunnit. We'd just be better off in general without them.

[telkanuru]

Wolfowitz is a maniac.

And isn't the current administration reason for war "Stopping the evils of the dictator, saddam" which included torture? oops

[epeemike81]

Originally Posted by telkanuru

Wolfowitz is a maniac.

And isn't the current administration reason for war "Stopping the evils of the dictator, saddam" which included torture? oops

don't you mean "the administration's current reason?" After all, the first reason was links to Al Quaeda, that fell through. then it was WMD, didn't find any of those, so now, after the fact, it's become human rights.

-m

[telkanuru]

current administration reason == the current reason of the administration, no?

[veeco]

No, it would mean "the reason of the current administration". At least that's how I understood it the first time...

[telkanuru]

no, that would be the current administration's reason. Back to the topic?

[epeemike81]

Originally Posted by veeco

No, it would mean "the reason of the current administration". At least that's how I understood it the first time...

it's ambiguous. I misuderstood.

-m

[RebelFencer]

Hey now! Bush is a good man and stands for good Christian values and.....HAHAHAHA, sorry, I couldn't keep a straight face while typing that. Oust the center of the axis of evil in 04, vote for Kerry.

[a517dogg]

If Rumsfeld was a decent man he would resign. He is not a decent man, and so he will not resign.

If Bush was a decent man, he would fire Rumsfeld. Bush is not a decent man, and so Rumsfeld will stay.

"Secretary Rumsfeld has been the secretary during two wars and he's an important part of my Cabinet and he'll stay in my Cabinet," Bush said.

http://www.reuters.co.uk/newsPackage...5&section=news

If the American public didn't have their heads up their asses Bush will be deposed in November. The American public does have their heads up their asses (too many watch FoxNews) and so Bush will stay.

Edit: "Asses" wasn't bleeped! :}

[Purple Fencer]

Rummy = Robert McNamara

At least in terms of arrogance...

[Inquartata]

OK, I'll be the first to interrupt the amen choir...

Originally Posted by telkanuru

I don't particularly like him, and it looks like he purposfully sat on it and did nothing.

Sounds as though the dislike and the opinion about guilt are not unrelated. Hardly a the best basis for a decision, don't you think?

Moreover, he's shirking the blame that is obviously his.

Er---what?

The Sec of Defense is supposed to know what every PFC in the world is up to at all times?

If you look at porn at work, the CEO of your company is "shirking the blame he deserves" and should resign?!

Whatever blame may exist properly rests with those who committed the crime, not those with nominal command over them from 12,000 miles away...

[Inquartata]

Originally Posted by a517dogg

If Rumsfeld was a decent man he would resign. He is not a decent man, and so he will not resign.

If Bush was a decent man, he would fire Rumsfeld. Bush is not a decent man, and so Rumsfeld will stay.

If a517dogg had a proper grasp of logic he would stop making faulty syllogisms. He does not have a proper grasp of logic. Therefore he will not stop making faulty syllogisms.

[epeemike81]

"I'm not a lawyer, but I believe the charges are of abuse, which is technically different from torture" -Donald Rumsfeld

"I'm not a lawyer either, but I've seen the pictures. Its' ****ing torture." -Jon Stewart, The Daily Show

The above statement by Rumsfeld is unsurprisingly assinine, and slightly surprisingly stupid (politically speaking). It's indefensible.

-m

[epeemike81]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

Er---what?

The Sec of Defense is supposed to know what every PFC in the world is up to at all times?

If you look at porn at work, the CEO of your company is "shirking the blame he deserves" and should resign?!

Whatever blame may exist properly rests with those who committed the crime, not those with nominal command over them from 12,000 miles away...

Wrongdoing was originally found in January. 4 months ago. yes, he should have done something about it by now. beyond that, though, the statement I've already cited as well as others show a person who is far too politically inept to be in a position to act as a strong representative of the US.

-m

[jeff]

Knowledge of wrongdoing has already been reported to go up the chain to the Brigadier General level, so its' far from what some PFC was doing in secret. The corporate equivalent with reading porn is wrong too: if management knows that staff is reading porn on the job or doing sexual harrassment, then you bet there can be severe penalties on company officers. That's the law, too.

I like the notion of "accountability", where individuals who are responsible actually have to suffer some form of consequences if they bugger things up. I didn't particularly dislike Rummy's personality (hey, if the guy running the armed forces can't be bellicose, then who can?), but I think his arrogance ("we'll be out of here in 5 months", "we don't need more troops or armor") have cost us terribly, and this terrible incident (could we create a bigger propaganda victory for Al Quada if we tried?) tells me he has to go, whether or not Bush is reelected (I hope not)

[D'Artag-NOT]

I heard on the radio today that the Red Cross was reporting prisoner abuse as early as a year ago.

At this point, I don't think Rumsfeld's resignation would defuse or ameliorate the situation one bit. The phrase "Too little, too late" springs to mind. These images have gone out all over the world and people all over the world are rightly outraged. The damage has been done.

Remember, those of you who are eligible to vote in the USA's November 2004 election: Regime change begins at home.

[onesandzeros]

CNN.COM: Rumsfeld: 'I am accountable'

"These events occurred on my watch. As secretary of defense, I am accountable for them and I take full responsibility."


Hopefully he will take full responsibility. Things like that should require jail time.

[jeff]

I'm afraid it's even worse: See http://www.salon.com/opinion/conason...hts/index.html "Abu Ghraib torture sanctioned by Pentagon Political Appointees"

"May 7, 2004 | Long before official reports and journalistic exposés revealed the horrific abuse of Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib, high-ranking American officers expressed their deep concern that the civilian officials at the Pentagon were undermining the military's traditional detention and interrogation procedures, according to a prominent New York attorney.

Scott Horton, a partner at Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler who now chairs the Committee on International Law of the Association of the Bar of New York City, says he was approached last spring by "senior officers" in the Judge Advocate General Corps, the military's legal division, who "expressed apprehension over how their political appointee bosses were handling the torture issue."...

What they have learned recently, however, suggests that questionable practices and attitudes toward prisoners stem from broad policy decisions made at the very highest levels of the Defense Department. Indeed, Horton says that the JAG officers specifically warned him that Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas J. Feith,one of the most powerful political appointees in the Pentagon, had significantly weakened the military's rules and regulations governing prisoners of war. The officers told Horton that Feith and the Defense Department's general counsel, William J. Haynes II, were creating "an atmosphere of legal ambiguity" that would allow mistreatment of prisoners in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Haynes, who was recently nominated to a federal appeals court seat by President Bush, is responsible for legal issues concerning prisoners and detainees. But the general counsel takes his marching orders from Feith, an attorney whose scorn for international human rights law was summed up by his assessment of Protocol One, the 1977 Geneva accord protecting civilians, as "law in the service of terrorism."


There's more. If true, this is a very shameful thing, and there has to be accountability up to the top.

[Artisan]

Bush will keep Rummy. He's already said so. If Bush were smart he would sack him as a scapegoat for not passing the abuse information up to him - and for failng to plan adequately for the post regime change era and to prove he's "a decisive leader" willing to make difficult decisions where his authority and credibility are at stake. Unfortunately he's more stuck on the "rightiousness of the cause" than on the realities of the outcome, and will not make this crucial step towards the damage control of this internationally relevant series of incidents. Which is fine - good... it will only strengthen the resolve of the American people who know he has to go in November, and help to win over the remaining few fence sitters that aren't part of Bush's evangelical cadre.

Anyone see the Frontline Documentary "the Jesus Factor"
about Bush's evangelism?

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontl...ws/jesus/view/

Scary...not that he's a religious man - that's his own business, but that he has blurred the line, and in his own personal theology he seems to have tacitly replaced "Gods will" with "the United States will with ME as its leader." More and more of the truely fundamental Christians are starting to back away... seeing the merge of Church and State as ultimately being harmful to both.

The show can be viewed online. Here is an except from the synopsis:
In "The Jesus Factor," viewers hear from numerous evangelical Christians who say President Bush understands the "heart and soul" of their beliefs and that his post-9/11 speeches comforted a grieving nation. FRONTLINE also speaks to those who feel the president has taken his rhetoric -- and his religion -- too far.

"If we turn religion into a tool for advancing political strategy, we treat it as anything other than a sacred part of life from which we draw values and strength," says Rev. Dr. C. Welton Gaddy, president of The Interfaith Alliance. "Any time that religion has identified itself with a particular political movement or a particular government, religion has been harmed by that."

"The Jesus Factor" concludes by assessing the importance of the evangelical vote to George W. Bush's reelection campaign strategy. "Evangelical Protestants are an absolutely critical part of the Republican base," says Dr. John Green, director of the University of Akron's Bliss Institute of Applied Politics and author of Religion and the Culture Wars. "The first stone in building the wall of re-election are evangelical Protestants."
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/jesus/