Year: 2004

I have been going back and forth on making a personal assessment about who is ultimately responsible for the abuse at Abu Gharib. Do I blame the soldiers, the military, the civilian masters of the Pentagon, the President or the American People? President Bush – below makes the arguement (in Al Arabiya that this is not a reflection of America: Q Mr. President, thank you for giving us this chance here in Al Arabiya. Regarding the alleged abuse of Iraqi prisoners, six U.S. soldiers are being reprimanded. Do you think that’s enough? THE PRESIDENT: First, I want to tell the…

We are truly sad at the death of Nick Berg. He was a non-combatant, a secured prisoner, and was killed in the most horrendous way. Our sympathies to his family. Unfortuantely, I believe he would have been killed regardless of whether the details of Abu Ghuraib had come out or not; whether Abu Ghuraib happened or not. The viciousness evident in the video was looking for an excuse to be let loose. Once more, I have to say, these people are animals. The ideology of Islam as hatred has become so embedded in their psyche that they murmur platitudes to…

Good for the Iraqis. Newsday.com is reporting that an estimated 1000 people have marched through the streets of Najaf urging Sadr and his army to leave town. A story on King Abdullah of Jordan on Slate reports other good news. “…On April 29 in Amman, Jordan’s capital, Abdullah’s wife Queen Rania led a march against terrorism. The Pan-Arab daily Al Hayat reported that close to 150,000 people turned out, some of them burning photographs of Osama Bin Laden and al-Qaida associate Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian national who had allegedly plotted a chemical attack against several targets in Amman. Jordanians…

There’s a petition on-line to get Rumsfeld to resign. Sign it because I think a partial victory is better than a total loss. However, I don’t think Rumsfeld should resign. He should be fired. Joho comes to a similar conclusion. My take has more to do with the honor of America. The President should defend it and his administration should live it. Rumsfeld was given the chance to resign and to help keep America’s honor; he chose not to. He’s said that America, the American ideal, is unimportant; raping and torturing people of color is what is important. If he…

I don’t want to spend a lot of time analyzing the situation at Abu Ghraib; there are people who are doing it far better than I could – and they are linked on the side of the site. There are, however, some thoughts that are floating around that I just want to throw out and see if anything comes of them.