Finding Neo
Don't this just beat all? It took more than a year after the start of the occupation of Iraq -- and only after disturbing reports of abuse at Baghdad's main prison -- that the "...Army two months ago quietly dispatched to Iraq a team of about 25 military police experienced in running detention facilities to shore up training and supervision, Army officials said yesterday.
"It was the first group of such specialists sent to Iraq since the invasion last year, the officials said. The move followed an internal Army investigation that found military police at the Abu Ghraib prison largely unprepared for their role as guards and accused them of grossly mistreating Iraqi detainees, the officials said."
It took cases of abuse slowly working up the command chain there to finally awaken the military that it might make sense to have people trained in this stuff to get to work over there. Yet another example of the astounding lack of foresight -- common sense, even -- in this grand imperial gambit we're calling the "Liberation of Iraq."
But I have to say, lack of special training and little understanding of the Geneva convention is really no excuse for what allegedly went on in Abu Ghraib prison. The photos I've seen are not shots of grim MPs going to work to "soften up" interrogation subjects. These people -- men and women -- were enjoying themselves. And clearly had no fear of documenting their acts in Kodak moments.
And, yes, I know, where were the "outraged" world leaders, not only in the Middle East, but in Europe and Asia as well, when Hussein was murdering thousands? But we were supposed to be finding WMD...no...scratch that...ending the "rape rooms" Bush is so fond of mentioning in justification for his administration's bungling. We'll, it appears we have our own rape rooms now, or at least the threat of it.
We're on our own now in Iraq. We are losing military leverage, we've long since lost political leverage, and we may very well have lost the moral leverage. And why? We're not even sure anymore.
Bush has even lost George Will.
Scott McClellan, the president's press secretary, later said the president meant only that "there are some in the world that think that some people can't be free" or "can't live in freedom." The president meant that "some Middle Eastern countries -- that the people in those Middle Eastern countries cannot be free."
Perhaps that, which is problematic enough, is what the president meant. But what he suggested was: Some persons -- perhaps many persons; no names being named, the smear remained tantalizingly vague -- doubt his nation-building project because they are racists.
That is one way to respond to questions about the wisdom of thinking America can transform the entire Middle East by constructing a liberal democracy in Iraq. But if any Americans want to be governed by politicians who short-circuit complex discussions by recklessly imputing racism to those who differ with them, such Americans do not usually turn to the Republican choice in our two-party system.
This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts. Thinking is not the reiteration of bromides about how "all people yearn to live in freedom" (McClellan). And about how it is "cultural condescension" to doubt that some cultures have the requisite aptitudes for democracy (Bush). And about how it is a "myth" that "our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture" because "ours are not Western values; they are the universal values of the human spirit" (Tony Blair).
Speaking of culture, as neoconservative nation-builders would be well-advised to avoid doing, Pat Moynihan said: "The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself." Here we reach the real issue about Iraq, as distinct from unpleasant musings about who believes what about skin color.
And where are the neocons lately? Apparently, no where to be found.
[Update: 4:58PM. Apparently after getting a pointed push from the Preznit, via Scotty McLellan, Rumsfeld has decided to express his dissatisfaction with the prison abuses in Iraq. Well, sort of.
"Rumsfeld told reporters that he dismisses comparisons between the alleged abuse by the U.S. military and the abuses of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
"The current controversy 'is an exception,' he said. 'The pattern and practice of the Saddam Hussein regime was . . . to murder and torture, and the killing fields are filled with mass graves. And equating the two, I think, is a fundamental misunderstanding of what took place.'
"He refused to apologize for the alleged abuses when asked by a reporter if such a remark would help ease complaints by Iraqi citizens about U.S. behavior.
"'We have to deal with this issue from a standpoint of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. We have to deal with it from the standpoint of how we're organized and trained and led. And that has been my focus,' Rumsfeld said. 'There may be things that we can do that would be helpful in helping the world understand that this is an exceptional situation. It is not a pattern or a practice, and any suggestion that it is, I think, would be incorrect.'"
At least he is focusing on something.]
"It was the first group of such specialists sent to Iraq since the invasion last year, the officials said. The move followed an internal Army investigation that found military police at the Abu Ghraib prison largely unprepared for their role as guards and accused them of grossly mistreating Iraqi detainees, the officials said."
It took cases of abuse slowly working up the command chain there to finally awaken the military that it might make sense to have people trained in this stuff to get to work over there. Yet another example of the astounding lack of foresight -- common sense, even -- in this grand imperial gambit we're calling the "Liberation of Iraq."
But I have to say, lack of special training and little understanding of the Geneva convention is really no excuse for what allegedly went on in Abu Ghraib prison. The photos I've seen are not shots of grim MPs going to work to "soften up" interrogation subjects. These people -- men and women -- were enjoying themselves. And clearly had no fear of documenting their acts in Kodak moments.
And, yes, I know, where were the "outraged" world leaders, not only in the Middle East, but in Europe and Asia as well, when Hussein was murdering thousands? But we were supposed to be finding WMD...no...scratch that...ending the "rape rooms" Bush is so fond of mentioning in justification for his administration's bungling. We'll, it appears we have our own rape rooms now, or at least the threat of it.
We're on our own now in Iraq. We are losing military leverage, we've long since lost political leverage, and we may very well have lost the moral leverage. And why? We're not even sure anymore.
Bush has even lost George Will.
Scott McClellan, the president's press secretary, later said the president meant only that "there are some in the world that think that some people can't be free" or "can't live in freedom." The president meant that "some Middle Eastern countries -- that the people in those Middle Eastern countries cannot be free."
Perhaps that, which is problematic enough, is what the president meant. But what he suggested was: Some persons -- perhaps many persons; no names being named, the smear remained tantalizingly vague -- doubt his nation-building project because they are racists.
That is one way to respond to questions about the wisdom of thinking America can transform the entire Middle East by constructing a liberal democracy in Iraq. But if any Americans want to be governed by politicians who short-circuit complex discussions by recklessly imputing racism to those who differ with them, such Americans do not usually turn to the Republican choice in our two-party system.
This administration cannot be trusted to govern if it cannot be counted on to think and, having thought, to have second thoughts. Thinking is not the reiteration of bromides about how "all people yearn to live in freedom" (McClellan). And about how it is "cultural condescension" to doubt that some cultures have the requisite aptitudes for democracy (Bush). And about how it is a "myth" that "our attachment to freedom is a product of our culture" because "ours are not Western values; they are the universal values of the human spirit" (Tony Blair).
Speaking of culture, as neoconservative nation-builders would be well-advised to avoid doing, Pat Moynihan said: "The central conservative truth is that it is culture, not politics, that determines the success of a society. The central liberal truth is that politics can change a culture and save it from itself." Here we reach the real issue about Iraq, as distinct from unpleasant musings about who believes what about skin color.
And where are the neocons lately? Apparently, no where to be found.
[Update: 4:58PM. Apparently after getting a pointed push from the Preznit, via Scotty McLellan, Rumsfeld has decided to express his dissatisfaction with the prison abuses in Iraq. Well, sort of.
"Rumsfeld told reporters that he dismisses comparisons between the alleged abuse by the U.S. military and the abuses of former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein.
"The current controversy 'is an exception,' he said. 'The pattern and practice of the Saddam Hussein regime was . . . to murder and torture, and the killing fields are filled with mass graves. And equating the two, I think, is a fundamental misunderstanding of what took place.'
"He refused to apologize for the alleged abuses when asked by a reporter if such a remark would help ease complaints by Iraqi citizens about U.S. behavior.
"'We have to deal with this issue from a standpoint of the Uniform Code of Military Justice. We have to deal with it from the standpoint of how we're organized and trained and led. And that has been my focus,' Rumsfeld said. 'There may be things that we can do that would be helpful in helping the world understand that this is an exceptional situation. It is not a pattern or a practice, and any suggestion that it is, I think, would be incorrect.'"
At least he is focusing on something.]
posted by John at 12:07 PM
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