From Donald H.'s testimony:
RUMSFELD: Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, in recent days there has been a good deal of discussion about who bears responsibility for the terrible activities that took place at Abu Ghraib. These events occurred on my watch. As secretary of defense, I am accountable for them and I take full responsibility.
In the real world (especially the one promulgated by the Republican Party), taking "full responsibility" for a crime means accepting punishment. TheTaguba report explicitly references the Geneva Conventions in outlining the crimes committed in the U.S.-run "prison" system in Iraq.
Donald H. Rumsfeld has accepted "full responsibility" for these crimes -- war crimes, that is. Crimes for which responsible parties have in the past been hanged.
This blogger is opposed to Capital Punishment. But here we have, by his own admission, the man responsible for the commission of war crimes. Somehow, the debate over whether Rumsfeld should resign, as opposed to being packed off to gaol, seems a little inappropriate.
When somebody admits to having committed a horrifying and brutal crime, it isn't exactly standard operating procedure to say, "Well, thank you for your honesty. Have a nice day."
Okay, well, it kind of is standard operating procedure for white collar criminals, or progeny of powerful people, or Rush Limbaugh. But this is a new era, dammit! We believe in morals, now. We believe in family values, now. We're tough on crime, now. We don't coddle criminals, now. We left all that shit behind when we ran the liberals out of office.
Uh, right?
For all their talk of responsability they have little to none. Bush said that we went to Iraq to bring democracy to the middle east but now it seems that they are bringing their form of democracy to us: no accountability, opaque government and rule by fiat. WHERE is congress in all of this? So much for the balance of powers and oversite...
Juan Cole said it best:
Friday, May 07, 2004
The Mideastization of the US, or:
Rumsfeld Must Resign
".....Democracy is about more than elections. Most Middle Eastern countries already have elections. Tunisia, Egypt, Jordan, Yemen, all of them hold regular elections. They have parliaments, parties, campaigns. Two things make them nevertheless not democracies. The first is that their presidents manipulate the elections so that there is never any doubt that they will win the election and that their party will dominate parliament (even if space is made for minority parties to win a few seats). Second, their regimes have no accountability to the public. No one in Hosni Mubarak's government has ever had to resign because he performed his duties poorly. He might have to resign because he fell out with the president. But if he is buddy buddy with the head of state, then he can do no wrong.
You really wonder whether the Bush plan to Americanize the Middle East isn't being turned on its head. We now have an unaccountable government not elected in accordance with the will of the majority of Americans, which victimizes critics like Joe Wilson and engages in torture. Bush and Co. are emulating the worst aspects of the military governments of Egypt and Yemen. They have no credibility to push the latter toward democracy...."
Rumsfeld admission is tantamout to shrugging and saying, 'My bad.' Maybe someday he and Kissinger can share a cell.
Posted by: Andy on May 12, 2004 02:54 PM