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Take this for size!--Ibn
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"More Outraged By the Outrage"
By Mohammed Gill
The Bush hawks, so fixated on making the Middle East look more like America, have made America look un-American. (Maureen Dowd, Op-Ed, The New York Times, May 13, 2004)
The irrationality of Iraq war has driven a wedge in the heart of the American nation. It is polarized by strong feelings on the legality/morality of the Iraq war. These feelings have blinded many of the otherwise rational and normal people to an extent that they find it difficult to distinguish right from wrong. An instance of such skewed thinking is reflected in the comment made by Senator James Inhoffe of Oklahoma in support of the opening statement at the Senate Armed services committee hearings, read by Stephen Cambone, undersecretary for defense for intelligence. Mr. Cambone said, “Donald Rumsfeld was deeply committed to the Geneva Conventions protecting the rights of the prisoners, that every one knew it and that any deviation had to come from the command level, (Editorial, The Abu Ghraib Spin, New York Times, May 12, 2004). Senator Inhoffe lamely commented, “..he (Se. Inhoffe) was more outraged by the outrage than by the treatment of the prisoners. After all, he said, they were probably guilty of something.”
Such comments coming from the mouth of a Senator are simply mind boggling. Doesn’t the American system of justice give the benefit of the doubt to the accused? And many of these prisoners are not even accused of anything; they are simply detainees. Isn’t one innocent unless proven guilty? Condoning injustice is equally bad and culpable as committing it.
The gravity of the prisoners’ abuse is realized in the highest office in the U.S. including Donald Rumsfeld personally. In his statement to the Senate Armed Services committee, he said, “I feel terrible about what happened to these Iraqi detainees. They are human beings. They were in U.S. custody. Our country had an obligation to treat them right. We didn’t, and that was wrong…The photographic depictions of the U.S. military personnel that the public has seen have offended and outraged everyone in the Department of Defense. If you could have seen the anguished expressions on the faces of those in our department upon seeing those photos, you would know how we feel today.”
So there is hardly any difference of opinion on the fact that the indecent and dehumanizing treatment meted out to the Iraqi detainees was reprehensible and un-American, in spirit and character. Is it then outrageous that this abuse was brought out in public view to inform the citizens that their cherished values and the values of the civilized world were violated by the prison interrogators? If this expose’ has outraged the American public like everyone in the Department of Defense as asserted by the Secretary of Defense, why should Senator Inhoffe feel outraged by the public outrage? And from all portents, this is just the beginning, the tip of the iceberg as one may characterize. There is more to come. According to Donald Rumsfeld, “There are other photos that depict…acts that can only be described as blatant, sadistic, cruel and inhuman…It’s going to get still more terrible, I’m afraid.”
According to the New Yorker, issue of 2004-05-17, “NBC News later quoted U.S. military officials as saying that the unreleased photographs showed American soldiers ‘severely beating an Iraqi prisoner nearly to death, having sex with a female Iraqi prisoner and acting inappropriately with a dead body.’ The officials said there also was a videotape, apparently shot by U.S. personnel, showing Iraqi guards raping young boys.”
The scandal is still unraveling; it’s going to get worse and put President Bush’s administration under increased pressure. President Bush apologized publicly for the abuse inflicted on the Iraqi detainees. Questions have been raised if Donald Rumsfeld should resign voluntarily or else be fired by the President. Neither of this is on the horizon yet.
This is a tenuous issue which has the potential of backfiring politically. Rumsfeld’s resignation can have adverse repercussions for the reelection of President Bush. But such an action is right in view of the fact that the Secretary of Defense has already taken the responsibility of the interrogators’ misdeeds. This should square up his admission with the price that a responsible person should pay in such circumstances. Otherwise the verbal apology and assumption of responsibility are mere hollow and empty words.
The cockamamie of Rumsfeld’s position is eloquently summarized by Thomas L. Friedman (Op-Ed, The New York Times, May 13, 2004), “Here is the new Rummy defense: I am accountable. But the little guys were responsible. I was just giving orders.”
President also presumably cannot take the risk of firing Rumsfeld for more or less the same reason; that it might undermine his chances of reelection. The best that he can do is the damage control. After venting his ire on Donald Rumsfeld for keeping him in the dark, President Bush made a public statement after a couple of days of “strong endorsement of (his) embattled Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. You are doing a superb job, Bush said (to Rumsfeld),” (Yahoo! News, May 11, 2004, Taguba Cites Mismanagement in Iraq Abuse).
This is the usual razzmatazz; but then lot of politics is razzmatazz. And double talk is the hallmark of the present administration. There doesn’t seem to be any immediate threat to President Bush from the Democratic Presidential candidate, Senator John Kerry, who hasn’t tried to capitalize on Bush’s recent troubles. He hasn’t so far posed a viable threat to President Bush’s chance of reelection. Bush was leading Kerry in recent polls although he seems to have lost some ground after the prisoners’ scandal.
But firing of Rumsfeld might also help restoring Bush’s stature in the public eye and win him some more votes. For the sake of credibility of his administration, President Bush needs to take a tangible action which the public could directly perceive. Verbal apology(ies) and promises of ‘getting to the bottom of it’ are empty words which do not effectively catalyze the public reaction.
No matter how you look at the scandal, it is serious and probably will get even worse. Governments have fallen on lesser crimes and scandals. Harold Macmillan resigned from the office of British Prime Minister when the Christine Keeler scandal broke out.
I’ll end this article with General Taguba’s epitomizing of the scandal. When “asked to put in simple words how the abuses happened”, Taguba said, “Failure in leadership, sir, from the brigade commander on down. Lack of discipline, no training whatsoever and no supervision. Supervision omission was rampant.”
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