Did 60 Minutes Act Unconscionably?

[clairobscur]

Originally Posted by Jonathan Chance

At a minimum I can vote their commanders out of office and expect the soldiers themselves to be tried or handed over to the Hague.

They couldn't be tried at The Hague. The court isn't competent since Irak isn't a signatory of the treaty. Besides, even if it was competent, it would be only subsidiary to a trial in the USA (if they weren't tried in the USA at all or if they had been tried but the court found it was a mock trial).


Such a thing could only happen if a special court for war crimes in Irak was insituted, similar to the courts for Rwanda and former Yugoslavia.

[Apos]

Originally Posted by pepperlandgirl

I've been wondering if all day if maybe Bush didn't know months ago. Now he can claim he had no idea and Rumsfield knew and never told him! Isn't that awful! Bush is an innocent victim in all of this. A man struggling to do the right thing, but being kept in the dark by his most trusted advisors. A man he thought he could trust. Isn't that tragic? Don't you feel sorry for him? So we'll all understand if Rummy has to go away now and hopefully we can put all of this behind us and forget it ever happened. Who likes pie?

Note also that Bush's supposed chastizing of Rumsfeld happened FIVE DAYS after the story broke, and after Bush and Rumsfeld had talked several other times. Heck, he went to a party at Rumsfeld's house on April 30th, the day he and his PS had both commented on the photos.

[iamme99]

Originally Posted by Bippy the Beardless

I would have squelched it. All involved US soldiers would have been moved to different locations, given very dangerous missions or retired from active service. All available copies of the pictures would be destroyed, a policy of frightening prisoners with faked pictures would be created, with the faked pictures being created similar to the real pictures. That would allow any future surfacing of missed pictures to be easily shown to be fakes. The Red Cross issues with the running of the Prison would be used as justification for the complete reorganisation of the prison system in Iraq and for the heads that rolled from the previous prison administration. I would also do everything possible to silence any Iraqis Identifiable from the images.
Then again I would also have planted evidence of WMD's in Iraq within the first 48hours of taking over the capital city.
This is immoral, I believe was is immoral. I think once the decision to go to war is taken, it is the responsibility of those with authority to ensure that the war is finished as quickly as possible with minimum casualties, and minimum repercussions, even if that requires missinformation and immoral actions.

Wow! I do hope you never get elected to a position of real power...

[Apos]

Some more developements:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004May6.html

According to these interviews, Bremer repeatedly raised the issue of prison conditions as early as last fall -- both in one-on-one meetings with Rumsfeld and other administration leaders, and in group meetings with the president's inner circle on national security. Officials described Bremer as "kicking and screaming" about the need to release thousands of uncharged prisoners and improve conditions for those who remained.

Joshua Marshall also points out that if we want to blame military intelligence, then the only real figure in authority over that is Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence.

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/arc..._02.php#002926
Remember him? He's the one who got in trouble last year for describing his battle with a Muslim Somali warlord by saying "I knew that my God was bigger than his God. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol", saying President Bush was chosen by God, and generally that the war on terror is an apocalyptic struggle between Christianity and Satan.
...

In any case, I doubt very much that all this mess we've gotten ourselves into is attributable to this one man. But at what point in this scandal does someone ask whether some of this might have some connection to the fact that the guy running military intelligence believes the war on terror is a literal holy war pitting Christian America against Satan and his Muslim minions?

[Merijeek]

Originally Posted by iamme99

Wow! I do hope you never get elected to a position of real power...

Bippy was just doing some very cold-blooded realpolitik.

It's what Bush & Co have been trying to do, but they just lack the competence, apparently.

-Joe

[rjung]

Originally Posted by Apos

Remember him? He's the one who got in trouble last year for describing his battle with a Muslim Somali warlord by saying "I knew that my God was bigger than his God. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol", saying President Bush was chosen by God, and generally that the war on terror is an apocalyptic struggle between Christianity and Satan.

If this is indeed the same guy responsible for those prisoner abuses, you can kiss any chance of seeing him punished goodbye -- can't jepoardize that Christian Fundamenalist voting bloc, y'know.

[Dan Norder]

To respond to the OP, in a free society, the news media is supposed to get the facts out. If something happened that the government doesn't want anyone to know about and should be stopped, that's ESPECIALLY the sorts of things they need to cover. To even question if 60 Minutes might have done something wrong is just another case of wanting to blame the messenger.

[Squink]

"George Bush was not elected by a majority of the voters in the United States, he was appointed by God."

"Ladies and gentleman, this is your enemy. It is the principalities of darkness. It is a demonic presence in that city that God revealed to me as the enemy."

Boykin is the deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence.

General Seeks 'Satan' Speech Probe