# Buh bye Rumsfeld. Seymour Hersh is takin' you down! **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [May 15, 2004, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335 "2004-05-15T23:34:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![samclem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a9a28c/32.png) [@samclem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/samclem)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335/81 "2004-05-16T20:20:41Z")
Thanks, **minty** for the Newsweek link. First the admins lawyers(the bad ones) decide that human rights/the rules of the Geneva Convention don’t have to be applied to the Taliban and Al-Queda. Then this gets extended to ANY prisoner who is deemed a “terrorist,” whether sent to Guantanamo, or Abu Ghraib. Will it be extended domestically to anyone who disagrees with the admin? Far-fetched you say? Sure. And McCarthyism never happened. Nazism was just a dream. The average person just wouldn’t stand for such things. But they(we) do. ---
**Author:** ![chula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a4c791/32.png) [@chula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chula)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 10:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335/82 "2004-05-16T22:10:07Z")
The issue of reciprocity is not the most important one here. One of the primary reasons why laws like the Geneva Conventions exist is to make a transition to a post-conflict society possible. Any chance the United States had at being able to govern Iraq in peace is destroyed by our torturing of innocent people. ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335/83 "2004-05-16T22:41:33Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Do you have any source other than an al-Jazeera journalist being interviewed by an extreme leftist? Extreme leftist? Who are you referring to? Other sources indicate this story is presently being investigated by the U.S. military in Iraq. There are a number of other allegations of rape of female prisoners and abuse of children as well. ---
**Author:** ![clairobscur](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/839c29/32.png) [@clairobscur](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/clairobscur)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 11:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335/84 "2004-05-16T23:02:41Z")
> [@JamesCarroll](#): > > It didn’t work in VietNam or Cambodia. Millions died when we left. MILLIONS!!! > . Extremely poor examples. A huge number of Vietnameses died in Vietnam when “you” _were_ there. And a lot of people in Cambodia too, since the US bombed Cambodia. I’m not aware that millions died in Vietnam after the USA left. I’m aware that millions died in Cambodia (that the US didn’t left, since the US wasn’t there at the first place…except for the aformentionned bombings). I’m also aware that the US governemnent publicaly condemned the people (hint : these people weren’t americans) who eventually overthrew the Red Khmers (you know, the guys who killed millions) in Cambodia. ---
**Author:** ![Reeder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/c6cbf5/32.png) [@Reeder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Reeder)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 11:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335/85 "2004-05-16T23:20:26Z")
> [@](#): > > I’m aware that millions died in Cambodia (that the US didn’t left, since the US wasn’t there at the first place…except for the aformentionned bombings) We were there too, just not officially. We were flying troops in everyday. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335/86 "2004-05-16T23:22:24Z")
> [@clairobscur](#): > > the Red Khmers Just so you know for future reference, this was an unnecessary translation. They have been historically called the Khmer Rouge here as well. And just because it’s not said enough (about just about any of our non-English-speaking Dopers), we do appreciate the work you put into translating your thoughts into English, **clair** , and the quality of that translation (see if most of us could do any better in French!). 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 11:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335/87 "2004-05-16T23:25:52Z")
> [@jayjay](#): > > Just so you know for future reference, this was an unnecessary translation. They have been historically called the Khmer Rouge here as well. > > And just because it’s not said enough (about just about any of our non-English-speaking Dopers), we do appreciate the work you put into translating your thoughts into English, **clair** , and the quality of that translation (see if most of us could do any better in French!). 🙂 For example, I never realized that Khmer Rouge meant “Red Khmers.” :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Squink](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5e925/32.png) [@Squink](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Squink)\ **Post date:** [May 16, 2004, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335/88 "2004-05-16T23:52:28Z")
> [@Colibri](#): > > Extreme leftist? Who are you referring to? It’s common knowledge that all true Scotsmen are extreme leftists. How could you not know this? SDSAB, and _still_ ignorant, it boggles the mind! ---
**Author:** ![Colibri](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/colibri/32/1841_2.png) [@Colibri](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Colibri)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 12:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335/89 "2004-05-17T00:29:12Z")
> [@Squink](#): > > It’s common knowledge that all true Scotsmen are extreme leftists. How could you not know this? > SDSAB, and _still_ ignorant, it boggles the mind! Well, I know a Scotsman pesonally, and he isn’t a leftist! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335/90 "2004-05-17T00:58:41Z")
Warning - the following is how I feel about the situation, if you don’t like it you can (checking… yes this is the pit) kiss my … After the beheading (and 9/11 aka the attack on NYC and the pentagon, the USS Cole and the World Trade Center (Where did I hear this before, oh yea they were attacked 2x, once in 92 and then again in 01 when they were destroyed), I really don’t give a flying one to what is done to the terrorist scumbags. That said, these issues about our troops tourchering iraqi (terrorist scumbags)EPW’s (POW’s) are non-issuse and I’m sure that the terrorsits scumbags, and for that matter Saddam Husaine (who I’m sure has cable TV in his cell) are laughing their collective @$$e$ off that we are even mentioning that we are abusing the iraqi EPW’s. Abuse that is no more then humiliation, to the worst human beings on the face of the earth!!! I think that is pretty darn nice, unrealistically so, almost to the point that we hope God Himself is mercyfull. I don’t think I need to go on. ---
**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 1:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335/91 "2004-05-17T01:03:11Z")
I’d kiss your ass but I think I’d have problems figuring out where you end and it begins. The prisoners at Abu Ghraib were not all terrorists. In fact, 70-90% of them had nothing to do with either terrorism or the insurgency or Hussein. And much worse than humiliation was apparently done. Do you even read newspapers or, even easier, the cites given in this and similar threads? Or are you so busy worshipping the Burning Bush that you can’t be bothered with **facts**? ---
**Author:** ![Tobio](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e68b1a/32.png) [@Tobio](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tobio)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 1:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335/92 "2004-05-17T01:05:04Z")
So **kanicbird** considers a twelve year old girl a terrorist scumbag who deserves to be “torchered”? Fucksake, man. Get a grip. ---
**Author:** ![Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/f475e1/32.png) [@Jimmy\_Chitwood](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jimmy_Chitwood)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 1:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335/93 "2004-05-17T01:06:53Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > I don’t think I need to go on. If you did, I don’t think I _could_. ---
**Author:** ![pepperlandgirl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/f17d59/32.png) [@pepperlandgirl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pepperlandgirl)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 1:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335/94 "2004-05-17T01:08:17Z")
I wonder what it’s like to have the simple, naive, sad belief that an entire nation is made up of terrorists. It’s more of an intellectual curiosity, because I would never want to be that ignorant, not even to see what it’s like. I guess I can live vicariously through some people on this board who bought all of Bush’s lies hook line and sinker. From the article: > [@](#): > > The Pentagon’s attitude last January, he said, was “Somebody got caught with some photos. What’s the big deal? Take care of it.” Rumsfeld’s explanation to the White House, the official added, was reassuring: “‘We’ve got a glitch in the program. We’ll prosecute it.’ The cover story was that some kids got out of control.” Rumsfield took a gamble here and it would have worked too…god, it almost did work. People were buying this shit and spouting off that exact same line _on this very board_. That scares me more than anything. Bush knows he can lie and Bush knows he can get away with it. There’s evidence in this very thread that that’s the case. I hope people who were played like a fucking fiddle from the very beginning are filled with righteous anger. They lied to all of us in full confidence that we’d buy it, and god help us, we would have if this story never broke. ---
**Author:** ![furlibusea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/aca169/32.png) [@furlibusea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/furlibusea)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 1:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335/95 "2004-05-17T01:12:21Z")
> [@](#): > > **kanicbird** …and for that matter Saddam Husaine (who I’m sure has cable TV in his cell) are laughing their collective @$$e$ off that we are even mentioning that we are abusing the iraqi EPW’s. Abuse that is no more then humiliation, to the worst human beings on the face of the earth!!! I think that is pretty darn nice, unrealistically so, almost to the point that we hope God Himself is mercyfull. You may be right. Saddam Husain and the bunch may be laughing their collective assess off, but not for the reasons you might imagine. We are creating the best damn recruitment system they have ever seen. :wally ---
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 1:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335/96 "2004-05-17T01:20:52Z")
> [@](#): > > I don’t think I need to go on. You’re probably right. With a single post you have provided enough ignorance to offset all Cecil’s efforts since 1973. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 1:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335/97 "2004-05-17T01:50:01Z")
You know, sometimes I feel like I’m pissing into the wind. Hersh must feel the same way. On May 8, **Billdo** started a thread titled _“Army Sec Said No Lawyers: Now I Conclude Torture Scandal Went to the Top”_. Link: [http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=255209](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=255209) In that thread, I quoted from an MSNBC story as follows: > [@](#): > > There is also evidence of a possible Pentagon cover-up. According to Taguba’s report, which was first revealed in The New Yorker, a previous Army investigator, Maj. Gen. Donald Ryder, somehow failed to note last fall that MPs were being asked to facilitate interrogation. In addition, a mounting body of other evidence around the world suggests that abuses did not stop there or even in Iraq, that the Geneva Conventions protecting prisoners of war from beatings and humiliation were being routinely flouted in an environment where, as at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib, almost anything can happen because almost no one is held accountable. In Afghanistan, the abuse of prisoners seems to have led to at least three deaths at U.S. interrogation facilities. According to U.S. military pathologists, two Afghan detainees died of “blunt force injuries” to “the lower extremities” and “legs” at Baghram in December 2002 and another Afghan prisoner died at a U.S. military camp in Kunar province in June 2003. Yet 18 months after the first deaths, a military investigation is still incomplete, and no broad inquiry like the Taguba probe has been launched into conditions at Baghram, according to a military spokesman in Kabul. from [Abu Ghraib and Beyond](http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4934734/) The evidence screams and has been for quite a while now that everyone in this unbelievably corrupt, hypocritical, and brutal Administration knew this, and either didn’t care or actually approved of it. I saw Rumsfeld testify before the Senate, and I came away with the distinct impression that the one thing that truly made him angry is that the pictures became public. Not the impression he wanted to leave, but if you were watching and you watched him closely, that was the impression he gave. They will continue to do this for as long as they can get away with it. That means as long as they are still in office, because there’s a million ways of doing these things so that you don’t get caught, starting, of course, with not taking any pictures. It’s still going on, right now. Count on it. Don’t act shocked when you find out that this is true, either. As long as they’re there this will go on. The **ICRC** knows this, **Amnesty International** knows it. Don’t be naive. I firmly believe that our only insurance against this is to insist that Kerry make McCain his running mate, and put him in charge of cleaning out the armed forces and the intelligence services of the scum who do these things. Also, everyone involved in this scandal needs to be prosecuted, and that means everyone, including Bush if his involvement can be proven. If ever something cried out for a policy of zero tolerance, this is it. ---
**Author:** ![Tentacle\_Monster](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ba9def/32.png) [@Tentacle\_Monster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tentacle_Monster)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 2:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335/98 "2004-05-17T02:06:53Z")
> [@kanicbird](#): > > Warning - the following is how I feel about the situation, if you don’t like it you can (checking… yes this is the pit) kiss my … > After the beheading (and 9/11 aka the attack on NYC and the pentagon, the USS Cole and the World Trade Center (Where did I hear this before, oh yea they were attacked 2x, once in 92 and then again in 01 when they were destroyed), I really don’t give a flying one to what is done to the terrorist scumbags. > > That said, these issues about our troops tourchering iraqi (terrorist scumbags)EPW’s (POW’s) are non-issuse and I’m sure that the terrorsits scumbags, and for that matter Saddam Husaine (who I’m sure has cable TV in his cell) are laughing their collective @$$e$ off that we are even mentioning that we are abusing the iraqi EPW’s. Abuse that is no more then humiliation, to the worst human beings on the face of the earth!!! I think that is pretty darn nice, unrealistically so, almost to the point that we hope God Himself is mercyfull. > > I don’t think I need to go on. “M-O-O-N, that spells justice!” “Tel algrnon I luv him and that the Iraky prizonrs got off luky” Seriously, though, every point you try to make in your post has been answered in this thread alone, not to mention the half-dozen or so that have sprung up in the Pit. Remember when this whole Iraq war started? We were trying so hard to be the “good guys”? At the very least, we could have, you know, not tortured our POWs. As someone who has actually had to learn about the Law Of Armed Conflict and the Geneva Convention in my military career, even the things in the photographs we’ve been allowed to see are not kosher. And the people doing those things for _damn sure_ had those briefings. I’m just waiting to see how far up the chain this reaches. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 2:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335/99 "2004-05-17T02:41:23Z")
> [@pantom](#): > > I firmly believe that our only insurance against this is to insist that Kerry make McCain his running mate, and put him in charge of cleaning out the armed forces and the intelligence services of the scum who do these things. I don’t believe there’s any chance McCain would accept even if Kerry were to offer. There’s probably a better chance of getting him to accept a cabinet post as Sec. of Defense. ---
**Author:** ![pantom](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/34f0e0/32.png) [@pantom](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pantom)\ **Post date:** [May 17, 2004, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335/100 "2004-05-17T02:43:34Z")
Hmm. Decent proposal, actually. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/buh-bye-rumsfeld-seymour-hersh-is-takin-you-down/245335.md?page=6)