Nitpick alert: No, it is not. He is only the Commander in Chief. The Army does not belong to the President, he does not own it. It does not take an oath of loyalty to him, and it is not his personal private force. It takes an oath to defend the Constitution and defend etc. etc. etc. If the Army did “belong” to anyone, that would be Congress. The President as Commander in Chief is only the highest ranking person in the chain. So, yes he can give orders, but no, he is not the owner.
I didn’t see the interview. But something besides the allegations, which have been pretty well documented elsewhere, strikes me. How did an Administration famous for its inclination and ability to control information allow a recently-scapegoated* (and therefore presumably disgruntled) officer with personal knowledge of the detention/torture issue anywhere near a microphone? I haven’t seen that Karpinski has been cashiered outright, so presumably she’s still taking orders. I would have bet that the first order she took as a born-again colonel would have been “shut up.”
*I do not imply that she is not culpable - just that others are also, and her punishment was partly designed to stop/distract investigation higher up the chain.
Without having any direct knowledge, my impression from the interview was that she is 100% civilian at this point. But that may be a pretty fine line, since she was a reservist in the first place, a condition that is never entirely military, nor entirely civilian. I could probably answer the question with certainty if I weren’t so lazy and easily…oooh! shiny!
Her career, such as it was, is fucked anyway. She has nothing to lose by taking some of the fuckers down with her.
The decision, if there was one, may have been that nobody’d take her seriously as a result of her scapegoating, and at any rate there would be less chance of repercussions than if they gagged her instead.
Different spanks for different ranks. It has ever been thus.
Don’t forget that we now have an Attorney General whose last big job was finding new ways to legitimize the use of torture, and we’re about to have a UN Ambassador who bullied and intimidated intelligence analysts. Not to mention the government can break into your home without your knowledge, anti-war protesters are placed on antiterrorism “no fly” lists, and a new national ID card is being shoved down our throats so the Powers That Be can track our every movement.
(Geez, someone should start a thread and collect a list of this stuff. I’d do it, except it’d get me all depressed…)
Bread and circuses, bread and circuses…
We have always been at war with Eastasia.
::Scott, deciding it is better to laugh then to cry, starts singing along with rjung, to the tune of the internet meme entitled “Milk and Cereal”::
Will the current anti-US protests in Afghanistan and elsewhere over alleged desecrations of the Qur’an by US interrogation forces raise the public consciousness of these issues, do you think?
I mean, if American mistreatment of Muslim prisoners really produces sustained and vocal anti-US outrage in the Muslim world, wouldn’t the subject be significantly harder to ignore?
(Kind of ironic that the current outrage spike is impelled not so much by the documented abuses of prisoners themselves as by alleged disrespectful treatment of the Quran, which may not actually have happened—at least, the Administration is denying it.)
(As a side topic, I wonder what radical-fundamentalist Bush supporters (cf. the parallel “Bushfish” thread on this board) made of Secretary Rice’s televised assurance to Muslims that we would “never desecrate the holy Quran”. How does that sort of language sit with the Bushfish crowd? Has Bush himself ever publicly uttered the phrase “holy Quran”? What would be the reaction if he did? Will he have to, if Muslim indignation over these allegations is serious and lasting?)
Not a bit. Those that hate the war will listen and remember. Those that agree with it will ignore. Those in the middle will consider it only if they hear it, which is less than likely.
The media is so terrified of being seen as liberal and losing out on ratings that this won’t get the air time, and if it does they will likely “balance” it by putting some talking head on who will throw the same blanket remarks (disgruntled soldier/axe to grind). Since noone will investigate this story further, the blanket remarks will placate since there won’t be much to back the story up.
Also, economy/car bomb/wal mart/michael jackson/religious right/stock market/ford/britney spears/iraqi government/high or falling gas prices/squirrel on water skis. Unless this story gains a lot of traction, that is what you will see on the network news before or in place of this story. Abu Ghraib is old news and the public has a short attention span. This is news magazine show fodder, not regular network news.
Harborwolf: The media is so terrified of being seen as liberal and losing out on ratings that this won’t get the air time
Well, it was all over (English-language) CNN last night here in the Netherlands, with footage of the protests and Rice’s speech and all. A dozen or so people have been killed in Afghanistan in these protests, which are the biggest demonstrations seen since the overthrow of the Taliban, for mercy’s sake. Is it really not getting any attention in US media? I thought it looked potentially kind of important.
I hadn’t heard about it until this thread, and normally news that appears on shows like nightline does not make it to the normal network news. Haven’t seen it on my local newspapers cite or google news either. The only national news that’s fit to print here seems to be the battle over fillibusters and John Bolton’s nomination.
Google news does have the Quran story, and that’s one I had heard about but only pertaining to the afgan riots.
On the Karpinkski story, the first two stories are about her shoplifting case with the last story being about the allegations.
Sorry about the mistake.
The Boston Globe, that bleedin’ heart lib’rul rag, ran this story on page 9 yesterday.
The Boston Herald, a tabloid to warm the heart of Rupert Murdoch fans, published this story on Thursday.
The Globe has been covering the story for several days now, although it has yet to make it to the front page, even below the fold.
Ah, that last was about the Afghanistan story. Searching for Karpinski on both newspapers’ websites found three stories on Karpinski from yesterday at Boston.com (the Globe) and nada, not even the shoplifting story, on the Herald’s website.
I found nada on the Detroit Free Press. I’ll listen to NPR tonight and see if they cover it.
I’m really interested to find out how this story plays out in the media.
Us Amerikins are too busy scraping together tidbits from the Michael Jackson trial and next week’s release of Star Wars Episode III to waste time on trivial nonsense like this. 
The colonel has been disgraced and dishonored. I’m fairly certain that the Bush administration is comfortable with the idea that her anger and outings will be seen as sour rantings from a disgruntled former employee, particularly by many who support this regime.
And no mention of it last night on NPR or google news. Same for this morning. Story be gone. Liberal media strikes again. :rolleyes:
I know the Washington Post had stories on the Afghan riots on the 12th and the 13th.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/13/AR2005051300270.html
The New York Times reported on it every day from the 11th to today. (I’m not linking them because they require registration)
Unlike you, I was able to find articles in the Detroit Free Press, on the 12th and the 14th:
http://www.freep.com/news/nw/afghan12e_20050512.htm
http://www.freep.com/news/nw/afghan14e_20050514.htm
Even the local paper I grew up with, which isn’t a major news outlet, had it yesterday
http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=360469&category=NATIONAL&newsdate=5/14/2005
Actually Captain Amazing, I was referring to the Karpinkski story mentioned in the OP in my post.