Rumsfeld should go now followed by GW next fall.

Great Debates
1

Yesterday on TV Rummy stated that the rules for interrogation in Iraq had been approved by the Department of Defense lawyers, and then turned to Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Myers for confirmation, which was forthcoming. I, at least, got the distinct impression that they were referring to the DOD Judge Advocate General’s (JAG) office but that turned out not to be the case.

A group of military lawyers from JAG were so concerned about how the Geneva Convention was being interpreted that they consulted, on their own motion, private lawyers to see what could be done, if anything. This is reported in this morning’s (14 May) *Los Angeles Times.

"'They [the JAG lawyers]* were extremely upset. They said they were being shut out of the process, and that the civilian political lawyers, not the military lawyers, were writing these new rules of engagement,’ said Scott Horton, who was chairman of the New York City Bar Assn. committee that filed a report this month on the interrogation of detainees by the U.S."

“Horton said the administration was following rules that had been approved for suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees at the U.S. Naval Base at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who are considered ‘enemy combatants,’ not prisoners of war. Indeed, the report by Army Maj. Gen. Antonio M. Taguba on the abuse at Abu Ghraib referred to a recommendation by Maj. Gen. Geoffrey D. Miller, then the commander of the Guantanamo detention facility, that the military ‘Gitmo-ize’ the prisons in Iraq. Miller visited the prisons last summer and now commands them.”
*

At all times and in all places the head of the administration all all of his underlings have relied on half-truth, exaggeration and in my opinion lies to promote this supposed war for “Iraqi Freedom” and such behavior is fatal to the representative form of government.

Therefore, they are not fit to be in office and should be summarily kicked out. Unfortunately the only method of immediate removal, impeachment, isn’t politically available so Rummy needs to resign because GW will never fire him and GW needs to be thown out next November.

Or haven’t you all had enough of this yet?

2

The U.S. has its own laws against torture, period, not even having to do with the Geneva Convention.

Here are the relevant acts:

Torture Victim Protection Act of 1991
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/28/1350.notes.html

federal anti-torture statute passed in 1994
http://www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/18/pIch113C.html

Under my interpretation of these laws, the U.S. government has violated them in such a way that Al Qaeda members in Gitmo actually have grounds to sue if some of the methods “authorized” for use against them were actually used. That’s a pretty freaking zany idea, but can anyone explain why it wouldn’t fit the law?

The U.S. under Bush has also, most memorably, opposed international oversight to enforce anti-torture standards.

So we’re left with a bunch of facts that are pretty darn demeaning to the U.S.

  1. We have officially sanctioned the use of torture for whenever we see fit (perhaps the least controvesial, since the sanction seems to be limited to things like)
  2. Torture has happened in our international prisons at the very least due to a lack of oversight and failure to comply with Geneva conventions on how prisoners should be processed and treated
  3. Practices that came pretty aggressive darn close to the line on torture were at least knowingly tolerated if not an official part of our interrogation strategies around the world.
  4. What oversight there was was in some instances conned by us, and we concealed the existence of some prisoners from the Red Cross.
  5. We oppose and continue to oppose the stronger kinds of international oversight in regards to torture that other nations demand of each other to make sure we don’t go beyond internationally agreed upon limits regarding torture.

Those aren’t a reassuring bunch of facts.

Here’s a pretty good argument against the use of torture, one of the key arguments being that it seroiusly undermines any possibility of criminal prosecution of not only terrorists, but those who aid them. But perhaps that’s exactly the intent.
http://slate.msn.com/id/2100543/

3

**Rumsfeld should go now followed by GW next fall… **
and the cow jumped over the moon …

4

I guess if this is the best that you’re able to come up with, we can all pretend like you’re debating.

5

You have to make allowances for Senggüm. He’s the one who wondered how Mark Twain could have known anything about the pacification of the Philippines when he wasn’t even there when we took it back from Japan.

6

The interrogation rules were signed off on, huh?

Interesting link of the day: about forced standing. Anyone who thinks making somebody stand in one place isn’t that bad would do well to read the linked article.

I’d like to see whether those approved rules included “forced standing.”

7

Rummy can wait until GW is gone, so long as they both go. And the election is this Fall, not next, and inaugurations are in January.

8

What’s your point? How could anything the ancient Twain said be relevant to the Jap occupation of the Philippines and then the American liberation of the islands? I’m sure the Filipinos wanted the Jap occupation instead of the previous American “pacification” as “written” by Twain. :rolleyes:

9

That article also notes that your average soldier would not know about these “leave no mark” tortures: someone has to have taught them.

10

Semantics. It’s the next fall season that comes so I say next fall, but if you like this I have no problem with it as long as we both vote against the incumbent gang. And I hope those who are planning to vote to “stay the course” get confused and wait another year to vote.

11

Why is impeachment unavailable? Because the present Congress has a Republican majority? But Congress still is more likely to impeach Rumsfeld than Bush is to ask for his resignation; and who else can force him to resign?

Yes, Bush has to go in November. But I’m sure Rumsfeld will still be Secretary of Defense on election day.

12

Yes.

Maybe but on a scale of 0 to 10 the chance of GW asking for a resignation I put at 0.00001 and Congress impeaching at 0.000011

Me too and I’m not all that sure that GW will go in Novermber. Sob.

13

**and the fat lady will sing … ** you can see I’m into real deep debate over this OP … :stuck_out_tongue:

14

OMG you got it in one guess!

15

It’s more than that. It’s a House controlled by Tom DeLay, as virulent a partisan as we’ve seen there since, well, Reconstruction, who was chosen with the acquiescence of a large number of GOP members who might be more responsible but still don’t dare buck the leadership. It is entirely possible that a leadership from the not-unremembered era of moderation and compromise might permit bills of impeachment to be considered, even in an election year.

But right now it’s still very possible that Bush will win, and it’s even likely that the GOP will hold the House, even though the odds are visibly shortening. Bush is their candidate, for better or worse, and Rumsfeld is only one part of the problem. Don’t expect the crew to abandon ship unless the water sloshes over the top deck - there aren’t any lifeboats for them.

16

Yeah, both, PLEASE, just go away…

17

If GW does win next fall there is a teeny little glimmer of hope in that the people around him do seem to be able to change their course.

ThisLos Angeles Times story points out that even while taking out ads accusing Kerry of flip-flops, the administrations has repeatedly changed policies in Iraq.

An excerpt:
*"With a new Iraqi government due in less than seven weeks, U.S. officials have been trying to build a future for the country on lofty concepts of constitutional democracy. In real time, though, a different principle increasingly guides the U.S. mission: Go with what works.

The Bush administration has junked one plan after another since last fall as it has groped its way, by trial and error, to a new order in Iraq. Officials have dumped a plan for grass-roots electoral caucuses, accepted former members of deposed dictator Saddam Hussein’s regime in the Iraqi government and military, and turned to the United Nations to design the caretaker administration — all despite earlier vows to do otherwise."*

And such action is, in my opinion a good thing. If what you are doing doesn’t work, change.

Colin Powell was even quoted in the Times as stating that if the new Iraqi government were to ask us to pull our troops out immediately, we would do so and this was confirmed by “an administration spokesman.”

While the main goal of GW himself seems to be to build a Utopian democracy in a place that can hardly pronounce the word, let alone act according to its meaning, he seems to be sufficiently uninvolved in the actual process as to allow his underlings to bend things to fit.

I still think the process would be much improved and speeded up without GW, Rummy and Wolfie but I suppose things will work out, if not for the best (which is a bunch of crap), at least in a tolerable way.

In any case, I would prefer not to take a chance and get rid of Rummy and Wolfie now and GW in November.

18

DS, do you include Myers on your “gotta go” list, or does the professional military deserve a pass? The results of this weeks poll over at the Army Times: Do you think Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman Gen. Richard Myers should keep their jobs, in light of allegations of prisoner abuse at Al Ghraib Prison in Iraq implies that Times readers consider Rummy and Myers to be inextricably linked on prison abuses.

19

Well, I don’t expect the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs to be up to the minute in the details of field operations. However, no he doesn’t get a pass, I think his casual “it’s working its way up to me” remark about the report on the Army’s own investigation of prison abuse was atrocious. It looks to me like grounds for seriously questioning his comittment to seeing that we act so as to not damage our case in Iraq even more that already has been done by no WMD, etc.

Off with his head! (Note to Attorney General Ashcroft: That’s just a figure of speech, borrowed from the Red Queen’s line in Through the Looking Glass a famous piece of fiction.)

20

It’s not online anymore, but the June 30, 2003 issue of The New Yorker had a nice long article about Rumsfeld and Gen. Tommy Franks. There was a LOT they didn’t see eye-to-eye on. And this article was written when things were going pretty well in Iraq.