|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Rumsfeld v. Rumsfeld
2004.05.19 — Government | War | Satire | by BB Rodriguez
|
How would he react if the shoe were on the other foot? [AP] |
Donald Rumsfeld has refused to use the word "torture" to describe the treatment of Iraqi prisoners in Abu Ghraib prison. His quibbling over "abuse" versus "torture" should become a Democratic attack ad. He would never in a million years say that if it were Americans being mistreated by Iraqis. He'd be loading up the nukes.
What if the prisoners had been American and the guards had been Muslim insurgents? What words would he be using then?
Here, we present an imaginary comparison of what Rumsfeld really did say in his press conference on the prisoner abuse and what he might have said if the tables were turned and he had been reporting abuse of Americans instead.
NOTE: Emphasis is added thruout.
|
What he would have said...
|
|
| The pattern and practice of the Saddam Hussein regime was to do exactly what you said, to murder and torture. And the killing fields are filled with mass graves. And equating the two I think is a fundamental misunderstanding of what took place. | This is another example of the inhuman evil these people are capable of. We're talking about mental torture and sexual humiliation. We're talking about physical abuse that led to American deaths. This is hardly any different than what Saddam himself did. |
| I guess the way to put it is that the department has been aware of it since it was first noticed, and up the chain of command we're told that there were investigations.... It takes time for reports to be finished— correction—to be gathered.... January 16th. February, March, April. Three months. These things are under way. | I was briefed immediately. And I briefed the president immediately afterward. |
| I mean, the fact of the matter is that this is a serious problem. And it's something that the department is addressing. | This is the most egregious treatment of American prisoners I've ever seen, short of the Richard Perle case. And believe me, we will find the perpetrators, and we will kill them. |
| Well, we informed the world on January 16th that these investigations were under way. It seems to me that that is a perfectly proper thing to do. The investigations were announced. The world knew it. It was briefed to the press and the world. | These claims al-Sadr makes about investigating the torture are ridiculous, with his vague little mention of an investigation months ago. He was trying to cover it up, plain and simple. |
| Immediately the commanders called all of the chain of command, to include to myself, General Myers, and—I'm not in the chain of command, excuse me, but I knew about it almost immediately—General Myers, the secretary. | This guy al-Sadr is the top of the chain of command. These are his troops committing this abuse, people he gives orders to. He's responsible for their actions and his inability to control them. |
| And we want to take care of an event that is—as bad as it is, we do not want to turn our justice system on its head in response to it. | Believe me, we will turn things on their heads to find these people who committed these terrible acts. We will find them, as I've said, and we will kill them. |
| And the world has seen problems of this type before, and I regret to say I'm afraid that people do things that they ought not to do, and that are harmful, and that are disappointing and are, in many instances, disgraceful. | I've never seen anything like this. It's inhuman. Prisoners were deprived of food and water. Some were sodomized with broomsticks, for God's sake. It's not just disgraceful, it's monstrous. |
| I'm not a lawyer. My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which I believe technically is different from torture.... And therefore I'm not going to address the torture word. | This was torture, plain and simple. Physical as well as mental torture. Horrible, humiliating torture. |
| [W]hile you're certainly correct that the lawyers made a legal distinction with respect to the Geneva Convention, in every time that was uttered, it was also added that [security detainees in Afghanistan and Iraq] are being treated consistent with the Geneva Convention. | They have said outright that they had no intention of abiding by the Geneva Convention. It's shameful. Even the damned Nazis abided by the Geneva Convention. |
| I think I did inquire about the pictures and was told that we didn't have copies. | I was given copies of the pictures as soon as they were discovered. Can you believe these monsters took pictures to document their atrocities? Believe me, they'll come in handy in the war crimes trials. |
| I'm not in the position to say whether—there are other allegations of abuse. That is a pattern and a practice of terrorists, to allege abuse. | If our soldiers say they were abused, then, by God, they must have been abused. I've got no reason to disbelieve them. What would they gain by it? |
| It is the studies and the investigations that we have initiated that will answer your question, and it would be premature for me to try to do that. But as I indicated, there certainly are allegations of abuse in various other locations. | This kind of torture is going on elsewhere. It may still be going on; we don't know. If we even suspect it at some location we can identify, you can bet that we'll be initiating an assault and rescue to stop it. |
| I haven't been focused on the war of ideas, to be honest with you, since this issue—with respect to this issue. | This is as much a war of ideas as it is a shooting war. I'm always aware of that. And this just illustrates the corrupt nature of their ideas. |
| Clearly we would wish it would not [affect US efforts] because it is an exceptional, isolated—we hope an isolated case. | Obviously, this hurts their efforts, and it should. This sort of thing is never just an isolated case. It's in the command structure. The whole structure is corrupt. |
Rumsfeld has since said:
There are other photos—many other photos—that depict incidents of physical violence towards prisoners, acts that can only be described as blatantly sadistic, cruel and inhuman. [emphasis added]
But apparently not "torture."
As secretary of defense, I am accountable for them and I take full responsibility....If I felt I could not be effective, I'd resign in a minute. [emphasis added]
So he takes responsibility, but not enough to suffer any consequences for it. He'll resign if he couldn't be effective any longer. But how has he been effective so far?
He has also said:
It's my failure for not understanding and knowing that there were hundreds—or however many there are of these things—that could eventually end up in the public and do the damage they've done....We're functioning in a—with peacetime restraints, with legal requirements in a war-time situation, in the information age, where people are running around with digital cameras and taking these unbelievable photographs and then passing them off, against the law, to the media, to our surprise, when they had not even arrived in the Pentagon. [emphasis added]
There you have it. If it weren't for the leak of the photos, this all would have been swept under the rug. And Rumsfeld has the gall to voice his anger about it in front of Congress. What a guy.
f e e d b a c k
[an error occurred while processing this directive]