The administration wants the whole world to know that it takes the abuse of the Iraqi prisoner’s seriously.
Defense Secretary Rumsfeld promised to hold those responsible accountable:
We're taking and will continue to take whatever steps are necessary to hold accountable those that may have violated the code of military conduct and betrayed the trust placed in them by the American people," Mr. Rumsfeld said.
President Bush, campaigning in Ohio, did not mention the abuse but his National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice again said the president was disgusted and outraged and had demanded those responsible be held accountable."The president has told the secretary of defense that he expects people to be held accountable, and that he wants, too, to know that this is not a systemic problem," Rice said.
But he added that he hoped that Arabs and others would realize that the United States would punish the perpetrators of these abuses "in a way that the world can observe and watch" and thus set a different kind of example, of criminal actions being punished."The one thing you can be sure of is that justice will be done," Mr. Powell said.
Army officials said the military had investigated the deaths of 25 prisoners held by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan and determined that an Army soldier and a CIA contractor murdered two prisoners. Most of the deaths occurred in Iraq.An official said a soldier was convicted in the U.S. military justice system of killing a prisoner by hitting him with a rock, and was reduced in rank to private and thrown out of the service but did not serve any jail time.
Does the administration really think that moderate Iraqis, other Muslims and the rest of the world will see that as justice?
You mean, the guy was thrown out of service, so sent back home, and you are calling this a sentence! It is a reward! Sentence would be an extended tour of duty.
"justice" indeed.
Hope that to many soldiers don't get any ideas from "sentences" like this.
Posted by: cedichou at May 4, 2004 06:03 PMLet's be honest here.... Which nation trains 3rd world dictators (and right-wing revolutionaries) in how to torture and murder ("disappear") political prisoners?
It's not a new story, they just don't usually get caught for a few years. Think Chile. Think Nicaragua, El Salvador, etc.
Phyllis
Posted by: Phyllis at May 4, 2004 08:45 PMBut there's the bigger question: Does any reasonably sane observer expect the Arab public to believe that justice means putting the flunkies on trial?
Everybody knows what it means to serve in a military unit. It means that you do what you are ordered to do, and you don't tick off your superiors if you can help it. When this happens several times, in several places, expecting people to believe that no higher ups are involved, that no officers knew, in short, that there is no systemic problem, is expecting the absurd.
Yes, punish the twits with the smirks and the thumbs up, because you shouldn't need to be told that civilized people don't get to act like that. And throw the book at the people who let them think, even for a minute, that it was alright to do what they did. And if anyone explicitly told them to do it, which I'd consider likely, those people need to be put away for the sake of every soldier out patrolling an angry public.
Posted by: natasha at May 5, 2004 12:15 AMWe'll have to wait and see how this thing pans out. "The wheel's still in spin, no tellin' the next one it's namin', for the times they are a-changin'..." so goes Bobby D., the bard. I have a tendency, being a pesky flea, to agree.
Posted by: Steve Plonk at May 5, 2004 11:21 AM"The president has told the secretary of defense that he expects people to be held accountable"
Which means, the low level flunkies who "took the pictures", and of course, the people "in" the pictures (but only because they have to for political expediency).
Bush only cares about the fact that the story got out—with pictures, that's what outrages him.
Once again, he's so completely out of the loop that he can probably feign ignorance about being informed of the torture in January.
His handlers will find some way to parse the January warnings as being anecdotal and not "actionable" and if all else fails he can say " I dint realize the siriusness till I saw the pitchers"