Wednesday, May 05, 2004

Why should Bush apologize?

Kerry criticizes Bush on Abu Ghraib. It's predictable in a political campaign, I suppose, but he's just throwing meat to his own base. Nobody who thinks about this fairly will believe that the stuff going on at Abu Ghraib was condoned by Bush, Rumsfeld anybody from General Karpinski on up. And Bush wasn't happy that the reports seem to have taken too long to reach him, but that's pretty predictable in human nature, as well, and Fred Barnes said on Fox this evening that there have been reports about this for weeks months in the print press, but nobody paid any attention until the photos came out. Then everybody in the Congress was upset that they hadn't know about it before. Considering the impact this report will have on MP careers, it seems appropriate that the reports be carefully checked out before dropping this bombshell. Note that the last link from January 16 includes this:
At the Pentagon, Lawrence Di Rita, spokesman for U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, said the probe was a criminal investigation and that the reports of abuse were deemed "very serious and credible."
What I don't get is what the photos were for. I mean, is this something you want to show your kids when they ask "What did you do in the Army?" Were they posted on the bulletin board? I doubt that they were for publication. Were they being used to "soften up" prisoners for interrogation? They certainly took care to conceal the identities of the prisoners, as well. Everybody in the photos has a sack over his head.

I have another question. Have any of the people in the photos been identified or interviewed? What were they in the prison for? Were they al Qaeda types or the criminals that Saddam released when we invaded? The prisoners looked pretty beefy for people who had been in prison. Maybe they've been letting them lift weights. I guess I'll just have to read more of the reports.

Another good question:
"Why was a mechanic allowed to handle prisoners?" Daniel Sivits asked plaintively in reference to his son, Pvt. Jeremy C. Sivits, 24, who was trained to repair military police vehicles for the 372nd but wound up serving as a prison guard.

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home