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January 14, 2005
Naked Pyramid Blowback
Here's an extensive quote from today's NYT.
Specialist Graner, he said, was taking the fall for higher-up officers who he said knew the harsh treatment was routine - so routine that Specialist Graner felt no concern about leaving more than 1,000 photographs on a computer accessible to others.""They were taking pictures of what they did at work all day," he said of Specialist Graner and his friends. "The crime is that somebody leaked the photographs. It got out to the public and it embarrassed the United States government. And that's a shame. I wish it hadn't happened.
"The tragedy here is that because of this embarrassment, now those pictures are orphans, and the United States government and the chain of command and the M.I.'s say, 'We didn't know about that,' " he said, referring to military Intelligence. "You know that was a lie.
Somewhere in this blog, I thought I had posted the name of the higher level cat whom I thought should have been the sacrificial lamb in this matter. It's not clear that he's not going to get his, but again, I tend to believe that this is a show trial.
In one very important way, it shows that we have the rule of law and that we bring people to justice. The system works. But in another way it demonstrates the unwillingess of Americans to deal realistically with the implications of war. I am hopeful that it closes a chapter, but I suspect that somebody a bit higher up the food chain may still get appropriately whacked. Rumsfeld is not and never was the proper target, no matter what the 14 some-odd reports said.
What I regret at this time is that I think the credibility of other Western countries is not appropriately taken into consideration. There ought to be some understanding between the roles and capacities of Western powers that give a fairly clear picture and perspective on this matter which is not soley political posturing. And I think that our government officials are not in a position to speak out properly. This is the fault of the single-mindedness and groupthink of the White House and the highly ideological nature of the Neocon influence. I'm not losing sleep over it, but I think we're losing some sense of what criticisms of America are legitimate. The simple fact is this kind of thing happens in the world all of the time and it is not nearly as horrific as it has been made out to be.
We're not the bluehats. Get it straight.
Posted by mbowen at January 14, 2005 03:46 PM
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