[Vision2020] Fire Rumsfeld

Thu, 06 May 2004 12:42:15 -0700

Tom includes a quote from Thomas L. Friedman's editiorial in today's New 
York Times.  I'd like to include his opening paragraph.  "We are in danger 
of losing something much more important than just the war in Iraq.  We are 
in danger of losing America as an instrument of moral authority and 
inspiration in the world.  I have never known a time in my life when America 
and its president were more hated around the world than today.  I was just 
in Japan, and even young Japanese dislike us.  It's no wonder that so many 
Americans are obsessed with the finale of the sitcom "Friends" right now.  
They're the only friends we have, and even they're leaving."  And Rush 
Limbaugh dismisses Abu Ghraib as a "fraternity prank".                       

                        Carl Westberg Jr.

>From: "Tom Hansen" <thansen@moscow.com>
>Reply-To: <thansen@moscow.com>
>To: "Vision2020" <vision2020@moscow.com>
>Subject: [Vision2020] Fire Rumsfeld
>Date: Thu, 6 May 2004 12:28:17 -0700
>
> >From www.moveon.org
>
>It's time for President Bush to fire Donald Rumsfeld from his post as
>America's Secretary of Defense.  The signs are now everywhere.
>
>As Thomas Friedman put it, in a column titled "Restoring Our Honor":
>
>   "This administration needs to undertake a total overhaul of its Iraq
>   policy; otherwise, it is courting a total disaster for us all.  That
>   overhaul needs to begin with President Bush firing Secretary of
>   Defense Donald Rumsfeld -- today, not tomorrow or next month, today." 
>[1]
>
>Please call President Bush now, and urge him to fire Rumsfeld.
>
>   White House comment line
>   202-456-1111 or
>   202-456-1112
>
>Bush has already taken the unusual step of publicly disclosing a reprimand
>of Rumsfeld.  But he's got to go further, and dismiss him.
>
>Please also call your Senators and Representative:
>
>   Senator Larry Craig
>   Washington, DC: 202-224-2752
>
>   Senator Michael D. Crapo
>   Washington, DC: 202-224-6142
>
>   Congressman C. L. Otter
>   Washington, DC: 202-225-6611
>
>Let them know it's time for Rumsfeld to go.
>
>Here are some highlights from the latest reports, illustrating why:
>
>Presidential advisor Karl Rove "believes that it will take a generation for
>the United States to live this scandal down in the Arab world." [2]
>
>The Washington Post reports that "U.S. officials said Rumsfeld and the
>Pentagon resisted appeals in recent months from the State Department and 
>the
>Coalition Provisional Authority to deal with problems relating to
>detainees." [3]  The Post also links the culture that fostered torture to
>Rumsfeld, in a searing editorial excerpted below.
>
>Amazingly, Rumsfeld still doesn't seem to see that the despicable acts at
>Abu Ghraib prison amounted to torture.  According to Salon.com:
>
>   "My impression is that what has been charged thus far is abuse, which
>   I believe technically is different from torture," Secretary of
>   Defense Donald Rumsfeld said on Tuesday. "I don't know if it is
>   correct to say what you just said, that torture has taken place, or
>   that there's been a conviction for torture. And therefore I'm not
>   going to address the torture word." [4]
>
>Rumsfeld's simply got to go.
>
>Please make your calls today.  Please let us know you've called, at:
>
>http://www.moveon.org/callrumsfeld.html?id=2801-1614596-zdb.m1gDWBJ2yueiLPpq
>lQ
>
>Thank you.
>
>Sincerely,
>
>- Carrie, Joan, Noah, Peter, and Wes
>   The MoveOn.org team
>   Thursday, May 6th, 2004
>
>P.S.: Here are key excerpts from the Post editorial:
>
>Mr. Rumsfeld's Responsibility
>
>THE HORRIFIC abuses by American interrogators and guards at the Abu Ghraib
>prison and at other facilities maintained by the U.S. military in Iraq and
>Afghanistan can be traced, in part, to policy decisions and public
>statements of Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld. Beginning more than
>two years ago, Mr. Rumsfeld decided to overturn decades of previous 
>practice
>by the U.S. military in its handling of detainees in foreign countries. His
>Pentagon ruled that the United States would no longer be bound by the 
>Geneva
>Conventions; that Army regulations on the interrogation of prisoners would
>not be observed; and that many detainees would be held incommunicado and
>without any independent mechanism of review. Abuses will take place in any
>prison system. But Mr. Rumsfeld's decisions helped create a lawless regime
>in which prisoners in both Iraq and Afghanistan have been humiliated,
>beaten, tortured and murdered -- and in which, until recently, no one has
>been held accountable.
>
>The lawlessness began in January 2002 when Mr. Rumsfeld publicly declared
>that hundreds of people detained by U.S. and allied forces in Afghanistan
>"do not have any rights" under the Geneva Conventions. That was not the
>case: At a minimum, all those arrested in the war zone were entitled under
>the conventions to a formal hearing to determine whether they were 
>prisoners
>of war or unlawful combatants. No such hearings were held, but then Mr.
>Rumsfeld made clear that U.S. observance of the convention was now 
>optional.
>Prisoners, he said, would be treated "for the most part" in "a manner that
>is reasonably consistent" with the conventions -- which, the secretary
>breezily suggested, was outdated.
>
>. . .
>
>The Taguba report and others by human rights groups reveal that the
>detention system Mr. Rumsfeld oversees has become so grossly distorted that
>military police have abused or tortured prisoners under the direction of
>civilian contractors and intelligence officers outside the military chain 
>of
>command -- not in "exceptional" cases, as Mr. Rumsfeld said Tuesday, but
>systematically. Army guards have held "ghost" prisoners detained by the CIA
>and even hidden these prisoners from the International Red Cross. 
>Meanwhile,
>Mr. Rumsfeld's contempt for the Geneva Conventions has trickled down: The
>Taguba report says that guards at Abu Ghraib had not been instructed on 
>them
>and that no copies were posted in the facility.
>
>The abuses that have done so much harm to the U.S. mission in Iraq might
>have been prevented had Mr. Rumsfeld been responsive to earlier reports of
>violations. Instead, he publicly dismissed or minimized such accounts. He
>and his staff ignored detailed reports by respected human rights groups
>about criminal activity at U.S.-run prisons in Afghanistan, and they 
>refused
>to provide access to facilities or respond to most questions. In December
>2002, two Afghan detainees died in events that were ruled homicides by
>medical officials; only when the New York Times obtained the story did the
>Pentagon confirm that an investigation was underway, and no results have 
>yet
>been announced. Not until other media obtained the photos from Abu Ghraib
>did Mr. Rumsfeld fully acknowledge what had happened, and not until Tuesday
>did his department disclose that 25 prisoners have died in U.S. custody in
>Iraq and Afghanistan. Accountability for those deaths has been virtually
>nonexistent: One soldie!
>  r was punished with a dishonorable discharge.
>
>On Monday Mr. Rumsfeld's spokesman said that the secretary had not read Mr.
>Taguba's report, which was completed in early March. Yesterday Mr. Rumsfeld
>told a television interviewer that he still hadn't finished reading it, and
>he repeated his view that the Geneva Conventions "did not precisely apply"
>but were only "basic rules" for handling prisoners. His message remains the
>same: that the United States need not be bound by international law and 
>that
>the crimes Mr. Taguba reported are not, for him, a priority. That attitude
>has undermined the American military's observance of basic human rights and
>damaged this country's ability to prevail in the war on terrorism.
>
>[The full editorial is at:]
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5840-2004May5.html
>
>Footnotes:
>
>[1] Friedman's complete column is at:
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/06/opinion/06FRIE.html?th
>
>[2] Rumsfeld Chastised by President for His Handling of Iraq Scandal
>http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/06/politics/06CABI.html?hp
>
>[3] Bush Privately Chides Rumsfeld
>Officials Say Pentagon Resisted Repeated Calls for Prison Changes
>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A5733-2004May5.html
>
>[4] "Abuse"? How about torture
>http://www.salon.com/opinion/blumenthal/2004/05/06/torture/index_np.html
>
>Spring is nature's way of saying, "Let's party!"
>-Robin Williams
>
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