[Vision2020] Fire Rumsfeld

Dick Schmidt dickschmidt@moscow.com
Fri, 7 May 2004 11:48:14 -0700


Tom,

I just finished listening to the hearings and Rumsfeld has to go. He got
pretty arrogant several times during the hearings and conveniently forgot if
and when he told Bush of the incidents. He can't be effective anymore and
his resignation would send a message to the world that US is serious about
this and darned sorry. There also had better be some commissioned officers
whose heads should roll.

Dick Schmidt


----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Tom Hansen" <thansen@moscow.com>
To: "Vision2020" <vision2020@moscow.com>
Sent: Thursday, May 06, 2004 12:28 PM
Subject: [Vision2020] Fire Rumsfeld


> >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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