06.24.07
Here’s what the state apparatus thinks of long hair and soccer shirts in the land that hosts world-without-Zionism conferences
A comment under a recent thread links to a new New Yorker piece by the ever-excitable Seymour Hersch on something related to the shenanigans a couple of years ago at Abu Ghraib.
Yo, Mr. Hersch: Here’s what real human rights violations look like.
Mr. Dings said,
June 25, 2007 at 3:13 am
I just thought we were bigger than that. If you read Hersch’s article it is all about the travails of Maj. Gen Antonio M. Taguba who reluctantly led the investigation into the atrocities at Abu Grahib. It quotes him extensively, so, if he has been misquoted by the freedom-hating Hersch, I will expect to hear an uproar and view an outraged letter from the major general and a retraction in next week’s issue. One of these quotations is: “The whole idea that Rumsfeld projects–’We’re here to protect the nation from terrorism’–is an oxymoron. He and his aides have abused their offices and have no idea of the values and high standards that are expected of them. And they’ve dragged a lot of officers with them.”
We are the beacon of democracy. Does that not mean decency? Hersch is a sincere, dedicated professional Pulitzer prize winning journalist. Although he has been criticized for sometimes using unnamed sources, his source is certainly on display in this article. Oh well, dicks like Rummy and Wolfie are gone. Unfortunately, so is Maj Gen Taguba. “In January of 2006, Taguba received a telephone call from General Richard Cody, the Army’s Vice Chief of Staff. ‘This is your Vice, he told Taguba. I need you to retire by January of 2007.’ No pleasantries were exchanged, although the two generals had known each other for years, and, Taguba said, ‘He offered no reason…’ They always shoot the messenger, Taguba told me. To be accused of being overzealous and disloyal–that cuts deep into me. I was being ostracized for doing what I was asked to do.”
This thing has been so dirty from the getgo, makes me ashamed of my country. Of course you will demonize any messengers not carrying the banner of lies and travesties and the real erosion of freedom here, in the name of protecting the nation from terrorism. As Dennis Ross, Middle East envoy and the chief peace negotiator in the presidential administrations of George HW Bush and Bill Clinton, asks in his recent release, Statecraft: And How to Restore America’s Standing in the World: “How did it come to pass that, not so long after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon brought the free world to our side, U.S. foreign policy is in a shambles?” Dick Cheney before he dicks us. But that was all so long ago. Time is thankfully running out on his administration and he is the lamest of the lame, almost as if he had shot himself in the foot instead of his hunting companion.