NYT Editorial: The Wrong Direction

[kskiska]

Watching President Bush and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld this week, it was hard to avoid the sinking feeling that they had already moved on from the Abu Ghraib prison mess and were back to their well-established practice of ignoring all bad news and marching blindly ahead as if nothing unusual had happened. That was the impression that emerged from Mr. Bush's disconnected performance on Monday, when he viewed photos and video stills of the atrocious treatment of prisoners by soldiers under his and Mr. Rumsfeld's command, and then announced that the defense secretary was doing a "superb job." It was stronger than ever yesterday, during Mr. Rumsfeld's road trip to Iraq, where he drew a curious parallel between himself and Ulysses S. Grant and announced his approach to the prison scandal: "I've stopped reading newspapers."

Mr. Rumsfeld told the soldiers that they had broad public support at home despite the Abu Ghraib scandal. That is obviously true. It is also beside the point. The proper way for Mr. Bush and Mr. Rumsfeld to show support for the troops is not to use them as a screen from the heat over the mismanagement of the military prisons. It is to fix the problem, now. The solution is real changes, not cosmetic ones like yesterday's announcement that Abu Ghraib's inmates would be moved within the prison grounds to new temporary quarters, which have been dubbed Camp Redemption.

Each passing day has made it more clear that the routine treatment of prisoners in military prisons violates international law, the Geneva Conventions and American values of due process and humane behavior. This is a terrible burden for the fine men and women serving in Iraq to bear, as they live their lives among an ever more hostile populace. Rather than assuring his uniformed audience — and the world — that the administration is moving heaven and earth to wipe out the rottenness within the prison system, the defense secretary simply urged the soldiers to ignore the politics back home.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2004/05/14/opinion/14FRI1.html?ex=1085112000&en=131cafbf1aab534c&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

[Jack Rabbit]

1. . . . and on the subject of General Miller

Maj. Gen. Geoffrey Miller, who may have helped create the conditions that led to the outrages at Abu Ghraib, should be replaced as the head of the military prisons in Iraq.

I do not understand what message the Frat Boy was trying to send by putting the commander of Guantanamo in charge of Abu Ghraib.

[radfringe]

2. questionnaires?

in the days prior to bush*'s turkey appearance in Iraq, it was reported that questionnaires were handed out to the troops, only those that answered "correctly" we allowed to share the plastic turkey

does anyone know if something similar occured prior to rummy's visit?
Such a visit takes a bit of time to organize, so it's not like rummy decided to hop a plane yesterday on the spur of the moment

in any event, it's pretty clear this "visit to boost morale" is more like a "damage control visit"


meanwhile, does anyone know if the guards being charge will spill the beans and implicate higher ups?