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jerwin wrote:

resedit wrote:

jerwin wrote:

I think that the German government should be allowed to do its job, even in the face of US intransigence.

Are you saying this because you think Rummy is responsible for what happened at that site, or because you want to see Rummy punished with whatever they can throw at him?

If the first, present evidence that Rummy was responsible.
If the second, think about the unintended consequences if you allow that kind of prosecution.

That's what the courts are for. And frankly I'm not worried about "unintended consequences". The courts cab deal with that.

To me the thing is what court.
I would fully support an American court trial and punishment.
There are a few others I might possibly, get me drunk enough, ok I'll consider them.
There are a vast number of countries that it's no way in hell.

Just throwing (up)...

'unintended consequences'?!

That was the objection of many to advocating renditions/torture/illegal combatants/Geneva Conventions.


sheesh.

Chicken meet roost.

bratboy wrote:

resedit wrote:

If the first, present evidence that Rummy was responsible.

I've tried.

Hello?

bratboy wrote:

bratboy wrote:

resedit wrote:

If the first, present evidence that Rummy was responsible.

I've tried.

Hello?

Hi. I've seen more evidence that Lebanon was responsible for the actions of Hezbollah than I have that Rumsfeld had anything to do with those atrocities.

He did not order them. He did not give an OK to disregard the ethics the military already holds itself to. He is not responsible for their actions, and the individuals responsible have been brought to justice under the military that Rumsfeld was in charge of.

Just what "court" is this now?  A German court?

bratboy wrote:

resedit wrote:

Hi. I've seen more evidence that Lebanon was responsible for the actions of Hezbollah than I have that Rumsfeld had anything to do with those atrocities.

...so are you going to respond specifically concerning the article I posted, or not?  You asked for evidence that pointed towards the specific charges at issue here, and I offered it.

He did not order them. He did not give an OK to disregard the ethics the military already holds itself to. He is not responsible for their actions, and the individuals responsible have been brought to justice under the military that Rumsfeld was in charge of.

You're doing it yet again.  Overstating your case by making claims that you couldn't possibly know with the certainty that your language suggests.

Yet you seem to claim that Rummy micromanaged the National Guardsmen at this prison?

What "ethics" did he disregard, what "military policy" are you speaking of?

I'll just ask one simple question for resedit and company: is it possible that Rumsfeld knew about what was happening at Abu Ghraib while it was going on? I'm not asking if he ordered it, just whether he knew of it.

In statements to investigators and in sworn testimony to Congress last year, Gen. Miller denied that he recommended the use of dogs for interrogation, or that they had been used at Guantanamo. "No methods contrary to the Geneva Convention were presented at any time by the assistance team that I took to [Iraq]," he said under oath on May 19, 2004. Yet Army investigators reported to Congress this month that, under Gen. Miller's supervision at Guantanamo, an al Qaeda suspect named Mohamed Qahtani was threatened with snarling dogs, forced to wear women's underwear on his head and led by a leash attached to his chains -- the very abuse documented in the Abu Ghraib photographs.

The court evidence strongly suggests that Gen. Miller lied about his actions, and it merits further investigation by prosecutors and Congress. But the Guantanamo commander was not acting on his own: The interrogation of Mr. Qahtani, investigators found, was carried out under rules approved by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld on Dec. 2, 2002. After strong protests from military lawyers, the Rumsfeld standards -- which explicitly allowed nudity, the use of dogs and shackling -- were revised in April 2003. Yet the same practices were later adopted at Abu Ghraib, at least in part at the direct instigation of Gen. Miller. "We understood," Maj. DiNenna testified, "that [Gen. Miller] was sent over by the secretary of defense."

source

Rumsfeld reacted in his usual direct fashion: he authorized the establishment of a highly secret program that was given blanket advance approval to kill or capture and, if possible, interrogate “high value” targets in the Bush Administration’s war on terror. A special-access program, or sap—subject to the Defense Department’s most stringent level of security—was set up, with an office in a secure area of the Pentagon. The program would recruit operatives and acquire the necessary equipment, including aircraft, and would keep its activities under wraps. America’s most successful intelligence operations during the Cold War had been saps, including the Navy’s submarine penetration of underwater cables used by the Soviet high command and construction of the Air Force’s stealth bomber. All the so-called “black” programs had one element in common: the Secretary of Defense, or his deputy, had to conclude that the normal military classification restraints did not provide enough security.


....

Miller’s concept, as it emerged in recent Senate hearings, was to “Gitmoize” the prison system in Iraq—to make it more focussed on interrogation. He also briefed military commanders in Iraq on the interrogation methods used in Cuba—methods that could, with special approval, include sleep deprivation, exposure to extremes of cold and heat, and placing prisoners in “stress positions” for agonizing lengths of time. (The Bush Administration had unilaterally declared Al Qaeda and other captured members of international terrorist networks to be illegal combatants, and not eligible for the protection of the Geneva Conventions.)
Rumsfeld and Cambone went a step further, however: they expanded the scope of the sap, bringing its unconventional methods to Abu Ghraib. The commandos were to operate in Iraq as they had in Afghanistan. The male prisoners could be treated roughly, and exposed to sexual humiliation.

source

Great!


Now get me the parts of the Geneva Convention that describe torture as "stress" and "sexual humiliation," and how the policy by Rummy at al intentionally violated that clear and "expressed verbage."

Good luck.

Last edited by gas huffer (2006-11-14 10:04 pm)

resedit wrote:

ShnickyShnack wrote:

I'll just ask one simple question for resedit and company: is it possible that Rumsfeld knew about what was happening at Abu Ghraib while it was going on? I'm not asking if he ordered it, just whether he knew of it.

If he knew of it while it was going on and did nothing to stop it, then he should be held accountable.
I don't think that was the case. If rummy knew, then a lot of officers between the smurfs and rummy knew, and there's a whole smurfload of people that need to be prosecuted for not stopping it.

Thank you! Was that so hard?

I really don't think Rummy knew it was happening.

Why not?

Ever hear of a guy named Major General Antonio M. Taguba? He wrote a detailed, and quite devastating report about the abuses in Abu Ghraib. He submitted it to the proper authorities, the chain of command if you will.

The report later became public when the infamous photos were released to the press. When asked about Taguba's report, Rummy said he didn't read it until after the photos became public.

Convenient, isn't it? Because if he read it beforehand, he knew what was going on and didn't do anything about it. Which makes him G-U-I-L-T-Y.

He's famous for being a micromanager. Isn't it possible he did read that report?

Edit: An interesting read

Last edited by ShnickyShnack (2006-11-14 10:30 pm)

ShnickyShnack wrote:

Rummy said he didn't read it until after the photos became public.

Convenient, isn't it?

Sure it is convenient. It may also be the truth. How many reports does he get, and how fast does he read them? I suspect he also prioritized reports - rather than reading them in order.

resedit wrote:

Sure it is convenient. It may also be the truth. How many reports does he get, and how fast does he read them? I suspect he also prioritized reports - rather than reading them in order.

At a certain point I would imagine that 'constructive' knowledge comes into play, as it often does in the U.S. legal system....meaning that one should have known that something was going on.

bratboy wrote:

resedit wrote:

Sure it is convenient. It may also be the truth. How many reports does he get, and how fast does he read them? I suspect he also prioritized reports - rather than reading them in order.

At a certain point I would imagine that 'constructive' knowledge comes into play, as it often does in the U.S. legal system....meaning that one should have known that something was going on.

And by the time he got a report, if it had not already been stopped - then people below him seriously smurfed up, no?