Behind the demands for Rumsfeld to resign

[RBHam]

White House prepares a fallback position to continue Iraq atrocities
By Patrick Martin
7 May 2004

Excerpt:
In other words, Rumsfeld received his slap on the wrist, not for the mistreatment of the prisoners, but for the mistreatment of the president, whose political handlers and spin doctors were caught off guard when CBS broadcast its first report on the Abu Ghraib torture last week.

The desire of the US ruling elite to use Rumsfeld as a political lightning rod, and thus protect the Bush White House, was expressed in the editorial Thursday in the Washington Post. Its headline, “Mr. Rumsfeld’s Responsibility,” epitomizes the effort to shift attention from President Bush and Vice President Cheney, those principally responsible for the invasion and occupation of Iraq, to their Pentagon subordinate.

The editorial begins by stating the obvious, that the abuses at Abu Ghraib can be traced back in part to Rumsfeld’s frequent declarations, beginning with the treatment of Taliban and al Qaeda prisoners in Afghanistan, that the United States would no longer be bound by the Geneva Conventions; that prisoners classified as illegal combatants “do not have any rights”; that the military-run detention center in Guantanamo Bay was not subject to any oversight, either US or international.

None of these statements, however, were expressions of Rumsfeld’s private opinions. They reflected the policy of the Bush administration, as set by Bush and Cheney. This policy applied not only to prisoners taken on the battlefield in Afghanistan, or in military raids in Baghdad and Fallujah, but to those detained within the United States itself in the Bush-declared “war on terror.”

more...

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/may2004/iraq-m07.shtml

[freetobegay]

1. What a powerful article

Thanks for posting it!

[BeHereNow]

2. KICK!

Thanks RB-
This says it ALL.
BHN

[RBHam]

3. page 2 kick

Everyone should know the truth.

THIS IS A POLICY ISSUE!

Forcing false confessions through torture to reinforce the big lie of
9-11 and The War On Terror is standard operating procedure.

It continues on, while the media and the public are distracted.

[chaska]

4. Keep this kick, please. This is a very important question we need to...

consider carefully.

[chaska]

5. another excerpt:

The signal for an attack on Rumsfeld was given by Bush himself, in a rebuke to the Pentagon boss delivered at a closed-door meeting Wednesday in the White House, then promptly leaked to the press to provide fodder for the evening television news and front-page reports in the major daily newspapers Thursday.

[Wind Dancer]

6. Thanks for posting

Powerful stuff in this document and a must read.