Can you liberals defend this???????!!!!!!!!!!!

They keep refuting these reports, but they just won't go away.
*******************


Pentagon Seeks to Quash Iraq Abuse Report

Sun May 16, 2:48 PM ET Add Politics to My Yahoo!


By Jim Wolf

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Pentagon (news - web sites) on Sunday tried to quash a report that abuse of Iraqi prisoners grew out of a secret plan approved by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to toughen interrogation methods to fight a growing insurgency.

Pentagon spokesman Lawrence Di Rita said that abuses shown in pictures published around the world had "no basis in any sanctioned program, training manual, instruction or order in the Department of Defense (news - web sites)."


The Bush administration is struggling to damp down outrage over the abuse and insists a number of low-level guards were to blame for the harsh tactics used to soften up those interrogated at the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.


The New Yorker magazine said Rumsfeld authorized expanding to Abu Ghraib the methods used in Afghanistan (news - web sites) against suspected members of al Qaeda, blamed for the Sept. 11 attacks.


Citing current and former U.S. intelligence officials, The New Yorker said the interrogation methods were part of a secret "special access program" that gave advance approval to kill, capture or interrogate so-called high-value targets in the war against terrorism.


As the Iraqi insurgency grew and more U.S. soldiers died, Rumsfeld and Defense Undersecretary for Intelligence Stephen Cambone expanded the scope to bring the interrogation tactics to Abu Ghraib, the article said.


CHARGES "OUTLANDISH"


A former intelligence official told the magazine Rumsfeld and Gen. Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, approved this but may not have known about the abuse.


Di Rita said: "Assertions apparently being made in the latest New Yorker article on Abu Ghraib and the abuse of Iraqi detainees are outlandish, conspiratorial, and filled with error and anonymous conjecture."


"No responsible official of the Department of Defense approved any program that could conceivably have been intended to result in such abuses as witnessed in the recent photos and videos," he added in the statement on the Pentagon's Web site.


"This story seems to reflect the fevered insights of those with little, if any, connection to the activities in the Department of Defense," Di Rita said.


National security adviser Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites), interviewed on German television during a visit to Berlin, said: "As far as we can tell there is really nothing to the story."


Seven military police reservists have been charged after pictures showed grinning troops beside detainees piled atop one another, forced to engage in sex acts and photographed in other poses aimed at humiliating them in the prison late last year.


Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) was asked on Sunday if Abu Ghraib prison, a torture chamber under ousted President Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), should be razed or if he believed Rumsfeld should resign, as has been demanded by many Democrats.


"We'll have to decide what's the best action," he said in an interview from Jordan on the ABC program This Week. "But there's no question that this incident has given us a black eye throughout the world."


CAUSE OF ABUSE


Sen. Carl Levin of Michigan, the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee (news - web sites), said on CBS's "Face The Nation" the latest New Yorker report added a "very significant subject" to be investigated by the panel.





Sen. John McCain, an Arizona Republican also on the Armed Services Committee, said he did not think the reservists accused of the abuse acted without being instructed. "We need to take this as far up as it goes and we need to do it quickly," he said on the NBC program "Meet the Press."

Rumsfeld returned on Friday from a surprise trip to Iraq (news - web sites) and Abu Ghraib prison, calling the scandal a "body blow."

The United States recognizes that the Geneva Conventions outlawing prisoner abuse apply to the war in Iraq. But it has said al Qaeda "terrorism" suspects do not qualify as prisoners of war under the terms of the treaty.

Newsweek on Sunday disclosed a memorandum by White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales written in Jan. 25, 2002, that said "the war against terrorism is a new kind of war."

"In my judgment, this new paradigm renders obsolete Geneva's strict limitations on questioning of enemy prisoners and renders quaint some of its provisions," he said.

Thank you.

And who are "they?"




This is the same Carl Levin who incessantly stonewalled Chris Wallace when he asked the "top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee" what action he, personally, took when the Pentagon announced their investigation of charges of abuse at Abu Ghraib in January, and that charges had been filed against guards in March.




And this proves what?



In my judgment, he is correct, but I guess that makes me (along with Liberal stalwart Alan Dershowitz) one of "they."

Finn, I did not write that article, so your challenge must be directed to the author of those statements. The "they" refers to all those superiors above those enlisted men that are being charged with a court martial. It seems the military brass and the CIA are pointing the finger at each other.

I think that EdgarBlythe has made a marvelous statement.

quote

"So every liberal is responsible for a website most of us have never seen"

Exactly.

But Mysteryman did not say that.

However, EdgarBlythe is correct-

"So every American Soldier is responsible for a prison most of them have never seen"?

"So every member of the Administration is responsible for a prison most of them have never seen or know of"?

Re: BoGoWo


Yes so do you; reverse click on the picture, and choose copy link address, then paste it into your browser, or here as i did........

http://home.ripway.com/2004-1/54222/warpresMED.jpg

Re: BoGoWo
and i add that i posted the picture to give those in it, not its artistic goal, a face in this thread.

and a question: the U.S. is now doomed to begin 'Nation Building' all over again, just because of the abortive policies of one presidency.

I hope that indicates clearly how carefully one must vote in a democracy!
And, perhaps, this is why the people of Iraq demonstrate daily that they neither want, not understand 'democracy' (or do they wisely realize that a democracy cannot be 'imposed'!).

Man, Rome was so much more efficient, but even they were conquered by a ragged band of Visigoths and other 'savage' tribes. The sacking of Rome was Germany's first lesson in their strength. Perhaps that's why they developed the hubris to start two world wars. America was late for both of them, surprisingly, but now it seems they are all gung-ho for number three. (This post in no way intends to insult Germans, just the Bush administration).

OK, lets give it all a little perspective, maybe the site wasn't even set up by a liberal. Maybe it was an iraqi that put it up, or even AQ. Or someone else that doesnt like america, or someone who thinks that going to iraq and dying there for ...... (why exactly did they go over there?) is stupid and he has a sick sense of humor.

See that's the nature of the internet, it is the last (well people will argue that it is no longer valid) bastion of free expression in the world (and for some the only). The owners of the site are entitled to their opinion and anyone who whishes to participate are free to do so. What gives anyone the right to question if someone can defend something. I can defend the site owners right to his opinion, and his freedom to express his opinion. It has nothing to do with being a liberal or a conservative, or being leftist or faschist.

That is the fine point being missed by most americans, and the us govt. these days. People dont have to think, act, live, etc. like you. They dont have to like you. The onyl thing that I owe anyone, and everyone owes me is respect. Respect for my right to think, for my right to express my thought. And respect for their choices.

or as someone famous (i think Jefferson) said:
"i disagree with what you say, but i will defend to the death, your right to say it!"

It's too bad more people in the ME don't think as you do. Maybe then they would stop blowing themselves and other people up for believing differently.

What are you referring to? The events in iraq, or the israeli-palestinian conflict?

In iraq you have a legitimate war of resistance to invasion. In israel things are rather more complex.

You said "People dont have to think, act, live, etc. like you. They dont have to like you." yet the people blowing things up tend to think just the opposite.

You seem to be forgetting that America is a mutt. we have everything and everybody pretty well represented here. We have all races, all religions, all beliefs and we all get along (for the most part).

I am referring to the idea in Islam and the Middle East that who ever doesn't think like them is an infidel and must therefore die. I believe you have misrepresented your statement. Most Americans could give 2 shites about how anyone else lives, acts, thinks, etc. They have enough problems of their own. It seems to me anyways, that the intolerant people appear to be around your neck of the woods.

Islam doesnt dictate the non-muslims be killed. It is a far more tolerant religion than many. It only condones violence in the sense of justice, and also in war. Wars are justified on two grounds, 1st is self defence against aggression and the 2nd is liberating people from oppression. The choice to take up the faith or not is left to the individual. The only people who have called for death to the infidel are the very extermists and you don't see them going over to monaco and carrying out attacks, or targeting andorrans and andorran interests. The US is as far as they are considered a legitimate target because of the level of its intervention in the region. The US supports all of the governments that these people are opposed to. The S. Arabian, Kuwaiti, Omanese, Qatarese, Egyptian and the rest of the ME governments are as despotic as saddam was. They allow dissent no more than he did, yet the US ends up supporting all these governments, and in some instances is the only assurance for their survival. Therefore the US and US interests becomes a legitimate target in their views. Also the US policy towards israel helps many of these extremists in convincing people how rotten the americans are, and lateley the americans themselves are helping these convictions by their actions in iraq.

There's no need to still be debating with him. I summed everything o\up nicely on the first couple pages of this thread.

When was the last time anyone here took a Muslim to lunch?

Not too long ago for me, LW, half my wife's family are Muslim.

I don't even know if I have any Muslim friends. I don't know if I have any Lutheran or Presbyterian friends either. It doesn't come up. If they're my friends anyway it doesn't make a damn bit of difference to me who they worship.