The Abu Ghraib prison scandal was not the result of a few misguided soldiers, but of a decision last year by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld to expand a clandestine operation against al Qaeda to the treatment of prisoners in Iraq, according to a report in The New Yorker.
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Rumsfeld's goal was to bring the success of the secret terrorism program to Iraq in an effort to "generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency," the magazine reports.
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The rules governing the secret operation were "Grab whom you must. Do what you want," according to a former intelligence official whom Seymour M. Hersh quotes anonymously in "The Gray Zone."
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The U.S.-led military coalition in Afghanistan confirmed Saturday that a second investigation has been initiated into allegations of detainee abuse at the hands of U.S. jailers.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Embassy in Afghanistan announced that the military was investigating the alleged mistreatment of an Afghan police colonel while in the custody of coalition forces.

The officer says he was stripped naked, photographed, kicked and subjected to sexual taunting while being held by coalition forces in August, according to an embassy statement.
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http://www.cnn.com/2004/WORLD/meast/05/15/iraq.abuse.main/index.html

Mr. Hersh is a very well respected journalist, he was the one who told us about the massacre at Mi Li in Vietnam. I am more inclined to believe this journalist rather then some discredited, lying defense sectary anyday. Mr.Rumsfeld will quickly become a liability for Bush, and his ardent defense of him will soften and he will be out. I can see Rums, and Wolfowitz resigning or being kicked out of office. The election looks dangerously close for Bush now, and to maintain a cancer on the administration is the death knell Kerry needs. After the mess they created in Iraq, their total disregard for American lives, and now it seems acquiescence to prisoner abuses the rhetoric coming out of that man's mouth is as irrelevant as "old Europe".

Wolfowitz is the mastermind...he's the puppeteer :)

Even if he resigns he'll still be in power.

Mr. Hersh's article ... email it to yourselves while you can. "The Gray Zone (http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact)," by Seymour Hersh. The New Yorker, May 24, 2004.

The Gray Zone is a great behind-the-scenes look at dictatorship in the making.

I am scared to be an American citizen right now and all my friends swear that I am an alarmist. I tell them that Kerry may hurt our reputation by pulling us out of Viet......er Iraq but bush is determined to set up a dictatorship. We can always get our reputation back with one strong bombing campaign but a dictatorship will be a lot harder to fix.

I would be scared to be an American right now too. It's not the most democratic or stable of states anymore. The greatest irony of Iraq is this, in the 80's the US supported Saddam to stop the spread of Islamic fundamentalism, now that she invaded Iraq to set up democracy, guess who’s coming into power? Oh what a tangled web.


We can always get our reputation back with one strong bombing campaign but a dictatorship will be a lot harder to fix.

Actually that is most likely absolute worst thing you can do if you want your reputation to increase. There is a dichotomy, the more the US shows her muscles, the less and less respect it gets. You have to achieve a balance and bombing is obviously not the way to do it. This “war on terrorism” is one of minds not bodies.

Especially since the US is the main creator of terrorism by, for example, arming both Iraq and Iran in their war. Or funding Israel so they can oppress the Palestinians. The US creates terrorism and then wars against it. That’s sub-optimal. Unless you're getting rich off your military-industry stock.

Mr. Hersh is a very well respected journalist, he was the one who told us about the massacre at Mi Li in Vietnam. I am more inclined to believe this journalist rather then some discredited, lying defense sectary anyday. Mr.Rumsfeld will quickly become a liability for Bush, and his ardent defense of him will soften and he will be out. I can see Rums, and Wolfowitz resigning or being kicked out of office. The election looks dangerously close for Bush now, and to maintain a cancer on the administration is the death knell Kerry needs. After the mess they created in Iraq, their total disregard for American lives, and now it seems acquiescence to prisoner abuses the rhetoric coming out of that man's mouth is as irrelevant as "old Europe".

Mr. Hersh's article was well written, and supposedly thought not to be based in fact by the White HOuse. Heard that on CNN, a total denial of the article's validity. Will Americans put up with these lies? :confused:

We're getting a cocktail of misdirection, incompetence, and lies. Social engineering, no matter how well meant, has always been risky business. Now that it is failing, it's time look for scapegoats.

Hey weasel!

I am scared to be an American citizen right now
You sure you don't mean 'muslim citizen'?

all my friends swear that I am an alarmist.
Good friends you have, listen to them.

bush is determined to set up a dictatorship.
He already has. It's not as if he was elected fair and square now is it?

We can always get our reputation back with one strong bombing campaign
Why do you sound so much like Osama?

You still have a lot of work to do IMHO.
Keep at it and you'll get there eventually.
Dee Cee

What kicks it for me is the fact that they photographed themselves. Human beings have always been capable of doing utterly horrible things to each other. But do you notice how, even since the invention of photography, they usually have just enough sense not to take incriminating pictures of themselves doing it?

How many photographs are there of lynchings in the Old South? Of fraternity hazings? Of gang rapes? Of mobsters smashing up shops to prove that they need extra "insurance"?

There must be a hundred or more shots of American soldiers doing utterly horrible things to Iraqis. The photos are interspersed with shots of the same people walking down the street, befriending Iraqi children or just catching some rays.

This is not an atrocity that just happened spontaneously as a bunch of G.I.s got frustrated with the way the war was going. Atrocities that happen from the bottom up do not get photographed.

This is something that was planned and orchestrated from the top. Rumsfeld? Heck, who is the loudmouthed tiny-brained guy in Washington who keeps talking about this non-war as a "mission"? Bush has made it very clear that he sees this as Christians versus Muslims, a chance to resume the Crusades and "wahp them gol-dang heathen towel-heads offa mah planet." (That's not a real quote, I made it up, in case any of you folks from outside the U.S. think it looks just like the way Bush actually talks. It's not difficult to imitate, just pretend you've lost 60 IQ points and developed a speech impediment.)

A recent op-ed in the Washington Post lamented the fact that before the invasion of Iraq, the world's Muslim population was on an unstoppable track to reform. Islam was about to undergo its own version of the Reformation, Enlightenment, and Renaissance. If Muslims started acting less belligerent toward the U.S., it would be difficult to justify killing them. So Bush blamed Saddam for 9/11, focused our national anger on Iraq, gave cameras to a bunch of hopped-up soldiers along with a bogus story about doing whatever it takes to get intel, and presto, two billion Muslims hate us and the last thing on their mind is reform. According to the columnist, Bush has set the Islamic reform movement back by at least one whole generation. You kids who didn't have to experience the anxiety of the Cold War are now going to have to live most of your lives with incessant random acts of terrorism. Thanks to GWB.

"You kids who didn't have to experience the anxiety of the Cold War are now going to have to live most of your lives with incessant random acts of terrorism... This is something that was planned and orchestrated from the top."

Excellent post, Fraggle. With apologies for quoting you inaccurately (out of sequence) here- I think you've provided a succint description of the real implications of the "War on Terrorism". Special interests who profited so much from the last one, wanted a new Cold War, or maybe one a little hotter but manageable. The incalculable cost to the American public, and to the world as a whole, in blood and treasure was not an issue to them.

Such analysis is so often confused, deliberately or not, with blaming America, even though it is blaming the manipulators of US policy, whom history and justice will eventually demand be exposed. At some point the American people will be compelled to accept the blame for being sufficiently politically inept, as to fall for techniques of mass control related to those once employed by Nazi propagandists, and other political criminals of history. I still have hope that we're going to turn away from this folly.

There was on 9-12-01, and still remains today, the option to pursue terrorists just like any other international criminals are routinely and successfully run to ground, with higher success rates and without stirring up popular hatred, unpredictable wars, and multiplied terrorist recruitment/support in the process.

Until the American public sees through the criminal manipulation we are under, and insists on reasonable and effective foreign policy, the self-perpetuating War on Terrorism is going to grind onward, with a butcher's bill that will easily exceed that of the Cold War. If Americans can never summon the courage and humility to repudiate the insatiable New World Order we have been sold, then it will only end when it has devoured most if not all of the USA's vaunted freedom and prosperity.