Prisoner abuse only the latest disaster from Bush policies

[Syrinx]

This is a great column in today's Birmingham News. I can't find it on their website, so I'll just type in a couple of the best parts:

The widely publicized photos of the torture incidents at Abu Ghraib Prison in Iraq have served the worthwhile purpose of helping us to put Janet Jackson's "wardrobe malfunction" in its proper perspective. Unfortunately, the photos have done much more than that.

The torture photos, taken together with President Bush's distortions and contrivances about weapons of mass destruction and an Iraqi connection to the 9/11 terrorists, along with his "pre-emption doctrine," his "bring 'em on" braggadocio, his cowboy swagger (all hat and no cows) and his desperate, deceitful attempts to mislabel the disaster in Iraq as a part of the war on terror, have arguably created more new terrorists around the world than the efforts of Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, Yasser Arafat, Ariel Sharon and Randall Terry combined -- and that's saying a mouthful.

The despicable torture incidents did not happen in a vacuum. They happend in an environment cultivated by an administration that is rotten at the top. Time after time, "compassionate conservative" George W. Bush has chosen to value secrecy and political loyalty over national security, truth and justice. He has fostered (and funded) cruel, vitriolic attacks on true war heroes like John McCain, Max Cleland, and John Kerry when it suited his political purposes. He has lauched attacks with similar vitriol against former members of his own administration when they dared to tell the truth about his failures as president.

*snip*

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has caused only part of the mess this administration has made in Iraq, and his dismissal will not solve the problem. Our problems, both domestic and international, can be solved in only one way: Bush and his chief pupeteer, Dick Cheney, should resign in disgrace. Better yet, they should be impeached, convicted and imprisoned for war crimes and treason, as a demonstration to the world that our country is better, much better, than the idiots who currently run it.


Thomas Paulk grew up in Union Springs and now lives in Decatur, where he is president of the Alabama Farmers Cooperative. He joined the US Army Reserves in May, 1966, when his turn came up on the waiting list. He says he served out his full six-year commitment with 100 percent attendance in the Alabama National Guard on active duty, at summer camp and some 65 weekend Guard meetings, ending in June 1972. He says he has never met George W. Bush.


edit: my *snip* was in the wrong place. ;)

[slor]

1. WOW...

best post I have seen all day, if you find the article Please Post it!

[Syrinx]

2. well, I think it's a good column

:D

[Media_Lies_Daily]

3. When the President of the Alabama Farmers Cooperative launches...

...a major shot on the chin of the FratBoy Fuhrer, and the Birmingham News actually prints it, you know that Junior has lost some heavy-duty support in Alabama.

I take this article as VERY good news!

Thank you, Mr. Paulk!

[nadinbrzezinski]

4. Kick

and good news

[Rocinante]

5. Damn

What a great column! I suspect we will be seeing more like it in the days to come.

[Syrinx]

8. I sure hope so

I wish we had more reporters like Edward R. Murrow from the old days.

[sandnsea]

6. Decatur Daily - read THIS!!

Looking for this guy, he lives in Decatur AL, but I haven't found anything else. But I did find this:

"They were hoodlums disguised as soldiers. There was no one who would stand up and say, 'Hey, that's not right.' Once the enemy is no longer a threat ... he is a prisoner of war and is to be treated as such. That wasn't the case that day,
obviously."

"The subject was not Abu Ghraib prison...
In 1968, Army Chief Warrant Officer Hugh C. Thompson Jr. put down his chopper between U.S. troops, who had already killed 400 civilians, and the dozen Vietnamese who were their next targets. By doing so, he both halted and gave international attention to the My Lai massacre.
Thompson said the parallels between Abu Ghraib and My Lai disturb him..."

"Rosenberg said the dehumanization of Iraqi prisoners is rooted in the same moral ambivalence demonstrated in German concentration camps."

http://www.decaturdaily.com/decaturdaily/news/040523/abuse.shtml

[Syrinx]

7. Wow!

That's quite the piece! Nice to see Alabama dailies kicking it up a notch (to use trite language).