The War's Lost Weekend

"Emmanuel Gustin" wrote in message
om...
Presidente Alcazar wrote in
message . ..


snip

I was going to ignore your continued partisan ranting about this subject,
but some of the ideas you have posited are so ridiculous that commentary is
necessary.

Good, now demonstrate the Rumsfeld was a party to the breaking of the
law by soldiers in Abu Ghraib.

Now you ARE behaving as the stereotypical American --
attempting to narrow down the issue to the breaking
or not of the letter of the law.

The biggest question hanging over Rumsfeld's head is his
political responsibility, not his legal responsibility.
The two are substantially different. There is not direct
link between guilt of a crime and the political and moral
responsibility for the fact that it occurred.

Great. So now you agree he is not guilty. As to political responsibility, we
have a way of handling that over here--it is called an *election*. If the
majority of the US people, through the electoral college process, agree with
you, then Rumsfeld and Bush will be removed this fall; if not, then we'll
pronounce him politically "innocent" as well. If the politics of the
situation are all that concern you, just hold tight and wait till this
November, OK?

snip more sniping at political issues


The problem is proving that. Public judicial proceedings are an
essential element towards that end. An internal and invisible army
process is unacceptable.

I agreed to an internal investigation -- not an invisible
one. Nor do I agree that an internal investigation would
be a block towards legal proceedings. What is needed is
*more* than legal proceedings. There must be a serious
policy review -- and that is a service that courts don't
provide, and is not easily done in the full glare of
publicity and political controversy.

Then you should be quite happy that the 15-6 investigation executive summary
has been produced. Though I must have missed your laudatory comments
regarding those soldiers and that one sailor who were singled out in it for
having taken actions to prevent/stop abuse (why, one would almost suspect
you are only interested in the negative aspects of the situation--but that
could not be the case, now could it? LOL!).


The outcome of Belgian investigations in the events in
Somalia was made publicly available. The outcome of US
CID investigations into cases of possible abuse in Iraq
and elsewhere (Afghanistan, Guantanamo) should be made
publicly available as well -- AFAIK it would be illegal
to classify it.

Bullpoopie. The 15-6 report summary has been made public. But you think we
routinely release the results of CID investigations? Not quite--just as
civilian police departments do not routinely release the results of criminal
investigations in their entirety, especially while legal action related to
them are ongoing (maybe this is why your Belgian atrocities went largely
unpunished--your weasely politicians released the criminal investigation
results prior to the trials because you insisted upon it?). You are already
getting your CID investigation results, though--in the form of the courts
martial proceedings against those found to be criminally liable. And no, the
maximum term that can be given out is not one year for all of those accused,
as you posted earlier--that was the case for the charges made against one
individual, and there are a number of others, some with more severe charges
pending. As to your Belgian investigation results...like I said before, you
need to start looking to your own house. Investigations and court cases
against individuals who hold a child over an open fire in an effort to scare
him and result in no penalties being levied (and one of them remaining in
your armed forces) seem to be a bit lacking--not to mention the fact that
unlike the US in this case, your own investigations did not even begin until
forced upon you by the international media--are you real proud of that?

Brooks


Emmanuel