The War's Lost Weekend

From: "Emmanuel Gustin"

(1) In democracies, ministers who make major blunders,
are responsible for catastrophes (or, in Britain, go to
bed with their secretary) are expected to resign or to
be fired by parliament.

(2) The situation in Iraq is in deep crisis. The USA (and
the world) need a competent and untarnished secretary
of defense to be in place ASAP if anything is to be
salvaged.

(3) I did not "agree that it is not guilty" except in the sense
of "not guilty until convicted." I hope that the question
of his guilt will be subject of due investigation and, if
justified, trial.

All of that is exactly right.

As you might have noticed if you had actually bothered to try to
understand any of my earlier posts, I am neither claiming that all
US soldiers behaved badly, not am I out to harshly condemn those
who did, considering the circumstances. My concern is that the
US DoD has some policies in place that stimulate bad behaviour,
and that these need to be changed, and that those who put these
policies in place have to be identified and held responsible for
them. Today's decision to ban the use of "special interrogation
techniques" in Iraq illustrates, IMHO, that the US army shares
this concern; although this decision does not yet go far enough.


I think the US Army officers are very upset over what happened. The Army has
been working on its reputation for a long time, now it is all besmirched again.

You are already
getting your CID investigation results, though--in the form of the courts
martial proceedings against those found to be criminally liable.

Your talent for missing the point is truly formidable. To investigate
only the criminal liability would be a dereliction of duty.

The steely determination of American conservatives to focus
exclusively on the criminal liability is highly significant in itself.
It reveals that they understand only too well that the Bush
administration is morally and politically responsible.


Also a good point.

To make the point, Belgian had *besides* the criminal investigations,
a commission of inquiry, a study of problems in the army that might
have contributed to the events in Somalia, and (following on the
conclusions of that review) an investigation in the occurrence of
racism in the army.


Brooks said:

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?


We have enough problems of our own; Brooks is just trying to deflect blame and
shame Emmanuel into silence.



Walt