The Liberal Patriot

Here’s the Outrage

J.G. Schwam - May 29, 2004

It has been a month since the stories of torture at Abu Ghraib and other Iraqi prisons came to light. To date, only six enlisted personnel have been brought before courts-martial to bear accountability for these crimes. In any military scenario it is naïve to hold them alone accountable for these crimes. Rumsfeld’s Pentagon would like us to believe these young soldiers devised and carried out these acts depravity of their own volition. The sophistication, pervasiveness, organization and open environment in which they were carried out renders the likeliness of this near nil. Even if this were so, where was their supervision, where were the officers? Does Rumsfeld expect us to exonerate them because of their lack of supervision?

It is both absurd and a disgrace for the Pentagon to expect the American people to believe that our senior military officers were so out of touch with the operations under their watch and that and that we should accept or believe this to be the case. The White House, Donald Rumsfeld, Stephen Cambone, General Ricardo Sanchez and the man sent to Gitmo-ize Abu Ghraib, General Geoffrey Miller bear responsibility. If Generals Miller and Sanchez had any honor at all they would have ordered at the very least, the removal and investigation before courts-martial the commanding officers directly responsible for detention operations in Iraq, Colonel Thomas M. Pappas, Major David W. DiNienna, and General Janice L. Karpinksi as the Taguba report recommends as well as General Miller himself. One would only hope that if they did so, they would in their own defense, implicate those that devised and ordered these polices.

At this point is silly to assert that our ignominious Secretary of Defense has the human decency much less the honor to hold accountable those who gave the orders. How could he? It was his office that gave the orders to “grab who you want, do what you have to do”. His recent mea culpa is as hollow as his soul. His conduct is in keeping the philosophy of the administration he serves. That is, those of us not wealthy enough benefit from the paid allegiance they demand from those they do serve, are expendable and should be honored to die to serve their vision of America as a hegemonic new evil empire.

The senior officers who place their pensions above their honor as officers and men should also be ashamed. They have shamed our nation. The fact that they looked the other way and carried out with a vengeance orders they knew to be illegal and in violation of the Geneva conventions disgrace and dishonor all those who serve our nation with true honor, those that enlist. It is hard not to feel ashamed that Rumsfeld, Bush and these culpable commanders still serve in our name.

Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Carbone and Bush have shamed our nation and the memory of all those that have both served and died so the world and our nation might remain a free and decent place.

You want to know where the outrage is? It’s here on the ground, in America as we watch these men dishonor us all with their horrible vision for a world nation that trusted them to serve with honor. Instead they see it as theirs alone to rape, pillage and lie to. Instead they see us no more as subservient expendables to serve their Orwellian vision of the greatest nation on earth as no more than an arrogant military plutocracy.

Here’s the outrage Mr. Rumsfeld. It is in shame you have brought upon our nation. It is in the shame you have brought upon the men and women who serve our nation proudly. It is in anger of those who we have elected to serve us in congress and have done so with honor and decency. It is everywhere you ask are you outraged about Abu Ghraib?

This is where the outrage is Mr. Rumsfeld, right on your doorstep where you put it.

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