Generals May Pay a Price for Iraq Abuse
Aug 30, 8:44 PM (ET)
By ROBERT BURNS
WASHINGTON (AP) - The Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse scandal could effectively end the careers of four Army generals who are linked indirectly to the misconduct but face no criminal charges.
The four are singled out for varying degrees of criticism - mixed with instances of praise - in two comprehensive investigative reports released last week. The investigators conclude that the generals are partly responsible, but not legally culpable, for the abuse last fall.
All four are "essentially finished in the military," even if they are not forced to resign, said Dan Goure, a defense analyst at the Lexington Institute think tank. "At the very minimum you could argue that they lost control" of their subordinates, he said.
The most senior of the four generals, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, already has been passed over for promotion to a four-star slot as chief of Southern Command because of an expectation by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld that Sanchez would face trouble in a Senate confirmation hearing.
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http://apnews.myway.com/article/20040831/D84PSK080.htmlAlso see this front page WaPo story today, here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x786673---------
Might add, this is the stuff that we should be hitting them hard with all the friggin' time. Who cares what the hell the twins, and Babbs and Pickles have to say, what they are wearing, where they are partying. It is all useless distracting crap--and the news is full of it, so, I guess, therefore is LBN.
But the torture story has been/should be snowballing under the convenient cover of the damn Swift Boat duffi and now RNC bs. Not an accident either. Where are the rest of the WaPo abuse pictures? Where's the coverage of the several trials going on right now? What about our soldiers raping Iraqi's, complete with videos, which members of Congress have seen?
I am so ashamed this is in my name.
Yet another leak of a spy scandal involving the heart of everything neocon and everything that has been especially wrong for three years. Involving AIPAC--and who essentially opens RNC? AIPAC. Apparently it's ok with most people--or at least they are afraid--that a foreign power is running the show in our own damn country.
Plame is nearly there--probably would be if anybody mainstream actually reported on it instead of regurgitations; or if a politician dared pursue it (Waxman needs help). Outing of Noor Khan, although the same technique in action, is happily allowed to be memory-holed.
Soldiers and civilians getting killed all over the place doesn't even make the news. Endless hours of coverage on how we solved Najaf, yet the fight continues.
The report on the ranks of the US poor growing, like it has in every Shrub year is a news footnote at best. How about revising GDP down? How about whatever crazy oil pricing deals the Saudi's are implementing like clock-work? Hardly a mainstream report on the oil burning in Iraq--for some two weeks. We can now spin away explosions of commodities--a new achievement.
And and and..... I could go on and on (and on). So many scandals, so little time. Hell if we democrats just focused on BBV--that and getting some idea of actual issues in the media instead of all the squirrelly crap--we would be doing a yeoman's job. Instead, I see us as nearly totally reactionary. And not for lack of money. We did good there.
Can't we not get caught up in playing the other person's game? Yeah, we have a week of it laid on heavy, but don't think for a moment it will let up between now and Nov. It will get worse, Whistleass using the might of Gov. itself and all the damn RW politico infrastructure to make everyday his message, every crisis a crisis that benefits the assholes.
Rant rant rant. Let's stick the obvious failures, let's stick the shit that makes us, for the first time in my life, embarrassed to be Americans (and that may last for a generation or so), in their face. Stick it early, stick it often. Loudly.
Don't get caught up in the shit.
(Yea for the protests! OK, I feel better already.)