Who's In Power?

Who's in power?

Michael Jansen, The Jordan Times


Soon after Donald Rumsfeld took up the position of defence secretary in the second Bush administration, he circulated to the White House staff a long list of rules for governing behaviour. The list, meant to be confidential, was in the public domain within days and became known as “Rumsfeld's Rules”. While waging war in Afghanistan, following the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Centre and Pentagon, Rumsfeld issued another set of rules to the armed forces general staff and military commanders in the field.
In an editorial published on May 7 of this year, The Washington Post examined Rumsfeld's rules for the military. He proclaimed that persons taken by US and allied forces and held at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay in Cuba are “enemy combatants”, rather than prisoners of war and “do not have any rights”. He overturned “decades of previous practice... ruled that the United States would no longer be bound by the Geneva Conventions Army regulations on the interrogation of prisoners”. He also said that “detainees would be held incommunicado and without any independent mechanism of review”.

Rumsfeld's military rules were translated to Iraq during last year's war and made standard operating procedure during the occupation. Dissatisfied with the poor results of interrogations in Iraqi prisons and holding facilities, Rumsfeld dispatched a close associate, Major General Geoffrey Miller, to Abu Ghraib last August. Miller, the author of 20 abusive interrogation techniques, instructed US military and civilian personnel and brought Military Police assigned to warder duties into the circle of systemic abuse and torture by ordering them to “soften up” detainees ahead of questioning. Interrogators were given closed areas, forbidden to other troops, for their work. Abu Ghraib prison, west of Baghdad, the largest internment facility, was placed under US Military Intelligence last November.

Neoconservative lawyers in the service of the Bush administration provided lax “guidelines” for US troops. Brigadier Janis Karpinski, put in charge of all 16 US prisons and detention facilities in Iraq last June, was sent home early this year and replaced by Miller of Guantanamo. In spite of world outrage after US abuse and torture were exposed, Miller says he intends to continue using some of his techniques to extract information from prisoners, in breach of international humanitarian law.

Rumsfeld's approach to prisoners taken in the Afghan and Iraqi theatres reveals clearly that he never had any intention of abiding by the Third and Fourth Geneva Conventions of 1949 or the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment of 1987, ratified by the US. The Third Geneva Convention of 1949 states that prisoners “must at all times be humanely treated” and “protected, particularly against acts of violence and intimidation and against insults”. Prisoners are “entitled in all circumstances to respect for their persons and their honour”.

...cont'd >

http://www.jordantimes.com/thu/opinion/opinion2.htm

The Neocons will call him a hero, but he's in history's trash bin along with Saddam.

to listen to dems{i.e. sen durbin} bring this up time and again and then listen to rumsfeld and miller explain why they are not at fault.
of course -- i hold that these prisoners were tortured for a lie: imminent threat. i would love for someone to ask if wmd's have been found using these torture techniques.. not that i don't think rumsfeld would watz away from the question -- i just don't want the reason for our being there forgotten.

And not get up to any one with power is one way. Cheer up Celly only spent 3 and half years in jail,( I think) so how many days is that per death? Funny Bush is so into laws to kill people but this is just off the wall. No one in power knew a thing but for 6 or 7 PFC's. Oh give me a break.