Larry Johnson: Rumsfeld and The Taxi to the Darkside

Rumsfeld and The Taxi to the Darkside
Submitted by davidswanson on Sat, 2007-10-27 07:08. Criminal Prosecution

By Larry Johnson, www.NoQuarterUSA.net

News today that Donald Rumsfeld is the target of a legal complaint filed in France accusing him of masterminding the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo gives Rummy a chance to walk in the shoes of Saddam Hussein. Like Saddam, Rummy insists he did nothing wrong and that he was simply pursuing the best interest of the American people. How you going to make an omelet without breaking some eggs? Right? I doubt if Rummy will wind up on the gallows in France, but the charges against him are real and are serious. And if karma and justice are linked, Rummy will be tried and convicted.

One thing is certain, Rummy is now part of an exclusive but growing club of Amcits who face legal peril in foreign lands because they participated (allegedly) in some kind of torture, disappearance, or other violation of international human rights. That means he won’t be going on any foreign junkets. Once outside the safe confines of the United States he can be snatched up and hauled off to France to face questioning.

Rummy’s role in promoting violations of the Geneva Conventions and encouraging the use of torture on prisoners captured in Afghanistan and Iraq will receive more attention in the coming months. Especially when the movie, Taxi to the Darkside, is finally released to the general public.

This amazing and disturbing film tells the story of how some of our soldiers, with the full encouragement of civilian leaders, tortured prisoners. They tortured innocent men. And in the process of torturing these souls some of our soldiers beat helpless prisoners into a bloody pulp. The account of an Afghan taxi driver, wrongfully accused of terrorism and imprisoned at Bagram, will haunt you after you see this powerful work. He was beaten to death by young men you would be proud, at least before they engaged in torture, to have as a son.

Some U.S. soldiers were sadists and torturers. Some were and are heroes. The movie is not your typical diatribe indicting guys in uniform for beastly acts. The movie also reminds us that the military, by culture and tradition, is inhabited by men and women of honor, who condemn the unspeakable acts of colleagues and insist on accountability. But those held accountable are of little import. It is the failure to hold their political and military leaders responsible that sticks in your craw.

The movie documents that the so-called “abuses” in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are in fact a deliberate policy born in the squalid jail at Bagram airbase in Afghanistan. The United States of America, which led the way in the aftermath of World War II in punishing the Nazis and the Japanese for war crimes, for human rights abuses, for torture, and for murder, has now itself descended into depravity and barbarism. We now excuse torture, justifying it in the name of securing the homeland.

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http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/?q=node/28060

coming from you! :hi:

I no longer do it for a living. Still have many stories of non-soldier related adventures that I might visit from time to time.

They were tortured during the Nazi occupation. Rumsfeld cannot play innocent with them.