Bushco to Durbin: Rape, torture and murder are yesterday's news. According to the
Times , we've put all that stuff "behind us."
WASHINGTON, June 19 - Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld is considering new top command assignments that would possibly include
promoting Lt. Gen. Ricardo S. Sanchez, the former American commander in Iraq during the Abu Ghraib prison abuse scandal, Pentagon and military officials say.
Such a move, which has been urged by senior Army officers and civilian officials now that an Army inquiry has cleared General Sanchez of wrongdoing, seems to reflect a growing confidence that the military has put the abuse scandal behind it.
Talk about sending a message! Generations to come will now know that the way to succeed in the U.S. military is to speak softly -- and ram a big stick up your foes' rears. Or, as the
Times says:
Mr. Rumsfeld has made no secret that one of his most important policy goals is to place people in critical positions who will carry on with his transformation agenda even after his eventual departure from the Pentagon.
So this is the reward we'll get if we're tempted to remain silent out of some misguided notion of "supporting our troops." If we back off demanding an independent investigation of all our abuses, the very people who built and institutionalized our McGulag will be in positions where they can continue to flaunt their disregard for human rights. For the long and bitter term.