Mercurial

We lost the war on terrorism. A simple attack on one clear morning reduced the careful yet frail system of justice and accountability that existed in this country to ashes, and suddenly there are a thousand dogs, eagerly looking over your shoulder for your latest mistake, there are a thousand thugs with guns, backed by a cynical secretary of defense and a genuflecting president, and there are a thousand eager combatants, suddenly justified in their anger against this country.

Mr. Rumsfeld's actions and responsibility go beyond the events at the Abu Ghraib camp. Surely, as Secretary of Defense, he ought to know what was going there - that is not just another place, nor are these just kids from Virginia. The prison and torture center is crucial to the intelligence gathering and thus central to whatever military strategy Rumsfeld seems to be pursuing. Them why he avoids knowledge or accountability?

The Washington Post clearly points to his blatant disregard for laws and treaties, and how in his exceedingly arrogant way he simply blazed through a very complicated situation that involves other countries in the most volatile region in the world. Rumsfeld has become synonym with torture, lack of accountability and hubris:

Let's not even speak of the terrible price the USA will pay for this. It is not humiliation, but provocation and justification; the USA monster finally showing its arrogant ugly head. Rebecca Blood is completely wrong when she says

Today on NPR, and interview featuring Joe Galloway (who had a piece about Rumsfeld failed strategy more than a year ago) and Joel Himmelfarb, (who likes to twist meanings and words), assistant editor for the WashTimes. I was shocked to hear Mr. Himelfarb advocating Rumsfeld's actions, saying that he took the system out of that lengthy process against terrorists, where they were tried one by one, to a situation in which they are killed outright. Himelfarb just said that Rumfeld disposed of the rule of law and due process, and went the rule of force, and he agreed with that.

Again, we lost the war on terrorism, because terror is not an attack, a place or an enemy. Terrorism is a situation in which the rule of law disappears, the rights accorded to the individuals by a nation are abrogated by those that hold opposing values, and the social contract vanishes amidst a barrage of accusations and blames, where no body is responsible and accountability exists no more.

UPDATE: A formatting mistake made the quote from Rebecca Blood appear within the text of the rest of the post. That has been fixed.