Click Here to Access Hundreds of Fresh News & Opinion Articles

Classics of Liberal Thinking

By Rob Kall

OpEdNews.Com

It's not enough to blame Rumsfeld for what happened at Abu Ghraib. Yes, it is true he failed to read the report. It is true that his generals "sand-bagged" their response and veiled the announcement of the atrocities in a vague, neutral-sounding public report. But this collection of atrocities, that have effectively cost us any successachieved in Iraq, must be blamed, at the roots, upon policy decisions that came out of the White house.

It's clear that the grunts who actually perpetrated these incredibly sick, cruel torture atrocities were encouraged by private contractors. It was no accident that the Abu Ghraib military prison had workers who were not military. It is the systematic policy and goal of the neocons, of the Republican party to privatize the government-- to replace people who are paid by and accountable to the government with independent, corporately paid and supervised workers. This is another way to shrink government, to weaken the power of government, to further de-regulate different circles of influence and power.

Since this clear experiment in privatization directly led to what amounts to the massive and sudden loss of our nation's credibility and positive influence in Iraq, the blame must be placed on the Bush administration and its advisors, not on Generals or the defense department. .

Congress should not be calling for Rumsfeld's resignation. It should be calling for Bush to Resign. And while they are at it, they should immediately fire Paul Wolfowitz, one of the most ardent supporters of military privatization.

The families of the hundreds who have died and the thousands who have come home with life impairing wounds should be outraged that this corporately driven policy was implemented, throwing away the achievements their sacrifices produced.

We are certainly seeing just the tip of the iceberg-- an iceberg that could be so massively destructive to the US's reputation, good will assets that it could make the destruction of the titanic seem miniscule. There are over 20,000 mercenaries in Iraq-- more than twice the number of British military personnel. The US has, with hypertestosterone and greed fed aggression, pursued the privatization of vast swathes of the Iraqi economy. This totally out of control, un-regulated rape of the Iraqi's assets is a practice run for what the Bush administration and its corporatist backers plan to do with what is left in the US.

Seeing the abject failure of this policy experiment in the Abu Ghraib prison, it is truly terrifying to consider the damage already done in other areas of privatization, waiting to be uncovered, probably already known by the the Bush administration.

And the Bush policy is to avoid accepting responsibility, blame lower level grunts, transfer the blame to non-government personnel, avoid apology, and finally, to forgive the worst, most failed, incompetent offenders, since they are most likely to, if they are fired, tell the truth about the rapidly collapsing, infested, rotting core hidden by the Bush administration facade.

As I write this, Rumsfeld and his generals are testifying before the congress. They are explaining their dilatory tactics, and worse, hiding behind the brave, patriotic troops they were supposed to lead. They dissemble and hide by citing the bravery and goodness of these troops. And it is true, most of the troops have travelled to Iraq with good intentions, with courage, with patriotism and honor. But Rumsfeld and his generals, as active participants in the Iraq experiment, stand guilty, not only of deciding where the privatization would be applied, but of failing to deal with the asymmetric military considerations that have erupted as the most devastating weapon in the defeat of the US efforts in Iraq.

The military knows about the power and priority of the media and the use of small incidents as a major weapon in fighting asymmetric warfare. Donald Rumsfeld and his generals know, at least theoretically, all about the potency of the media. But they chose to use conventional military means. And when they discovered they were at risk of incredible asymmetrical media assualt and damage, they collapsed into a strategy of secrecy, evasion and, delay and avoidance.

Rumsfeld, Bush, the generals all say they will find the individuals who are responsible for the shameful actions. This is a red herring. They say they take responsibility for the failures of "the actions of a few." They use the right wing buzz words of character and values. These are distractions aimed at deepening the hypnotic trance of the right wing radio listeners and fundamentalists attending churches led by fascist Christian traitors who want to destroy the nation as it was formed by the founders and prospered or struggled, proudly, with separation of church and state for 225+ years.

The promise to find the evil few, the bad apples, is a farce, a feint, a distraction that it must be the responsibility of the major media to look past. Today, it appears that the "talking point" for the right wing is apology. Bush apologizes. Rumsfeld apologizes. it is too automatic and followed too glibly by "glow words" like democracy, character, brave soldiers. These are more distraction techniques.

Why don't we know more about the US soldiers in the pictures? Why aren't the private contractors under arrest or at least detained for questioning?

Rumsfield bemoans that we are taking a beating for what we did not do. But the iceberg of tens of thousands of privatized workers, of mercenaries and privatized industries and resources is, under the notorious secrecy of the Bush administration, festering, the multiple infections spreading through multiple systems of Iraq-- social, economic, governmental, religious. We've seen minor venting and small eruptions of rage in Fallujah and Najaf. But this iceberg is morphing into a massive volcano that is bigger than Iraq, bigger than Iran and Syria and Saudia Arabia. When it explodes it will be like a Krakatoa that darkens the skies of the planet for the future of America. The threat is daily ascending to new heights of danger for our nation.

The congressional hearings continue on as write. Rumsfield clearly states. "The president was blindsided by this." This is tactical failure, nothing less!! And it seems every republican senator uses his or her five minute slot to defend the failure, to make excuses, to preach about American Values. These are distractions, failures to try to find the light, the solutions that need to be found.

Rumsfeld and the Generals give the excuse that they were processing the accusations through normal channels, the "appropriate" chain of command. But this was not just another one of the thousands of misdemeanor level allegations the military processes each year. This was, in asymmetric warfare terms, the equivalent of a ticking nuclear bomb. This is an echo of the failed prevention of 911. They will say they didn't have clear warnings, and ask, "how were we to know that this would explode?" And these responses, are actually admissions of guilt, of failure.

Rumsfeld points to a chart showing the sequence of timing of military reviews. "That chart shows that we did darn well," he says, while pointing out that it was necessary to protect the rights of the accused while handling a "radioactive" situation. Well he and his generals, by doing things as ordinarily done, did not do "darn well. They did piss poor. It is outrageous that they hide behind procedures. They are supposed to be leaders. Such excuses are for non-coms, not generals who are supposed to see the big picture.

It is not only time for Rumsfeld to go, it is time for Bush, his administration and the whole reeking maggot heap of corrupt, blind, unrepentant right wing ideologues and fundamentalists to be massively rejected by an American public justifiably outraged by the abuses, treacheries and treasons this cabal has perpetrated. And if the mainstream media do not embrace their responsibility to expose the failures and the threats to our nation from within, then they must be looked at very closely as threats to the nation themselves and certainly as shameful failures at responsible, ethical journalism.

It is time for the republican party to face the fact that it backed the wrong man. It is time for the patriotic republicans, the ones who have had the courage to stand up to the worst sell-outs, like DeLay and Hastert, Hatch and Frist, to protect both this Nation and the helpless, desperate people of Iraq. These people must side with the democrats and throw out Bush and Cheney and rescue America.