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War Crime Implications for Bush Administration
The current scandal in the abuses of Iraqi prisoners are not just an example of a few wayward individuals, acting on their own. There is responsibility at a high level in the Bush administration.
I had heard of such abuses, a long time ago. Why should not the President of the United States have heard of them?
Amnesty International issued a report last summer about such abuses. The problem is, it is not in the style of the Bush administration and the Republican party to care much about Amnesty International reports, or about human rights abuses, until something blows up in their faces, as a scandal.
When you try to have a 'civilized war', it is likely to be ill-fated from the start, because it is a contradiction in terms. You are almost always setting up a witches brew of ingredients that has a natural tendency to go wrong.
Soldiers need to be desensitized, in order to perform their duties. They need to be indoctrinated with the propaganda that their enemies are subhuman, or else the soldiers will have inhibitions about causing harm to them.
Add to that, the soldier will have traumatizing experiences such as to see friends getting burned, hacked to pieces, and dragged around by mobs and cars.
In the minds of conservatives, such considerations will minimize the seriousness of our own atrocities. They fail to appreciate the pragmatic results: If you are trying to fight terror, this is the last kind of thing that you need.
Liberals have been trying to say, all along, that this is a fundamental problem with warfare. It very easily sets up cycles of hatred that escalate.
The revolting behavior in Iraq is also not something new for our military. In Vietnam, there were concentration camps, torture, and completely animalistic mass-killings. The American public has never done an adqeqate job of confronting this, which may be why a similar problem exists today. Effective reforms were not made, so the problem continued.
The better solution of the Middle East is to increase pressure for diplomatic settlement. Here, the style of the Bush administration also shows its unfitness- making pronouncements that reverse a long-held position about occupied land, while failing to invite dialogue of all parties, before making such a declaration.
Bush exploits religion to promote himself to the American public, but it is his very religiosity that will make impartiality nearly impossible for him.
His style is that of a spoiled, rich kid, who has been used to having his own way, all of his life. He wants his way, immediately, and completely. If he does not get it, he becomes sullen and vindictive.
We cannot afford that. There is too much at stake. The American public needs to wake up to the fact that we need to find a better balance, by changing our government, while there is still time.
Tom Keske
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