What Bush's and Cheney's press appearances mean

To me Bush's press conference this morning and Cheney's appearance on CNN (officially tonight, but widely reported all day) basically puts the administration on record as saying "nothing to see here.. move along" with regards to the abuse scandals in our prison camps.

Not that this is a surprise to any of us here, but no longer can anyone claim that the abuses going on in our prison camps are not condoned by the President and his administration.  They have taken the position that there are no abuses and nothing will change in Guantanomo, Iraq or Afghanistan.

I have had some interesting message board discussions with fellow graduates of my university on a forum that was not intended originally for politics, but has since turned into that.  It is an interesting place to discuss these issues as we have a mix of liberals, conservatives (including what seem to be religious conservatives of a couple different stripes) and everything in between.  Some issues get discussed, but it is hard to just break down and call the other person an uneducated moron because they are basically holding a degree from the same university that you so proudly call yours.  (That said, a number of the religious conservatives still end up using the insult as their escape hatch.)

So the right-wing posters went off on "Newsweak", which is amusing because they really think they are offending us by calling it "Newsweak".  I was delighted to inform them that liberals don't feel much allegiance to the mainstream media and congratulated them on figuring out what we realized several years ago - the mainstream media sucks!  But it did get into the discussion of our prison camps.  I have been pleading with whomever will listen that Koran-flushing aside, there is some bad shit going on in these camps and if they are at all troubled, they should be the ones writing Bush letters (because, as I pointed out to them, he sure as hell ain't going to listen to us.)  I even extended a branch by saying this isn't about Bush.  Maybe he doesn't like what is going on in these camps either and if his base gives him the support, he can do something to improve it.  

Today - that approach will no longer work because Bush has come out and denied any wide-spread wrong doing in our prison camps.  One can no longer claim Bush cares and will try to fix it.  Thus, the right-wingers have a choice.. either keep on backing Bush and live in denial, or hate America like the rest of us patriots.

•  Send this article to your....

  Republican friends.

  It is entitled "We Will Rape Your Women, Heck We Will Rape Our Women, But We Would Never Flush the Koran".

  This article is from the conservative Lew Rockwell web site.

  http://www.lewrockwell.com/glaser/glaser32.html

  Washington is sounding indignant about a report in Newsweek that American Prison Guards desecrated the Muslim Holy Book, the Koran, by flushing it down a toilet.

  In Kabul, Afghanistan, US military spokesman Colonel Jim Yonts is reported to have said, "Any disrespect to the Koran and any other religion is not tolerated by our culture and values." That sounds good, but Muslims and most of the world are not going to buy it.

  The reputation of our country hinges on our credibility and that credibility is at an all time low right about now.

  The Muslim world is upset about reports that our prison interrogators will desecrate the Koran, the Muslim Holy Book, their bible if you will, to intimidate prisoners into talking.

  In some Muslim countries, desecrating the Koran is punishable by death and several reports say American Prison Guards, have shown disrespect toward the Koran and have even flushed it down the toilet.

  A few decades ago no one would believe a report like that, but today nothing is unbelievable when it comes to what our country will stoop to.

  Colonel David H. Hackworth wrote,

  "By April 2004, rapes and assaults of American female soldiers were epidemic in the Middle East. But even after more than 83 incidents were reported during a six-month period in Iraq and Kuwait, the 24-hour rape hotline in Kuwait was still being answered by a machine advising callers to leave a phone number where they could be reached." This is how we treat American women. This is a reflection on our "culture and values."

  It is widely reported that many American military women serving in Iraq, need guards in order to take a shower because of fear of sexual assaults by their fellow soldiers.

  Washington wants the world to believe that some of these same troops would never flush a Koran.

  American Soldiers have been indicted for raping Iraqi women, but we have no numbers and because we keep no numbers on the number of Iraqi women and children killed in this war, it should be no surprise that we keep no count of Iraqi women reporting that they have been raped by Americans.

  The whole world has seen the photos of American troops sexually humiliating and torturing Iraqi terror suspects.

  We have all read reports of prisoners being beat to death in American run prisons in Afghanistan, but we want the world to know we would never flush the Koran down a toilet.

  American citizens were horrified when they saw the photos from Abu Ghraib Prison, but we were only shown the tame ones.

  Senator Richard J. Durbin saw the photos our government wouldn't let us see and he said, "There were some awful scenes. It felt like you were descending into one of the rings of hell, and sadly it was our own creation."

  Congressman Martin T. Meehan said, "I was obviously shocked and horrified to discover that the new photos are even more gruesome than those we have seen in the media."

  Now Washington wants the world to believe that our values and culture are such, that we would never desecrate a Holy book. Torture, sexually humiliate, and sexually assault, Yes. Desecrate, No

  Our admitted acts in Bush's War on Terror are so criminal that it is impossible for the White House to hold the line and say that what we are accused of now, the desecration of the Koran, never happened.

  From the fact that we attacked Iraq because of fictitious Weapons of Mass Destruction, to the torture and killing of Iraqi and Afghan suspects, American credibility has been on a steady downward path.

  Today with the availability of cheap video cameras and the use of cell phones to send photos, the world's media no longer has to rely on America's major news outlets to see what in going on in the combat zone.

  In both Iraq and Afghanistan there have been independent and Arab news sources broadcasting the horror of Bush's Wars. Horrors the American people will never see here at home.

  The rest of the world sees the carnage taking place every day in Iraq. The bodies of children and their mothers are shown where they died.

  The horror of an Iraqi hospital can be seen all over the world, except in North America. In North America, we are not even permitted to see our own Military Hospitals on television, nor the flag draped coffins of our troops who have died in Combat.

  Washington and even George Bush himself will try and spin this latest charge against our country, but today the United States has too much baggage from what we have already done, for anyone to take Bush's denials seriously.
  

  by RichardG on Tue May 31, 2005 at 11:15:00 AM PDT

  •  Great post one quibble

    You might not see it in the United States.  You may see it in Canada and Mexico.  They too are part of North America, but thankfully not part of Bush's illegal war on Iraq.

    What will happen in the coming years?  

    Will Americans say they had no idea what was being done in their names?  

    What will those who did know and protested and complained and fought against this murderopus regime do/say to those who now sit in willful ignorance complaisant in their unquestioning patriotism?

    I think history will regard this administration (later when we are all as Bush says, dead) as the one that brought down a great nation and figuratively drove it into the sea.  Welcome to the New World Order.

    by Bionic on Tue May 31, 2005 at 12:30:21 PM PDT

•  Wishful Thinking?

  "Today - that approach will no longer work because Bush has come out and denied any wide-spread wrong doing in our prison camps."  

  Maybe enough of them did write letters for them to feel like they have to punt and run with denial.  

  by inclusiveheart on Tue May 31, 2005 at 11:26:22 AM PDT

•  "I am not a crook".

  Cheney's and Bush's statements were their equivalent of "I am not a crook."

  by lysias on Tue May 31, 2005 at 11:27:39 AM PDT

•  Is that what they mean?

  While I agree with you that the press conferences put them both on the record with ever more hypocrisy and deceit ... I read significance in the fact that they are both out stumping in a way that we have not seen (thankfully) basically since the election.  Why such public presence in such a short period?  Are they feeling like they need to drum up support?  What?

  by besieged by bush on Tue May 31, 2005 at 11:35:17 AM PDT

•  the Fall of Der Fuhrer

  they're scared...even what they are saying reflects that, to me.

  They are not saying.."People, my fellow American's, I share your concern and I assure you, I have been in contact with my Generals and ...blah, blah, blah.

  nope.  like some guilty teenagers accused of a criminal lack of responsibility they don't think you can pin on them, they are saying ..."hey, I didn't know".  

  It's the "Keep Reagan Clean" response during Iran/Contra.  And YES!  it's the " I Am Not A Crook! response from Nixon.

  And it's the,  " I did not have sex with THAT WOMAN" response from ...whoever that guy was ggl

  This thing's gonna roll!  

  Hey, Bush!...  It's over... ~bigassedsmirk~

  by NeuroticBlonde on Tue May 31, 2005 at 02:10:59 PM PDT