Saturday, April 30, 2005

Profiles in Courage

I would like to commend Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld and Vice Chairman of the Join Chiefs of Staff Peter Pace for admitting that they do not know how to read. It takes a real man to expose that kind of weakness and to face it head on. To you two, I say bravo and I wish you luck getting hooked on phonics.

Back Story:

The two men where holding a press conference and recieved this question:

Human rights groups continue to criticize what they've described as systematic abuses in the interrogation process... And I wonder if you would just respond to the suggestion that there is a systematic problem rather than the kinds of individual abuses we've heard of before.


Their answers were as follows:
SEC. RUMSFELD: I don't believe there's been a single one of the investigations that have been conducted, which has got to be six, seven, eight or nine --

GEN. PACE: Ten major reviews and 300 individual investigations of one kind of another.

SEC. RUMSFELD: And have you seen one that characterized it as systematic or systemic?

GEN. PACE: No, sir.

SEC. RUMSFELD: I haven't, either.

For them to have not seen any report that described the Abugrabe and Gunatanamo abuses as "systemic" must mean that they actually do not know how to read. I say this because the report by General Antonio Taguba states:

Article 15-16 Investigation of the 800th Military Police Brigade, 5(S):

(S) That between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility (BCCF), numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This systemic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally perpetrated by several members of the military police guard force (372nd Military Police Company, 320th Military Police Battalion, 800th MP Brigade), in Tier (section) 1-A of the Abu Ghraib Prison (BCCF). The allegations of abuse were substantiated by detailed witness statements (ANNEX 26) and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence.

I hope that in expressing their adult literacy issue that Don and Peter are able to helped by First Lady Laura Bush's literacy program. If I am wrong and it is in the area pf morality where they are deficient, then perhaps there is an adult honesty program that can help them.

1 comment:

Tori said...

Old Rummy never did understand that RIF was a reading program and not a snack with crackers..lol