Oh, The Karma...It Burns!
About half the time I think the deciderers in the current administration are just plain stupid-to-the-bone. The other half the time I'm convinced that they aren't necessarily stupid, just incredibly arrogant. This article in today's NY Times doesn't really determine which of my theories is correct, but it certainly does support both of them.
...the military has quietly canceled the assignment of General Hood [as the senior American officer based in Pakistan], a 33-year Army veteran who was excoriated in the Pakistani news media for one of his previous jobs: commander of the United States prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. ...
During General Hood’s command from 2004 to 2006, military authorities force-fed with tubes detainees who were engaging in hunger strikes at the Guantánamo prison, a step they justified as necessary to prevent the prisoners from committing suicide to protest their indefinite confinement. Also during General Hood’s tenure, reports that an American guard may have desecrated a Koran stirred wide protests in the Islamic world. ...
Under General Hood’s command, and after consultations with senior Pentagon officials, American guards at Guantánamo Bay used forceful methods in dealing during 2006 with detainees who engaged in hunger strikes. They strapped them into “restraint chairs,” sometimes for more than two hours at a time, to feed them through tubes and prevent them from deliberately vomiting afterward.
Given that about 65 detainees who have been released from Guantanamo Bay went home to Pakistan, it should not have come as a surprise to military officials that the Pakistanis would not be thrilled with General Hood's transfer to Pakistan to oversee American efforts against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the tribal regions of that nation, but apparently it did. Clearly some people aren't paying attention, and the fact that they are part of the military's upper-echelon is a bit frightening.
What should be obvious to everyone connected with this administration is that Guantanamo Bay, like the illegal and misbegotten war in Iraq, has placed an indelible stain on the US, one that the rest of the world is not likely to forget anytime soon. Getting the cooperation of other nations, especially those in that part of the world will require some serious and sustained work at rebuilding our credibility. Closing Guantanamo Bay and swearing off on the abominable practices known euphemistically as "intensive interrogation techniques" would be obviously places to start.
Oh, and maybe making it a point to avoid reminding the rest of the world of this horrid part of our history by making such insensitive and boneheaded appointments would help as well.
Morons.
...the military has quietly canceled the assignment of General Hood [as the senior American officer based in Pakistan], a 33-year Army veteran who was excoriated in the Pakistani news media for one of his previous jobs: commander of the United States prison at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba. ...
During General Hood’s command from 2004 to 2006, military authorities force-fed with tubes detainees who were engaging in hunger strikes at the Guantánamo prison, a step they justified as necessary to prevent the prisoners from committing suicide to protest their indefinite confinement. Also during General Hood’s tenure, reports that an American guard may have desecrated a Koran stirred wide protests in the Islamic world. ...
Under General Hood’s command, and after consultations with senior Pentagon officials, American guards at Guantánamo Bay used forceful methods in dealing during 2006 with detainees who engaged in hunger strikes. They strapped them into “restraint chairs,” sometimes for more than two hours at a time, to feed them through tubes and prevent them from deliberately vomiting afterward.
Given that about 65 detainees who have been released from Guantanamo Bay went home to Pakistan, it should not have come as a surprise to military officials that the Pakistanis would not be thrilled with General Hood's transfer to Pakistan to oversee American efforts against the Taliban and Al Qaeda in the tribal regions of that nation, but apparently it did. Clearly some people aren't paying attention, and the fact that they are part of the military's upper-echelon is a bit frightening.
What should be obvious to everyone connected with this administration is that Guantanamo Bay, like the illegal and misbegotten war in Iraq, has placed an indelible stain on the US, one that the rest of the world is not likely to forget anytime soon. Getting the cooperation of other nations, especially those in that part of the world will require some serious and sustained work at rebuilding our credibility. Closing Guantanamo Bay and swearing off on the abominable practices known euphemistically as "intensive interrogation techniques" would be obviously places to start.
Oh, and maybe making it a point to avoid reminding the rest of the world of this horrid part of our history by making such insensitive and boneheaded appointments would help as well.
Morons.
Labels: Guantanamo Bay, Pakistan, Torture
posted by Diane at 1:00 PM
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