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Banned
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Rumsfeld: Free people are free to do bad things
The background:
Quote:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/daily...935381,00.html
Saturday April 12, 2003
On one of the bleakest days since the invasion began, US defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld yesterday shrugged off turmoil and looting in Iraq as signs of the people's freedom.
"It's untidy, and freedom's untidy," he said, jabbing his hand in the air. "Free people are free to make mistakes and commit crimes and do bad things. They're also free to live their lives and do wonderful things."
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The Rant:
Quote:
<a href="http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=21267&mode=nested&order=0">'Free people do bad things'</a> Joe Bageant is a writer and magazine editor living in Winchester, Virginia. He may be contacted at bageantjb@netscape.net.
........Why does it feel like the brutality of a Vince McMahon, football, the NRA, Wall Street, Republicans and America's far-flung network of secret prisons and desert wars all have something to do with one another? Connected in some way? Why this unnamable suspicion in the back of the mind, and darting sense of fear? Ah yes! Something is happening here, and we all know what it is, don't we Mr. Joooooones! Things are bound to turn more ugly.
For now though, our attention is absorbed in the efforts of our armed and clueless youth who, rather like pit bulls, are turned loose on the rest of world. About 1,500 of them have been killed, but not before killing a hundred thousand or so Iraqis, nearly all of them civilians. The carnage in Iraq is not a problem. "Free people do bad things," said Donald Rumsfeld (referring to the murderous Iraqi clusterfuck masquerading as a government over there.) But at least we are returning to our violent roots. As any indigenous person can tell you, we are coming home to the values that made America great. Abu Ghraib was a fresh start at reestablishing our violent national heritage that began with Indian slaughter and seemed to stall out a bit after Vietnam. But we're baaaaaack! And we're as bad-assed as ever.
Presiding over all at this critical but vulgar time in our history is, rather appropriately, a vulgar idiot whose second bogus inaugural was hosted by Trent Lott, a deliberate "fuck you" precisely equivalent to those Mississippi men groping themselves for the cameras of Life magazine back in the 1960s. Our esteemed president IS one of those men. Things smell more ominous by the day, and to quote the late Dr. Thompson, "Big darkness, soon come." Feels like it's already here. <h4>Hunter also said "a man with a greed for the truth should expect no mercy and give none."</h4> Damned good advice, I would say. Because from this desk at the edge of Washington D.C., it looks like we are not about to get any at all. (Bear with me; there is a theme in here somewhere. I promise to find it.)...................
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Quote:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/relea...50525-3.html#c
For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
May 25, 2005
Press Briefing by Scott McClellan
............Go ahead, Terry.
Q Scott, there's an FBI memo that's been released today through a Freedom of Information request. It dates from August 23, 2002, and recounts the interrogation -- the interview of a detainee at Bagram. And in this memo, the FBI recounts that this detainee says he had nothing against the United States, but the guards in his detention facility do not treat him well, their behavior is bad; about five months ago, the guards beat the detainees and they flushed a Koran in the toilet.
Now, there has been some statements coming from some administration officials since the Newsweek retraction of its story that a Koran was flushed down the toilet, that the United States government had no knowledge of any such allegation.
MR. McCLELLAN: This is referring to a detainee, right?
Q Correct.
MR. McCLELLAN: No, I think what the Department of Defense has said is that they have found nothing to substantiate any such allegation.
Q At one point I believe Mr. DiRita said that there was no such allegation.
MR. McCLELLAN: You can check with the Department of Defense on his words, but I know that they have publicly said that they have found nothing to substantiate any such allegations. There have been allegations made by detainees. We know that members of al Qaeda are trained to mislead and to provide false reports. We know that's one of their tactics that they use. And so I think you have to keep that in mind, as well.
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Scotty sez that "we know that members of al Qaeda are trained to mislead and to provide false reports. We know that's one of their tactics that they use. And so I think you have to keep that in mind, as well."
Are you a "free person doing bad things, Scott?" Are you telling us that the detainees released by the Bush Administration from Gitmo and from military detention in Afghanistan and Iraq are lying about abuse such as Koran flushing because they were trained to say such things by Al Aqaeda?
You can't have it both ways Scott, either your doing a "bad thing" by lying to our press representatives, or you are admitting that the people you speak for have released detainees who are Al Qaeda or trained by Al Qaeda. Which is it, Scott?
Quote:
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<h4>Hunter also said "a man with a greed for the truth should expect no mercy and give none."</h4>
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What the F*** were Rumsfeld and McClellan talking about? Who are the free people doing bad things? |