Rumsfeld, Iraq, and Operation Copper Green
Really long, detailed story in the New Yorker, again from Seymour Hersh, about a clandestine project called Copper Green. Originally an interrogation program designed to operate outside of the Geneva Convention at Guantanomo, it was imported to Iraq under orders from Rumsfeld.
http://newyorker.com/fact/content/?040524fa_fact Geoffrey Miller was sent in from Guantanamo to "gitmoize" the Iraq operation, and it was his arrival that is timed with the start of the Iraq abuses. It's all pretty shocking, and the story shatters the administration's position that a small group of soldiers acting alone were responsible for the abuses. It's a very long read, (literally! why are the columns so narrow?) but it's definitely worth your time. |
Seymour Hersh, making the president's men throw themselves on political grenades since 1970. I wonder what the group investigating this in the Senate will do with this information. I'm willing to bet McCain is going to try and get Rummy sacked before the election.
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The first paragraph gets right to it:
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It's going to be much harder for the President to say Rumsfeld is doing a "super job" after this. Still, as Joe Biden said,"this is somewhat bigger than Secretary Rumsfeld.I want to see the president do some swift and positive action here. Rumsfeld is part of the problem, not part of the solution. I don't care if he goes stand in a corner." |
The Pentagon's response:
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Sounds a bit too much like "I did not have sex with that woman" to me. |
it sounds to me like the pentagon probably did approve a program called "operation copper green", but the program isn't what seymour hersh is telling us it is.
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Re: Rumsfeld, Iraq, and Operation Copper Green
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the iraq war is coming to resemble the algerian war more and more closely.
in both cases, a vertically organized military confronted an opponent that was horizontally organized. in both cases, there was an assumption that somewhere, hidden by recalicrant local folk, lay hidden an organization that resembled the state military. in both cases, the notion of terrorism was used to justify an extra-legal kind of war, one in which the use of torture was at once secret and widespread. in both cases, the use of torture rested upon a kind of contempt for international conventions that shaped the rules of conventional engagement--though (depending on how you look at it, and shaping this perspective is the main fight goin on in the media right now--think about the difference in frame of reference that you get from america-based press as over against english or french or german media outlets, for example) the bush administration has gone further in the "war on terror" than the french did during the algerian war in using extra-legal means to conduct their campaign. in both cases, the use of fear generated by "terrorism"was obviously central to justifying this end-run around law. That people would be afraid of such attacks is normal--- but things change once that fear gets translated into the logic behind state policy. in both cases, the occupying power put the search for intelligence ahead of protecting the basic human rights of people detained. (think about the holding of suspects without trial in the states under the patriot act, about guantanomo, etc.) in both the case of the algerian war and that of iraq, the policy that enabled torture to be used as a weapon appears also to have been linked to a normalization of torture amongst the people who carried it out. this is, to me, the most unnerving aspect of this whole affair--the photos of the smiling troops, the impression given that nothing is wrong with what is being photographed. chillling stuff. in both the algerian war and now, the public exposure of torture was a catastrophe for the dominant power. i think the parallels stop here (i hope they do at least--i cant see what you could equate to the oas in this context, for example). but the algerian war is, i think, an instructive historical example to think about. i suppose the only real problem for using algeria as an example is the afterglow of the anti-french posture articulated by the likes of richard perle early on in this sad sad affair. there is little surprising in principle in hersh's article. that said, i am interested to see what happens with the information he presents at the level of detail. but i am not surprised by what it says in general. and that does not make me happy. |
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Great Article. Thanks.
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Why has "Copper Green" dropped out of the news? You would think that if the story is accurate, there would be sources coming forward to reporters coroborating it. If not accurate, the administration would be raising hell. Neither seems to be happening.
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Because the Left has milked it for all its worth and its a dead issue now, especially since the story broke that they are going to demolish the jail. |
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