Bury Me Broken

Rumsfeld, Myers Press Conference

It is frustrating to watch a press conference and see the spin come from the lips of Secy of Defense Rumsfeld almost cartoon like with talking points appearing above his head in those bubble quote clouds. He was dismayed (I think, I could't tell from his monotone, teleprompter reading) by the recent press coverage of the bogus Koran flushing (which they are quick to point out was discredited without mention of their own documented violations of handling the Koran) and the Amnetsty International report calling the terrorist detainee facility in Guantanamo Bay, the new "gulag" referring to Russian concentration camps of the second world war. He was also dismayed (I guess) about the lack of coverage of all the good things we are doing in providing them with meals in accordance with their faith, instructions on facing east, scheduling around their prayer times and other things to help them exercise their faith.

If this gets conservative and right wing bloggers fodder to fill their blogs for the day great. If this gives reporters something on which to report, great. If this gives us the rest of the week to have something for which to comment, fine.

However, in the end, it's just spin. Joint Chiefs Chair Gen. Myers saying that incidents of violence are down overall by 20% means absolutely nothing. The number of Iraqi security forces was way up and the number of our own soldiers was the highest since the vioence before Iraqi elections in January. Rumsfeld complaining that no newspaper has published the guidelines for the treatment of detainees is hogwash. What you are supposed to do is not news? Reminds of the Chris Rock joke when he said men brag about stuff they are supposed to do like "I pay my child support."

The evening news nor the local news leads off with the story of how many police officers patrolled their eight hour shift and went home. It isn't news. The news doesn't fill those twenty something minutes with stories of people that didn't get shot, raped or robbed. It isn't news.

The situation in Iraq is difficult for a number of reasons. The biggest reason now is that we don't have enough troops there to get the job done. We don't have enough troops to put up enough perimeter barriers to stop suicide bombers from killing Iraqi security forces standing in line waiting to begin training. Every time I see a line of Iraqi men standing I think that they are risking their lives every second against an enemy that is among them.

Finally, I didn't read the Amnesty International report yet so I can't say that they've gone too far. I can say that we have detained 68,000 men (as well as women and children) since 9/11 and we did not have established protocol to conduct these imprisonment. Calling someone an "enemy combatant", a title made up by the Administration in order to not give prisoners or terrorists or whatever you choose to call them, the due process that we want others to give Americans puts us in a terrible light internationally and was the argument former Secy Powell and others was making.

posted by niteskolar @ 11:22 AM