davefoc
Philosopher
For me, there are several significant differences between the Reno situation and this situation.
1. American soldiers are dieing because many Iraqis believe the US occupation needs to be resisted because the American effort to rebuild Iraq does not have credibility. The fact that Rumsfeld was in charge of the military that carried out something like this and still remains in office reduces our credibility farther and therefore contributes to continued American military deaths. There was no such incentive for firing Reno.
2. Rumsfeld has pushed for a wider role than secretary of defense since he has been in office. Part of that wider role was significant involvement in the control of the Iraqi occupation. I think he should be accountable for some of the occupation missteps and be fired for those irrespective of the prisoner abuse scandals. Reno's missteps were limited to her role as attorney general.
3. I think that many reasonable and appropriately professional people would have made the same missteps that Reno made. Reno needed to balance the risk of contiuing harm to children in the enclosure with the risk of a precipitous assault. She made what was in hindsight the wrong decision, but if a bunch of traumatized children from sexual abuse after the situation was resolved at a much later date had surfaced she would have been criticized for her decision to wail so long. Rumsfeld and the American military chose to sidestep the use of precautions and procedures to prevent prisoner abuse that professional prison operators would not have done. Rumsfeld and the military that he was in charge of made decisions that other people skilled at handling prisoners would not have. Rumsfeld, IMHO, should be held responsible for those kind of decisions and fired.
4. The need to win the hearts and minds of Iraqi citizens is a particulary difficult task given the long standing American pro-Israel actions, the massive Iraqi deaths some of which are reasonably attributed to America's self serving policies with respect to Iraq and the questionable justification for this particular war. It is hard to see how the respectful handling of Iraqi prisoners who many Iraqis are going to see as patriots could have been anything other than a high priority of the occupation. Rumsfeld apparently didn't think enough of that responsibility to provide any oversight of that critical issue. I think it would be reasonable to fire him for that.
5. Reno didn't sit on information and hide it from the president and the congress. Rumsfeld apparently did. His failure to come forth with critical information in a timely way may have significantly exacerbated the situation because the president is now seen as reacting to the published pictures rather than doing something about the situation because it was the morally correct thing to do. I'd fire his ass just for this.
1. American soldiers are dieing because many Iraqis believe the US occupation needs to be resisted because the American effort to rebuild Iraq does not have credibility. The fact that Rumsfeld was in charge of the military that carried out something like this and still remains in office reduces our credibility farther and therefore contributes to continued American military deaths. There was no such incentive for firing Reno.
2. Rumsfeld has pushed for a wider role than secretary of defense since he has been in office. Part of that wider role was significant involvement in the control of the Iraqi occupation. I think he should be accountable for some of the occupation missteps and be fired for those irrespective of the prisoner abuse scandals. Reno's missteps were limited to her role as attorney general.
3. I think that many reasonable and appropriately professional people would have made the same missteps that Reno made. Reno needed to balance the risk of contiuing harm to children in the enclosure with the risk of a precipitous assault. She made what was in hindsight the wrong decision, but if a bunch of traumatized children from sexual abuse after the situation was resolved at a much later date had surfaced she would have been criticized for her decision to wail so long. Rumsfeld and the American military chose to sidestep the use of precautions and procedures to prevent prisoner abuse that professional prison operators would not have done. Rumsfeld and the military that he was in charge of made decisions that other people skilled at handling prisoners would not have. Rumsfeld, IMHO, should be held responsible for those kind of decisions and fired.
4. The need to win the hearts and minds of Iraqi citizens is a particulary difficult task given the long standing American pro-Israel actions, the massive Iraqi deaths some of which are reasonably attributed to America's self serving policies with respect to Iraq and the questionable justification for this particular war. It is hard to see how the respectful handling of Iraqi prisoners who many Iraqis are going to see as patriots could have been anything other than a high priority of the occupation. Rumsfeld apparently didn't think enough of that responsibility to provide any oversight of that critical issue. I think it would be reasonable to fire him for that.
5. Reno didn't sit on information and hide it from the president and the congress. Rumsfeld apparently did. His failure to come forth with critical information in a timely way may have significantly exacerbated the situation because the president is now seen as reacting to the published pictures rather than doing something about the situation because it was the morally correct thing to do. I'd fire his ass just for this.
