I'd like to note that in my post, I acknowledged the obvious guilt of those in the pictures and those who took the pictures. I don't mean to patronize them as ignorant pawns. Pawns maybe, but not ignorant or free of responsibility for what their roles.
mbs -----Original Message----- From: PEN-L list [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Yoshie Furuhashi Sent: Monday, May 10, 2004 4:59 PM To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Building a Movement That Outlasts the Occupation Max Sawicky, an economist at the Economic Policy Institute who keeps a very popular blog MaxSpeak, argues that right-wingers are forming a lynch mob to scapegoat the US soldiers in the Abu Ghraib torture photographs, trying to pass off what happened at Abu Ghraib as an isolated incident and to exonerate the power elite of the White House, the US military, and private "security" firms: So the correct line is straight-forward: investigate the brass, the CIA, the civilian DoD leadership, and the contractors. Any problems in those areas are much more important than the perverse behavior of some individuals on the front lines. Support the troops, or support the command. The right choice is clear. ("Support the Troops," May 8, 2004) Indeed, activists ought to seize this moment of division in the right-wing ranks and exacerbate a legitimation crisis for the George W. Bush administration, rather than letting the right sacrifice individual soldiers -- victims turned victimizers on a small scale -- who are expendable in their eyes to protect the biggest war criminals of all: Inside the White House, several of Mr. Bush's aides have argued that he has little choice but to make them public. Sooner or later, they say, the images will leak out, prolonging the pain, fueling Iraqi and Arab suspicions of a Pentagon-orchestrated cover-up, and giving new life to calls for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld's removal. Many in the Pentagon, though, are resisting. Pentagon officials warned that a public release could jeopardize its criminal inquiry. They theorized that defense lawyers could cite a governmental release in motions to dismiss charges, arguing that their clients could not get a fair hearing. So far, seven soldiers are facing charges related to abuse of Iraqi detainees. . . . That argument [about whether, when, and how to disclose hitherto unreleased images to the public] broke out in public on Sunday when the chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, John W. Warner, Republican of Virginia, seemed to back keeping the images from public view, describing them as "of a classified nature" on the NBC News program "Meet the Press." He was immediately challenged by a fellow Republican, Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who shot back: "If there's a videotape out there, for God's sake let's talk about it, because men and women's lives are at stake, given how we handle this. So I want to get it all out on the table." (Thom Shanker, "Officials Grapple With How and When to Release Images," New York Times, May 10, 2004) Activists also have a chance of making an anti-occupation movement become more than a movement of predominantly white activists who think that the best way to expand the movement is to focus on Iraq alone. . . . The rest of the posting is at <http://montages.blogspot.com/2004/05/building-movement-that-outlasts.html>. -- Yoshie * Critical Montages: <http://montages.blogspot.com/> * Bring Them Home Now! <http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/> * Calendars of Events in Columbus: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/calendar.html>, <http://www.freepress.org/calendar.php>, & <http://www.cpanews.org/> * Student International Forum: <http://sif.org.ohio-state.edu/> * Committee for Justice in Palestine: <http://www.osudivest.org/> * Al-Awda-Ohio: <http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Al-Awda-Ohio> * Solidarity: <http://www.solidarity-us.org/>
