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  • From: Michael Czeiszperger <michael AT czeiszperger.org>
  • To: Internetworkers AT happyhouse.metalab.unc.edu:"http://www.ibiblio.org/internetworkers/" <internetworkers AT lists.ibiblio.org>
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  • Subject: [internetworkers] Great speech by Gore on 5/26
  • Date: Fri, 28 May 2004 09:31:12 -0400

I caught some of this speech from the recording as it was played on Air America Radio, and wish Gore could have been this passionate during the last election. He makes some great points that needed to be said and no one seems to be saying:

http://www.paknews.com/specialNews.php?id=2805&date1=2004-05-27

There's lots of great excerpts to quote. Here's a line of thought regarding the prisoner torture issue:

Private Lynndie England did not make the decision that the United States would not observe the Geneva Convention. Specialist Charles Graner was not the one who approved a policy of establishing an American Gulag of dark rooms with naked prisoners to be "stressed" and even - we must use the word - tortured - to force them to say things that legal procedures might not induce them to say.

These policies were designed and insisted upon by the Bush White House. Indeed, the President's own legal counsel advised him specifically on the subject. His secretary of defense and his assistants pushed these cruel departures from historic American standards over the objections of the uniformed military, just as the Judge Advocates General within the Defense Department were so upset and opposed that they took the unprecedented step of seeking help from a private lawyer in this city who specializes in human rights and said to him, "There is a calculated effort to create an atmosphere of legal ambiguity" where the mistreatment of prisoners is concerned."

George Bush promised to change the tone in Washington. And indeed he did. As many as 37 prisoners may have been murdered while in captivity, though the numbers are difficult to rely upon because in many cases involving violent death, there were no autopsies.

How dare they blame their misdeeds on enlisted personnel from a Reserve unit in upstate New York. President Bush owes more than one apology. On the list of those he let down are the young soldiers who are themselves apparently culpable, but who were clearly put into a moral cesspool. The perpetrators as well as the victims were both placed in their relationship to one another by the policies of George W. Bush.

He also mentions lots of scathing quotes from both active and retired military who worked with the Secretary of Defense on the Iraq war. For example, he quotes from the head of Marine Corp Central Command during the lead up to the war: "I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worst, lying, incompetence and corruption."

Its interesting you have to go to a Pakistani news site to get the full text.

Enjoy,

___________________________________________________________________
michael at czeiszperger dot org
Chapel Hill, NC





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