congress ignored reports of prisoner abuse as far back as february

[AR182]

Tuesday, May 11, 2004

Democrats howling for the resignation of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld for not informing them of reports of prisoner abuse in Baghdad are ignoring the fact that concerned parents of an accused soldier informed 16 members of Congress - top Democrats such as Senators Hillary Clinton, Edward Kennedy and John D. Rockefeller - and the governor of Virginia of the burgeoing scandal as far back as February 26th of this year.
None of these people acted to disclose the detailed information contained in the letters.

While the media has created a firestorm about the abuse allegations at Abu Ghraib prison, only one TV network, MSNBC, disclosed the names of the members of Congress when one of the letter writers, William Lawson, mentioned them during a telephone interview.

No further mention of the names was made by MSNBC.

Otherwise, the mainstream media has circled the wagons in a blatant attempt to protect their Democratic allies in the Senate from charges of hypocrisy in condemning Secretary Rumsfeld for not informing them of what they already knew, through both Army press releases and the letters.

Lawson, the uncle of one of the accused soldiers, Staff Sgt. Ivan L. Frederick, gave NewsMax.com the names of the members of Congress and Virginia's governor as well as the text of the explosive letters in a series of faxes.

Here are the names, all Democrats except for Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, Sgt. Frederick's congressman:

Senators Jack Reed, Mark Dayton, Robert Byrd, Bill Nelson, Evan Bayh, Mark Pryor, Edward Kennedy, Benjamin Nelson, Hillary Clinton, Joseph Lieberman, Daniel Akaka, Paul Sarbanes, John D. Rockefeller, Governor Mark Warner and Rep. Roscoe Bartlett.

Senator Byrd's office would not even accept the letter e-mailed to him on the grounds it was too long.

Bartlett said he was looking into the matter.

Sarbanes said he had written the the "appropriate officials."

Rockefeller begged off on the grounds that he was barred by privacy rules.

Senator Joe Lieberman is the only one of these members of Congress who has defended Donald Rumsfeld and the world's mission in Iraq.

In fact, Senators Reed and Dayton were nearly abusive in holding the feet of Sec. Rumsfeld, Gen. Myers et alii to the fire last week - and here we find that they knew of the abuse allegations months ago.

They could only have been feigning outrage, since they have been long aware of what was going on at Abu Ghraib; the e-mail letters fully alerted the 16 Democrats and Governor Warner of the prisoner abuse accusations.

Moreover the U.S. Central Command told the media of an investigation into abuses on Jan. 16, just days after a report by a whistleblower.

"They told everyone in the world there were allegations of abuse and they were being investigated," Secretary Rumsfeld told reporters. On March 20, he added, Central Command "announced not only allegations, but they listed the types of abuses."

Lawson, a 23-year Army veteran, and other relatives of Sgt. Frederick, told those he wrote that they feared he and the other accused MPs were being made scapegoats "to save some general's carrer."

 

[Blitz]

The liberal media won't let this story die, so they can try and bury Bush and lo and behold, some of the biggest liberal Dems knew about this months ago. Now a civilian contractor is beheaded in Iraq because the media just had to keep showing those pictures.

 

[ceciol]

The liberal media won't let this story die, so they can try and bury Bush and lo and behold, some of the biggest liberal Dems knew about this months ago. Now a civilian contractor is beheaded in Iraq because the media just had to keep showing those pictures.

Amen, Blitz.

I do -not- condone the behaviors of the abuses that have occurred.

But people forget that in war these things will occur unfortunately.

The difference now is the liberal media is all over the stories like flies on sh&%.

We shouldn't bury our heads in the sand, either, I realize. But certain incidents will always overwhelmingly slant public opinion.

 

[wareagle]

it is still the lead on CNN

brushing the beheading under the rud as usual!!!!

i took this from another site

am now officially sick-and-tired of the self-serving and largely uninformed hand-wringing about the goings on at Abu Ghraib prison outside of Baghdad. As someone who has actually been on the grounds of Abu Ghraib prison, let me explain a few things.

First of all, there is no excuse for what a few soldiers did; but there is also no reason to make this into the moral equivalent of the Black Plague.

It should be pointed out that the prisoners at Abu Ghraib are not Boy Scouts rounded up for jaywalking. These are bad guys who either blew up or shot a coalition member; or were caught assembling an explosive device; or were caught in a place where the makings of explosive devices were found; or were caught with a cache of weapons. See the pattern here?

In short they were trying to kill me and others like me. And if they succeeded in doing that, they were going to come over here and try to kill you.

Ugly thought? You bet. But that is the kind of prisoner being held in the terrorist section at Abu Ghraib.

The Roar du Jour from those who want to get into this story by beating their chests over how terrible it all is, keep telling us that this has damaged American credibility in the Middle East.

Let's look at that.

First, lots of Arabs don't like us in the first place. Those Arabs will not like us any less for this incident.

That dislike has nothing to do with our cultural insensitivities. It has to do with America's refusal to allow those same Arabs, many of whom have been bankrolling the Palestinian terrorists for decades, to wipe the State of Israel off the face of the Earth they way they have wiped it off the face of their maps.

Second, those who claim that the Abu Ghraib situation will poison the well of American goodwill for decades, are really the ones who are under rating Arabs. They have to believe that all Arabs will assign the actions of perhaps a couple of dozen soldiers to the 280 million Americans who have pledged to help the Iraqis attain security, independence, and prosperity.

Those making that claim must, therefore, believe that all Arabs have the intellectual capacity of a frog (a real frog, not a French person) and the emotional development of a three-year-old (a real three-year-old, not a French person).

Finally, our friends on the Left are so very, very concerned about how foreigners (read, Europeans) will see us.

I don't care what the French, the Germans, or the Spaniards think about us. The French and the Germans are up to their elbows in the fraud and theft of billions of dollars in what is called the Oil-for-Food Program but which was really the Oil-for-Palaces Program.

It will be interesting to see if the intellectual elites on the Upper West Side of Manhattan are as upset with their vacation buddies in the Paris 16th as they are with Secretary Rumsfeld when it becomes clear that their pals were fully engaged in the systematic depravation of the people of Iraq.

Very often doing the right thing is also the hard thing. The easy thing is to close your eyes to evil; or to make a bargain with the devil.
You cannot stop doing the right thing because it is hard, or because of what those who would make a deal with the enemy in an attempt to rent their own safety, might think about what you.

The actions of a few soldiers in Abu Ghraib were wrong. But we cannot allow the spotlight currently shining on them to cast a shadow over the other 135,000 soldiers who are in Iraq doing their jobs professionally, properly, and with honor.

 

[ryson]

When it was on the news in text it was not a big deal and nobody cared - so it seems. Now that there are pictures people are outraged. Sort of tells you how most people digest their info :shrug:

 

[djv]

AR182 sounds like you can back that up to January. And this idea Rummy cant be let go becasue were at war. Well he wont listen to know one has us in a big mess. No one can tell me there are not better men in our country to do this job right. John Mc Cane and John Warner both are on top of my list.

 

[ctownguy]

djv, wtf does that have to do with this thread

Why not answer the point of AR's post that your beloved liberals had the same type info long before and never commented on it even through the hearing you dumbass whinner.:thefinger

 

[slim pickins]

Why not answer the point of AR's post that your beloved liberals had the same type info long before and never commented on it even through the hearing you dumbass whinner.:thefinger

I think he was just making a point that before the pictures were released this has been flying under the radar fro some time.

This is not a liberal or conservative issue. It's s just plain wrong.

Ryson made a good point, we are a picture driven, sound byte society with the attention span of a gnat. If our Defense Secretary was a bit more attentive he would have seen to it that the higher ups in the chain of command kick some ass.

 

[shamrock]

I would concur, Mr. Lawson is probably correct, his son was probably going to be used as a scapegoat to save careers if at all possible.

AR-I greatly respect your opinion on this board, and consistently enjoy your posts, but are you realistically comparing "a letter from CONCERNED PARENT, OF ONE OF ACCUSED SOLDIERS", with the actual evidence (tapes, video & pictures) that have been in possession for several months?? I mean how long does it take to conclude abuse in those that we have seen. Took my eyes about 5 seconds. And that's not even the most serious that nobody has witnessed yet.

I completely agree that this has got to a point where party politics should no longer apply.

These ridiculous child like abuses have already cost 1 individual his life, needless. I guarantee more will follow, rest assured on that.

I don't think anyone can dispute that these abusive photographs have added endless gallons of gasoline to the extremist hatred towards America.

One Hell of a awful price will be paid by American soldiers & workers for a acting so stupidly I can hardly believe it.

This shows moderate Muslims that possibly, the extremist opinions of America may have credence. Without question this will make the task that much more difficult for Americans.

what do you guys think is appropriate punishment for these individuals committing these abuses. Again they cost the kid his life from Philadelphia, and the repercussions will undoubtedly escalate. Again America will pay on both sides of the sword for these abuses 1, with even more and vicious assassinations and 2) with the negative speculative attitude moderate Muslims will now hold against Americans and what they are working for.

personally I'm not sure these abusers will pay close to what their needless childless actions will bring to America. I say anything short of Huge jail sentences is nowhere near strick enough.

 

[djv]

CTG fair enough. Where are the names of the 7 republican senators that got the same info. And by the way we are told today it was not the sam info we been seeing for last week. And you tell me what good is it for the congress to say anything to the white house. You think they listen to anyone?
And since the world seemed to knowabout these problems. Why the government go to CBS and try to hide it? I dont think the pitcures should have been showen. However since someone in the government sooner or later would have leeked them out. The government should have taken the lead on this.

 

[AR182]

shamrock, thanks for the compliment. eventhough your a red sox fan (only kidding) i too enjoy reading what you have to say.

the reason why i posted the first article is because i am tired of the way we do things in this country:

i am tired of the dems always throwing the blame toward this administration for no other reason other than it's an election year.

i was also tired of the republicans always throwing the blame towards the clinton administration, when he was in office.

in other words i am sick & tired of each party blaming the other, just for no other reason than politics.

i am hoping a 3rd party is formed (i know it's wishful thinking) with either mccain, guiliani, lieberman, or bayh(sp?) running in 2008. a party that is not tied into any interest group.

a party that only takes into consideration what is beast for the average american. btw, in case any one is interested these guys are some of my favorite politicians.

there should be term limits of no more than 2 terms & these life time pols. should be thrown out with the garbage. i'm talking of teddy, byrd, mcconnell & others (republicans & democrats) should be taken by the shirt & thrown out.

shamrock, i heard on hardball that there were quite a few people calling & writing their senators like lawson.

at first i thought what happened at the prison was sick & the people should be thrown in jail.

but the more i thought about it & the more i started reflecting about daniel perle, & about the 4 businessmen, & about the italian man & now berg, the more i thought that this is the way these type of animals have to be dealt with.

i also thought of an example if somebody wants to fight you to a fair fight.

but before you know it he has a chair in his hand ready to crack you with it.

what are you going to do ?

no i wont fight you because you are not fighting fair.

no what you do is pick up a chair & throw it at him, then throw another chair at him & then another until you have him off guard, then you just crack another chair over his head.

that is what this fight on terror is about. it's a street fight & you get lower than your opponent. my only regret is that this has become public.

if anybody wants to challenge me on this last paragraph, that's fine. i will answer.

but i will ignore you if you personally attack me.

 

[shamrock]

I hear you ar-easy answers are certainly something out of reach presently. Frustration is certainly playing a role currently. Problem I see, is there isn't enough soldiers or chairs to hit all these radical Muslims. The Way saw it was to keep as many moderate Muslims on our side of the rope as possible. Problem with today is PERCEPTION & 1 PHOTOGRAPH can easily out weigh facts.

Daniel Pearl being assassinated like a animal was a God dam shame. If I remember correctly, those radicals were trying to negotiate freeing of captured high ranking terrorist. Although Pearl died, those animals saw we don't negotiate, and shortly after I believe we caught that hairy piece shit that did it. Unless I'm mistaken they haven't tried to deal in that fashion until the recent assassination due largely to the abusive data.

Don't get me wrong ar, I hope these cock suckerS are broken down & questioned & interrogated around the clock. in other words something being accomplished as far as intelligence or something militarily worth while. These dam abusive photographs are ridiculous child horse play. This stupid woman pointing at Iraqi prisoners, putting them on dog chains? What does this accomplish? Other than getting guys like this kid from Philly killed & infuriat ing the radicals we are trying to defeat, and sway the moderate Muslims we are trying to embrace.

One thing for sure, no easy answers.

Take care ar-
shamrock

 

[dr. freeze]

this is absolutel BS....you liberals act like it is our responsibility to have the government create a video showing the our soldiers at their worst in any kind of situation for the whole world to see

why the heck would we do that? why not handle this under the table? some of you don't care at all for our national security and would rather put political BS above everything else!!!!

i don't get it at all.....how about showing everything POSITIVE we are doing instaed of focusing on the actions of 3-4 hicks who forced some terrorists to do fraternity pranks.....

Its like you WANT the anti-American propaganda out there....Geez lets do everything we can to give these sick infidels more reason to want to kill us....

 

[Eddie Haskell]

Hey Doc:

The one aspect of your post I completely agree with is:

"i don't get it at all...".

I also like your thinking on "3-4 hicks". First question is are you related to any of them? Second question, is how many terrorists killed Berg? May I suggest to you that it was 3-4 islamic hicks. Let them get punished but don't blame the entire moslem population for that actions of these hicks.

How is it that you can rationalize that when the US gets caught with its pants down pulling "fraternity pranks" that its only 3-4 hicks and no one else, then when 3-4 moslem hicks kill this guy you seem to extrapolate that to the whole arabic speaking world.

Another brilliant Freezeism.

Eddie

 

[Hoops]

Its like you WANT the anti-American propaganda out there....Geez lets do everything we can to give these sick infidels more reason to want to kill us....

Yeah, I'm sure pictures of U.S soldiers going overboard with hostages made them really, really, really want to kill us now as opposed to us invading their country, which I'm sure they were fine and dandy with.

 

[djv]

Seems they had other reason long time ago. I dont remember seeing any pitcures before 9/11. But I still not sure CBS had to take the lead here. Our government should have. And Rummy should have told the Pres many months ago.

 

[dr. freeze]

how is that you CANNOT see the difference? Are you that blind?

1. Pranks are different than beheadings.
2. We do not approve of pranks. We do not dance in the streets and throw rocks. In fact we will PUNISH these criminal ambassadors hopefully to the fullest extent of the law (unless some lying malignant defense attorney gets their way).
3. In the Arab community, many of them regard the terrorists as heroes. Many feel that this American civilian got what was coming to him and the like. That kind of attitude and twisted thinking runs rampant over there.



as far as hoops is concerned, he seems to get all his information from the 5:30 news report which shows nightly a band of scoundrels waving their guns in the air and fails to mention the 10,000,000 other people happy that we are there helping them.....they do not all feel like we are invading them but instead liberating them.....and they need to feel that way and would but instead the media has taken over and now feels the need to broadcast everything wrong with American troops and our occupation but intentionally fails to document how we are helping build the country back.....

when all else fails, you two should try to resort to reason

 

[kosar]

how is that you CANNOT see the difference? Are you that blind?

1. Pranks are different than beheadings.
2. We do not approve of pranks. We do not dance in the streets and throw rocks. In fact we will PUNISH these criminal ambassadors hopefully to the fullest extent of the law (unless some lying malignant defense attorney gets their way).
3. In the Arab community, many of them regard the terrorists as heroes. Many feel that this American civilian got what was coming to him and the like. That kind of attitude and twisted thinking runs rampant over there.

Freeze,

I think most of us agree that our country is more civilized, fair and more humane than the terrorists and the terrorist sympathizers. Ok? We can whine and cry that they don't fight fair until we're blue in the face, but that isn't changing. Ever.

Your continued comparisons of what happened in the prisons over there to fraternity pranks and American prison hijinks is absurd and clearly shows that you have no understanding, or no intention to try to understand the mindset of that region. There is no shame in that, I guess, and you have a lot of company at the Pentagon and in the White House.

Fraternity pranks do not result in further inflaming entire regions, they do not make an incredibly difficult mission that much tougher and they do not cost lives. You might think it's silly and I might think it's silly that 'those people' get all worked up over these 'pranks', but the fact remains that they do.

Let's say we invade a ficticious country called 'Roboto'. It is well known that it is the gravest insult in Roboto and it's neighbors to flick someones ear. Obviously you, I and nearly everybody else in non-Roboto land thinks this is the dumbest thing that we've ever heard. I mean, how stupid, getting your ears flicked? Big deal, my little sister just did that to me last week, we could say.

Now picture us (the invaders) taking pictures, videos and great amusement in flicking the ears of prisoners. We sit in shock and awe, to coin a phrase, when the entire Roboto region goes nuts and when they retailiate. Gardenweasel had a few good posts about the clash of cultures and the clash of civilizations. Check them out.

In your typically simplistic example that pranks don't equal beheading, you couldn't be more right. But you left out the part where 'pranks' can and DO lead to beheadings, more deaths and Lord knows what else down the road.

In the end, it doesn't really matter what WE(America) think about such harmless pranks like attaching electrodes to genitals, or forcing somebody to sodomize himself, or doing the sodmizing to him yourself, or forcing men to screw each other, or piling hooded, naked men on top of each other, or a female soldier that has a naked man on the ground on a leash, or forcing men to bang their head against a wall until their head splits open, or raping female prisoners.

See, you and I know that that stuff happens every day in every college around the US. But again, it's not important how *our* culture views it. In the end, it really only matters how they view it in the Middle East.

 

[shamrock]

nice post kosar, I think you pretty much hit the nail on the head. I was attempting to make that same point above:


"Don't get me wrong ar, I hope these cock suckerS are broken down & questioned & interrogated around the clock. in other words something being accomplished as far as intelligence or something militarily worth while. These dam abusive photographs are ridiculous child horse play. This stupid woman pointing at Iraqi prisoners, putting them on dog chains? What does this accomplish? Other than getting guys like this kid from Philly killed & infuriat ing the radicals we are trying to defeat, and sway the moderate Muslims we are trying to embrace. "

when assanine "pranks" start costing American soldiers & contractors their lives. And, start making a nearly impossible task to start with that much more difficult, no longer are they just pranks. I'm sure that Family from Philly thinks they were far from pranks.

 

[AR182]

shamrock, my friend--


do you really think that if the prison incident did not happen, berg would not be decapitated ?


imo, berg would have been decapitated whether the prison incident happened or not.

how do i know this ?

berg, like the reporter daniel perle have something in common.


because berg had israel stamped as a past destination & both were jewish is the reason both were decapitated by alqaeda.