Posted by zeugma on November 1, 2005, at 0:06:36 [reposted on November 1, 2005, at 6:20:12 | original URL]
In reply to Re: the Ministry of Civility » 10derHeart, posted by Dinah on October 31, 2005, at 23:12:28
If you're too thin skinned then so am I>>
I did not mean to imply that I consider it the fault of military personnel that foreign and domestic policy has taken such a turn.
i think that the scandals that have been plaguing the miltary such as abu ghraib are the result of the upper chain of command having been given free reign.
If anything I was saying that the policies and actions I was describing undermined national security by weakening our intelligence forces and so putting our armed forces at greater risk. i did not say that explicitly, but it is a natural corollary of what i was saying. if the CIA and the executive branch are truly at odds, and the executive branch is making wartime decisions, that does not bode well for the common soldier.
and this is also something consider: cheney has proposed abolishing restraints on torture for guantanomo inmates. the problem with this is that any soldier captued by an iraqi insurgent can be brutalized, and our own moral high ground is forfeited by our own policies. john mccain, a former pow, has pleaded with cheney to reject this idea. i think it is not in the interest of the u.s. military to adopt this idea.
-z
poster:zeugma
thread:574039
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/poli/20050924/msgs/574043.html