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| The Other Donald Goes to Iraq |
| 05.16.04 (1:06 pm) [edit] |
Well, Donald Rumsfeld held his nose and flew off to Iraq. Somehow he managed to leave Iraq before he had to inhale again. Not a bad trick, Don. Of course he learned this from the President, who also managed to fly in and out without inhaling. This quickie fly-in was, of course, to show solidarity with the troops -- whose tours of duty were extended by Rummy once he got back to his cushy office. BushCo really loves this swell PR stuff. They seem to keep hoping Lincoln was wrong. Or at least that fooling enough people for a few months will actually win them an election.
Of course, the reason Unca Donald had to head off to Iraq was for some major damage control around this whole prisoner "abuse" scandal. "Abuse," "torture," call it what you will, but most of the media keeps sticking by their storyline. Unca Donald, of course, had his story straight before he even left for Iraq. It was all Huey, Dewey and Louie's fault and it had absolutely nothing to do with him. Leave those little scamps alone for a minute and next thing you know they are violating the Geneva Convention. There's no way that could reflect on Unca Donald. Or Uncle Screwup McDuck in the Oval office.
Yep, just a few bad egg soldiers running around inside a prison far from any actual combat, with no brass anywhere in sight. I guess the officers in charge of this operation had more important things to do than supervise the soldiers under their command. All the way up to Rummy, folks had more important things to do than to check out whether or not we were committing war crimes, inflaming the Muslim world or even comitting murder. Sergeants running around completely unsupervised -- apparently this is not your father's army.
So Unca Donald hot-tailed it right over to Iraq, just as soon as this became a PR problem. Unfortunately, he just sat in his office when he first heard what Huey, Dewey and Louie were up to. Actually, he did go over to meet with Uncle Screwup back in February, right there at the tax cut money vaults. We won't know exactly what happened at that meeting and what action was taken until Great-Uncle Dickey says it is OK to talk about it. Did you ever notice that no one in this administration takes any fatherhood responsibility?
When Uncle Screwup McDuck heard about this whole mess he attacked it with the kind of hard hitting action he took when he read the Daily Briefing entitled "al Queda determined to strike America." That is to say, he got a puzzled look on his face and asked "And what does this have to do with me?" Apparently Great-Uncle Dickey told him that it didn't have anything to do with him, so Uncle Screwup could just sit back and dream about throwing some more big tax cut moneybags to the boys at Enron. Seems no one has told Uncle Screwup that, pretty much, Enron no longer exists. Some people say that Bush's train of thought is a bit slow, but I pretty much picture two smashed and burning engines, just collided, with box cars scattered across the countryside.
Back in February when this thing was hush-hush, the only action that was deemed necessary was a do-nothing study. But then all those ugly pictures came back from Foto-Mat and somehow landed on the front page. Who knew that Huey, Dewey and Louie could afford digital cameras? As soon as word actually got out, Unca Donald sprung into action. Of course, the only kind of action BushCo really understands is a PR blitz. The PR smokescreen has consisted mostly of blaming HD&L and repeating ad nauseum the idea that these actions in no way represent America. Now, it may be that those little urchins did this all on their own, we'll see when the investigations and trials are over with. And while I believe that what happened does not represent what is good about America, I am not sure it does not represent the current Bush & Company America.
Uncas Donald and Screwup McDuck have certainly denounced what happened as unAmerican, but if you read between the lines there's still an ugly undercurrent. What they seem to be saying is that this torture is unAmerican. That the boys just went too far. If you listen closely, you can almost hear the "well, some torture is OK, when it is done to terrorists and all." Now Rummy and Bush haven't said this directly, but you can certainly hear it in the media echo chamber often enough. It is abundantly clear that BushCo has no problems with scooping up bunches of people, putting them in orange jumpsuits and, ummmm, pressuring them, yes that's the phrase, to talk. Even if there is no way the "detainees" could actually know anything. So some forms of torture, or near torture as they might say, actually are kinda American right now. So much for the better angels of our nature.
Personally, I agree with Rummy. Treating prisoners of war contrary to the Geneva Convetion is unAmerican. Committing war crimes is unAmerican. Setting up a system that appears to condone and even permit this kind of activity is unAmerican. Not doing something about it immediately is unAmerican. Waiting until you get caught is unAmerican. The person in charge when all this unAmerican activity was going on should go. Unca Donald oughta hit the pavement. Now. And in November, we Americans can tell Screwup McDuck to join him. The better angels of our nature demand no less.
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