New reports confirm that the “regime of abuse” continued long after the Abu Ghraib story broke and long after Donald Rumsfeld had promised Congress that he would “take strong measures to stop further incidents.” This shouldn’t surprise us. Rumsfeld was also instructed by the courts that detainees at Guantanamo must appear before a federal judge to determine their status as POWs. Nothing has come of it even though two months have passed.
Rumsfeld was also told by the Supreme Court that the war on terror was not “a blank check” for the president to overturn long-held due process protections. Rumsfeld ignored that as well. Rumsfeld simply operates beyond any court, any jurisdiction and any set of laws. He conducts his own secret government, complete with torture rooms and death squads (terror prevention units). His continuation at defense poses a serious challenge to our democratic form of government.
Mike Whitney
Snohomish
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