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Monday, January 10, 2005

Do the right thing, America!

Way back on May 18 of last year, back before the Party of Lincoln had caucused and decided to become the Party of Torture and Protracted, Agonizing Death, I found a story about a Bush Administration official who was upset about Abu Ghraib, and I posted the following:

From MSNBC, under the headline “Abuse scandal ‘terrible’ for U.S., Powell concedes”:

NEW YORK - Secretary of State Colin Powell said Monday that the Iraq prisoner abuse scandal had had a “terrible impact” on America’s international image as the Bush administration fought back against reports that it encouraged the abuses by emphasizing a get-tough approach to interrogations.

In a commencement address at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, N.C., Powell said the furor over U.S. abuse of Iraqi prisoners at the Abu Ghraib detention facility was a recurring theme at an international economic conference he attended in Jordan over the weekend.

He said he told the foreign leaders: “Watch America. Watch how we deal with this. Watch how America will do the right thing.”

Now, I don’t want to get on Colin Powell’s case here, since he’s clearly the only member of the Bush administration who gives a flying frog for the Geneva accords, and reportedly he objected strongly to Alberto Gonzales’s January 2002 memo to Bush, which unambiguously “encouraged the abuses by emphasizing a get-tough approach to interrogations.” He’s also, so far, the only Administration official with the moral integrity-- or the cojones-- to admit that Abu Ghraib is a terrible international disaster for the U.S.

But what’s with the diction?

He said he told the foreign leaders: “Watch America. Watch how we deal with this. Watch how America will do the right thing.”

Do you suppose those were his exact words?  After all, he is quoting himself.  Or is this just what happens to reasonably intelligent people after more than three years of serving a President whose favorite book is The Very Hungry Caterpillar?

Dear Mr. President, I went to another country.  In this country there were many foreign leaders.  Foreign leaders come from other countries too.  I told the foreign leaders:  Watch America.  Watch America do the right thing.  Do the right thing, America.

And yes, I’m confident we’ll do the right thing.  We’ll make sure those seven or twelve rogue soldiers take the fall.  Fall, soldiers, fall!

I write now to apologize to my readers, and to Colin Powell.  Though I am loath to admit it, my initial response to Powell’s remarks was not nearly caustic or skeptical enough. Everyone knew that the soldiers would fall-- hell, it was their fault for bringing those damn dogs and Hefty bags all the way with them to Iraq in the first place.  But a more appropriate response would have gone something like this:

Looking far into the future, Powell said, “Watch America.  Watch how we deal with this.  Watch how America will do the right thing.  You’ll see, you foreign leaders.  We will take the civilian administrator in charge of Iraq by the scruff of his neck, and we will force him to accept the Presidential Medal of Freedom.  We will haul the Secretary of Defense out into the open, and, ignoring his natural shyness and disdain for the limelight, we will tell the world that he is the best Secretary of Defense this country has ever had.  And just you wait until we get our hands on the little creep who came up with the rationale for torture in Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib in the first place!  When we find this guy, we won’t hold back-- we will display him in public for days on end, all in the course of promoting him to the highest law-enforcement position in the United States!

“You just watch us, you foreign leaders.  You ain’t seen nothing yet,” Powell concluded.

This humble blog once again stands corrected and ashamed before the world.

Posted by Michael on 01/10 at 11:19 AM
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