OK, I really don't get it. I don't. Someone needs to explain this to me, because you think you have a pretty good grasp of how this shit is supposed to work. You're pretty sure that as stupid and bad and retarded and insane as everything is, you've got a reasonable grasp on the upper limit. And then you check the news, and you read this:
"I was requested by the director of central intelligence to take custody of an Iraqi national who was believed to be a high-ranking member of Ansar al-Islam. And we did so. We were asked to not immediately register the individual. And we did that. He has been treated humanely. There's no implication of any problem. He was not at Abu Ghraib. He is not there now. He has never been there to my knowledge." - Donald Rumsfeld.
A bit of context not included in the direct quote. The "registering" in this instance means telling the Red Cross that we have this prisoner of war in our custody, as required by the Geneva Convention and any number of other international laws regarding POW's. And "not immediately" means "we hid him from the Red Cross for SEVEN MONTHS until the news media somehow got the story".
This, by the way, is not quite worthy of causing a brain embolism. That Rumsfeld would directly order the kind of "disappearance" usually attributed to third world dictators is not outside the range of shit I'd suspect he's capable of. Even his apparent feeling that we can just take him at his word because he's American and we don't need to follow those pesky laws because, well, we're American, that, again, is not what I would call a startling revelation.
Hell, the fact that he used Abu Ghraib, implying that Abu Ghraib is the only place anyone is even capable of being mistreated in the entire world, that's not quite enough to start blood fountaining from my ears.
"I'm never disappointed in my secretary of defense. He's doing a fabulous job and America's lucky to have him in the position he's in." - George W. Bush, after discussing the matter with Rumsfeld.
The secretary of defense, caught breaking the law, tells the President he got caught breaking the law, and the President, being a retarded lawn gnome in a suit, stands behind him 100%. The secretary of defense then holds a press conference in which he admits to breaking the law, shrugs it off, and goes about his business.
And yes, this makes me angry, but still, not completely beyond the new record-setting levels of pale we've been conditioned to accept. No, what pushes me over the edge into a fucking seizure is that nobody is going to bat an eye. Already nobody's batting an eye. CNN is all a-jitter over a suspected Al-Qaeda training video. If Google News is to be believed, over an hour after Rumsfeld admitted to outright criminal behavior, this admission has barely made a ripple across the news cycle. And as trite as it is, I can't help but think back to Clinton and his blowjobs and once again wonder, what the fuck? After all, as I watched CNN YESTERDAY AFTERNOON, there was a big news piece about Clinton's blowjobs, and nothing about Rumsfeld. Stupid liberal media.
You know who needs to be paying attention to who? All you Democrats who've had your lips super-glued to John McCain's ass need to watch your bestest buddy. I don't even particularly understand the McCain worship, what with it being largely dependent on putting your hands over your ears and yelling LA LA LA LA LA everytime anyone mentions the "Keating Five" or "savings and loan scandal". But whatever. You all love the McCain so much you want him to be Kerry's Vice-President. He's such a maverick. He's so bipartisan. If his dick were a lever, Archimedes could move the moon.
John McCain was a prisoner of war. John McCain understands the importance of the Geneva Convention. John McCain should understand that the Geneva Convention exists because you can't just take people's word for it when they say they're treating prisoners humanely. Even someone as honest and forthright as Donald Rumsfeld. If John McCain has one tenth of the alleged near-godlike integrity people seem to imbue him with, he cannot sit quietly as Rumsfeld admits publicly to intentionally, willfully, and casually violating the GC. Let's all watch together, shall we? I know where I'm placing MY bets, but I'd still love to be pleasantly suprised.