Roger Aronoff has an excellent article up at the Accuracy In Media web site about the widening "scandal":
"Clearly this story was in the public domain, but not given a high priority by anyone except, perhaps, the military, which was carrying out an internal investigation while proceeding with criminal charges, reprimands and suspensions. It wasn't until General Antonio Taguba's report on the findings of his investigation was seen by Seymour Hersh, the intrepid reporter of My Lai fame, and the shocking photos were seen on CBS's Sixty Minutes II on April 28, that the story became red hot and the accusations began to fly. It then became a "scandal" and it was unfairly claimed that Rumsfeld and the military had been orchestrating a cover-up."
(emphasis mine)
Posted by doug at May 10, 2004 05:56 PM | TrackBackThough it isn’t right that prisoners were mistreated, it also isn’t right that so many are only now concerned with this issue for political gain. Obviously mistreating anyone is not right by any means. We do hold ourselves to high moral standards, often higher than those of the people we fight against.
It is frustrating that the media is making it sound like it happened last week and it is breaking news when the investigations have been ongoing for a while. You have to love that many are calling this a “cover-up.” How great is that! It is as though the reports given in January and February about this issue didn’t really happen. Seems to be very advantageous now for certain democtratic presidential "candidate."
I liked that Aronoff listed somewhat of a timeline of the investigations and criminal charges. I also liked that he explained the situation surrounding the abuse saying that they were some of the worse prisoners, again not condoning the actions but seeking to understand what happened.
Great article.
Look Doug, I am commenting on one of your posts!
Posted by: tiffany at May 11, 2004 01:25 PM