Sunday, April 11, 2010

The Pottery Barn Doctrine

In the April 9, 2010 London Times, there was an article by Tim Reid which reported that Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, who was a top aide to Colin Powell when he was Secretary of State, claimed in a declaration he made to support a lawsuit by a Guantanamo inmate that hundreds of innocent Afghani men were illegally detained in Guantanamo.
The declaration went on to state that Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney and George Bush Jr. knowingly kept them there because to admit that the prisoners were being mistakenly held would prove to be politically embarrassing and harm the push for War in Iraq and cast doubt in the publics opinion of their broader "War On Terror".

It is not as if this had never been spoken of before. During the initiation of American actions in Afghanistan in 2002, it had been widely reported that hundreds of Afghans were detained because of the bounty offered by the Americans for terrorists. Many people were "turned in" because of the $5,000 bounty and it was a convenient way to settle feuds, eliminate rivals and seize the property of the victims. In Wilkersons declaration, he estimates that 742 prisoners were illegally transported and held at Guantanamo, some as young as 12 years old, some as old as 93.

The declaration is significant because it is the first time that the allegation has been made by someone from inside the administration. It reveals the true disorganization and confusion behind the propaganda push to promote the War On Terror and the build up to the Iraq Invasion.

The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Adel Hassan Hamed, a Sudanese man who was held from 2003 until 2007 and was tortured repeatedly. As of yet, representatives of George Bush Jr., Donald Rumsfeld or Dick Cheney have bothered to repond to the allegations.
The article and the facts it reveals demonstrate the haste and sheer knee jerk reaction with which The United States initiated what is now its longest running conflict in its history.
The Bush Administration did a lot of insane things regarding its neocon directed foreign policy. The involvement of George Bush with the Taleban and his Arbusto Oil Company was documented in this blog 3 years ago in a post entitled,  But Cheney Was Right.
And how was Cheney right? Read the post and learn about the real Osama/Saddam Hussein connection and how it detours through Crawford, Texas. That is the sorry ass history. We have to deal with the aftermath now. One term that Colin Powell used when he talked about the Iraqi War was the "Pottery Barn" doctrine. Simply stated it was, "You Break It, You Pay For It."
Yes, we have to accept responsibility for the action of the Bush administration. There is no simple solution as Ron Paul would let us believe. You cannot disengage and walk away, because accepting responsibility means acting responsibly. 
We have created a uncharted new world of terrorism. We have inspired a few generations of residual hatred, no matter with what good intentions we start to use now. 
The world Bush left us with is the biggest Gordian Knot of all time. Let us hope that Barack Obama can begin to untie it instead of tying it tighter.

3 comments:

mud_rake said...

It reveals the true disorganization and confusion behind the propaganda push to promote the War On Terror and the build up to the Iraq Invasion.

But, Microdot, IT WORKED! No matter the disorganization or the speciousness of the argument, IT WORKED!

In fact, there is a large knot [Gordian perhaps] of Americans who STILL believe the propaganda. Or want to believe the propaganda.

The mass-idiocy over here is disgustingly amazing. It blows my mind with each new and endless example of the term, 'dumbed-down citizens.'

Engineer of Knowledge said...

Hello Microdot,
When Daddy Bush spoke with Jr. on Iraq before the invasion, he told ADHD Goofy not to go into Iraq with those exact same words, “You break it You own it.” Against all advice from experienced Senior Statesmen from here and abroad like Saudi Arabia, Alfred E. Newman took the instructions (orders) from Dicky Cheney to invade Iraq. (Note I did not say “ADVICE” but “INSTRUCTIONS” because “Corporate Big Oil” was calling the shots at this point for our country)

Well 10 years later we have a worthless, damn destabilizing, mess that has bankrupted our country. As we are trying to pull our troops out of Iraq, they are still blowing themselves up in a religious civil war.

I also thought that I would pass on this personal true story. Back in 1999, I remember a co-worker, who was an extreme conservative, making the statement, “I wish I could see an all Republican Congress, Senate, and President to see how well this country would do with then in control of it all.” WELLL……I guess he got his wish and we all got to see how well things went when the Republicans called all of the decisions of running this country.

Socialism for the rich and capitalism for the poor is now the classical political-economic reality. After eight years of Republican control our advanced capitalist society state policies assure that more resources flow to the rich and crumbs to the poor. An example being in the form of transfer payments. Corporate welfare of favorable treatment to particular corporations by the government was the norm for this latest group of Conservative Republicans. Under the Republicans the capitalist political economy toward large corporations allows them to PRIVATIZE PROFITS and SOCIALIZE LOSSES.

microdot said...

Socialism for the Rich and Capitalism for the Poor....
A great line.