Quote:
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Originally Posted by mburbank
I think this time we have quite deliberately instituted a top down policy designed to be deliberately vague on standards of treatment and turn a blind eye unless their is incontravertable evidence. This is bad leadership, and I don't just mean incompetant, I mean evil.
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This part does worry me a bit in relation to Abu Grab (sp?) where I did, indeed here scuttle about some of the interrogation directives and techniques coming from quite high sources.
What I'm saying, in addition, is that there have been all kinds of covert operations with bad men doing bad things for any administration of which you can think. I've read books, watched PBS, listened to NPR, watched the History Channel and have been appalled at secret things that had been archived during that administration but have since come to light and have been appalled at administrations that I had thought represented my beliefs and values in just about every way. That was pure naiviety and, in a sense, hypocrisy. I know that throughout history, to be a major power in the world, you have to sometimes do evil things. It's inevitable. The trick is in presentation, in other words, PR. The truth is in that I knew that these types of things happened in all administrations to a point. It's human nature and simply has to happen to oil the gears of the machine. The hypocrisy is in feeling guilty in that, while I knew these covert operations (perhaps evil, perhaps not) took place in all administrations, I was taking swipes at those in whom I didn't share partisanship.
I've never had a problem with the "war on terror" even to the extent of comprimising a few liberties towards the cause. My real problem is embarking on question missions under vague circumstances and executing them poorly. I shouldn't have really been suprised by the Katrina debacle as, clearly, the high ranking officers of government agencies have been chosen due to cronyism, nepotism, ect without any thought as to substance or qualification. I should have taken that lesson from the way the war was run.