I just stumbled upon an interesting article called “The Price of Arrogance” by Fareed Zakaria for Newsweek.
He writes:
“America is ushering in a new responsibility era,” says President Bush as part of his standard stump speech, “where each of us understands we’re responsible for the decisions we make in life.”
“I take full responsibility,” said Donald Rumsfeld in his congressional testimony last week. But what does this mean? Secretary Rumsfeld hastened to add that he did not plan to resign and was not going to ask anyone else who might have been “responsible” to resign. As far as I can tell, taking responsibility these days means nothing more than saying the magic words “I take responsibility.”
Zakaria goes on to talk about the stance the Bush administration is taking regarding the Geneva conventions. He writes:
Within weeks after September 11, senior officials at the Pentagon and the White House began the drive to maximize American freedom of action. They attacked specifically the Geneva Conventions, which govern behavior during wartime. Donald Rumsfeld explained that the conventions did not apply to today’s “set of facts.”
Last week he said again that the Geneva Conventions did not “precisely apply” and were simply basic rules.The basic attitude taken by Rumsfeld, Cheney and their top aides has been “We’re at war; all these niceties will have to wait.” As a result, we have waged pre-emptive war unilaterally, spurned international cooperation, rejected United Nations participation, humiliated allies, discounted the need for local support in Iraq and incurred massive costs in blood and treasure.
A great read. I suggest you check it out: The Price of Arrogance.
Yeah, he is just telling the truth right now but usually Zakaria is more a pro Bush than Bush himself. I stopped reading Newsweek because of him. His articles are always against Arabs even though he is Indian. Just check previous Newsweek editions. Again, all thye people a denouncing Rumsfield now, so he can’t support him because the actions done in Iraq are just aweful. But when it comes to ” Stop buying Saudi Oil” or “Beware of Islam”, the latter being implicit in his writings of course, he’s the leader of these ideas. And of course, that’s my opinion 🙂
I didn’t know that.
I don’t really read Newsweek that much, just occasionally when I find a bunch of really interesting stuff in it.
Anyway, I agree, now that Rumsfeld is in a tight spot, everyone is taking turns kicking at him just for the sake of it, saying stuff they normally wouldn’t say.