{"id":910,"date":"2004-10-28T11:37:22","date_gmt":"2004-10-28T18:37:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp\/2004\/10\/the_onefinger_victory_salute\/"},"modified":"2004-10-28T11:37:22","modified_gmt":"2004-10-28T18:37:22","slug":"the_onefinger_victory_salute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/2004\/10\/the_onefinger_victory_salute.html","title":{"rendered":"THE ONE-FINGER VICTORY SALUTE"},"content":{"rendered":"

Today cannot pass without acknowledging the lead editorial<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> in this morning’s New York Times, which
\nspotlights one of the most important reasons to turn the Ignoramus in Chief and his thuggish
\nminions out of office:
\n

<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n


\n

When the Abu Ghraib prison scandal first broke, the Bush administration
\nstruck a pose of righteous indignation. It assured the world that the problem was limited to one
\nblock of one prison, that the United States would never condone the atrocities we saw in those
\nterrible photos, that it would punish those responsible for any abuse — regardless of their rank —
\nand that it was committed to defending the Geneva Conventions and the rights of prisoners.
\n

<\/P>
\n

None of this appears to be true. The Army has prosecuted a few low-ranking soldiers and
\nrebuked a Reserve officer or two, but exonerated the top generals. No political leader is being
\nheld accountable for the policies set in Washington that led to the abuses at Abu Ghraib and at
\nother prison camps operated by the Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency in Iraq and
\nAfghanistan, and at Guant\u00e1namo Bay, Cuba, where prisoner abuse was
\nsystemic.<\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n

<\/P>
\n

How many more times must this be said before the American people will hold its leaders
\nresponsible? How long will the cover-up continue? We won’t know until Election Day, when
\nvoters will be put to the test. We know public pressure to hold the Ignoramus and his top officials
\nto account has not worked so far. We know as long as they remain in office they will do
\neverything in their power to keep us in the dark.<\/P>
\n

As the editorial reminds us, two reports this week have revealed that for a year and a half “the
\nC.I.A., which has a record of hiding prisoners in Iraq from the Red Cross,” violated the Geneva
\nConventions by “secretly spirit[ing] a dozen non-Iraqi civilians out of prisons in Iraq to
\nundisclosed locations.” What makes matters worse: <\/P>
\n


\n


\n

To justify that operation after the fact, the same legal offices that produced the infamous
\npaper on how to pretend that torture is legal drew up a new opinion claiming that the president
\nhas the right to decide which prisoners are covered by the Geneva Conventions and which are not.
\n<\/P>
\n

This happened in secret, at the same time that administration officials were testifying at the
\nSenate’s Abu Ghraib hearings about the president’s allegiance to the Geneva Conventions and to
\nAmerican constitutional values when it came to the treatment of
\nprisoners.<\/P><\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n

<\/P>
\n

Forgive the lengthy excerpt. But nobody has said it better. The editorial goes on to names
\nnames. You know who they are. You saw them under oath on television “bobbing and weaving,”
\nas Kerry has said of the White House, ducking responsibility with prevarications.<\/P>
\n

And what is the Ignoramus’s answer to the American people? His “one-finger victory salute.”<\/FONT><\/B><\/A> As
\nseen on video some years ago (click that link), it was a callow joke meant for his staff. Seen
\ntoday, he’s giving us all the finger.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Today cannot pass without acknowledging the lead editorial in this morning’s New York Times, which spotlights one of the most important reasons to turn the Ignoramus in Chief and his thuggish minions out of office: When the Abu Ghraib prison scandal first broke, the Bush administration struck a pose of righteous indignation. It assured the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-910","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-eG","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=910"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/910\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=910"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=910"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=910"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}