May 2004

I started this blog a year ago shortly after pictures from Abu Ghraib began to circulate. Here is a snip from my first post.

"Policies have consequences both intended and unintended. Either way, patterns can be discerned.

More than 75 years ago, Justice Louis Brandeis wrote these words: 'Our government is the potent, the omnipresent teacher. For good or ill, it teaches the whole people by its example. Crime is contagious. If the government becomes a lawbreaker, it breeds contempt for the law; it invites every man to become a law unto himself.'

The pattern of the Bush Administration includes contempt for International Law. Around the world we are experienced as a bully. The administration boasts that the UN is irrelevant and that the concerns of 'old Europe' do not matter. We do not need the advice, counsel or approval of our allies or the International community. Rather, in the Rumsfeld/Cheney universe, 'might makes right' and we are accountable to none."

And speaking of Abu Ghraib, what is Seymour Hersh predicting these days for Iraq? Scary stuff.