Today's Pentagon Lecture

"We're in an environment where people react to impressions," Lawrence Di Rita, the Pentagon spokesman, said at the news conference Thursday about Guantánamo. "And so what we're trying to make sure people understand is that the impression they ought to have is that the guards, the interrogators, the command down there have been extraordinarily cautious, and yet there have been instances where inadvertent mishandling has occurred or other types of mishandling," Mr. Di Rita added.

New York Times 05/27/05

Well now, "We're in an environment where people react to impressions" ?? What the h*ll does THAT mean?

Of course people react to impressions, and in this case the impressions have been formed by mounting evidence, including reports from the Pentagon itself of prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, and the FBI and CIA's admission of numerous cases of detainee torture.

The White House and The Pentagon may wish to alter the American public's impression of what they're up to behind closed doors, but the evidence being disclosed on many fronts suggests that failure to react to our impressions makes us complicit in the crimes being committed in our name. Crimes of torture and abuse euphemistically labeled "inadvertent mishandling" by the Pentagon, cannot be suppressed indefinitely.

It's an ugly stain and it marks all who remain silent.