The Discovered Abuse

The discovered abuse
the abusive act
or the seemingly inhumane act
or possibly illegal act
someone discovered it, saw it
something wasn't right
or was told that something wasn't right,
and said, "You ought to look into this."
They went and looked into it
police, I believe, possibly military.
And let me just give you a little texture for the kind of –
it sounds like a simple thing.
Obviously, you should stop it.

That's not a good thing, abuse of somebody.
And then the question is: "Well, how do you stop it?"
What they did was report it, which is right.
Next step would have been,
if they saw it happening,
to orally tell people they should not do that.
And the third would be use force to stop them,
including lethal force to stop them.
Now, that's complicated.

And so reporting something that looks amiss is good.
Orally trying to stop something that looks amiss,
to me, sounds very reasonable.
And then the next question is: "What level of force?”
they don't know the laws,
they don't know the culture,
and it could vary
So there are all these gradations in there.
And that's not an easy thing to do.
The rules of engagement.
I can't understand them.
So this stuff is not easy.
It's complicated.
And it's tough.
And it isn't simple.


This poem construted from: Transcript: Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld's Speech on the Future of Iraq
Delivered at the Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies
Courtesy FDCH/e-Media Monday, December 5, 2005; 2:39 PM