Life On a Lake 

Dedicated to the Joys of Waterside Living

Whose watch? Not mine!

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Donald Rumsfeld says it happened on his watch, but he is not to blame. He knew, but he didn't know; he didn't authorize the shameful interrogation tactics (read: torture) used on Iraqi detainees, a large percent of which were blameless for their capture and are now being released without ceremony or apology.

Rummy the Explainer

Okay; we've ploughed this ground before. If it was Rumsfeld's "watch" the atrocities  happened on, the buck doesn't stop there. Rumsfeld is a personal aide of President Bush. He is in effect his staff man. That is his chief job and responsibility: reporting back to the President on what the President wants, or doesn't want, to hear.

So if Rummy "knew," Bush did, too. He gave the overall authorization and approval. Just listen to and watch the Presidential addresses to the Nation about the Forces of Evil, etc.

Getting rid of Rummy solves no problem of reelection doubt or moral responsibility for the heinous acts committed in Iraqi prisons, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo. If they go so far up as the Secretary of Defense, they go all the way to the top: the Commander and Chief. (He ain't called that for nothing.) If he didn't know, he should have.

Maybe he just didn't want to hear it.

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Enough of atrocities--theirs or ours. The rhododendrons are in bloom, including Big Red, caught here just after a rainstorm. See it glisten?

Now these blooms are fading, dropping off their stalks at a rapid rate. So goes Spring, and Spring . . . goes. But there are yellow ones to replace the reds, golden orange azaleas, and the first of the roses--severely cut back this year  by my wife, almost as though in punishment for some unknown crime--are starting to bloom sparsely. But, I can tell, soon they will be abundant, dominant, in the lakefront garden.

Big Pink Rhododendron, down by the water's edge is blooming furiously. This means its huge blossoms are fading fast in the direction of orangish white. Soon it too will be gone. And huge poppies, just like Georgia O'Keeffe's to the right, have burst forth and are spangled beauties all day long, though like all poppies they sadly fold at dusk.

But then there is tomorrow. They'll open again like red-hot flames. And the trout fishing continues to be excellent. Today's five fish were a little larger than those of a week ago. They can't have grown so quickly, can they? They were planted only a month ago, and are now feeding as though there were no tomorrow. Which may be the case for some of them, for they really don't endure catch-and-release that well. They are feeding on scuds, snails, and chironomidae (a kind of larvae).

Yesterday, one of our released trout died. It floated belly up on the surface. A sad occasion. Hope an eagle or osprey got it.

Scene from an US prison in Iraq

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OK, so I was wrong, too extreme.

 Let's just bring Pfc. Lyndie and the other prison guards from the Iraqi prison compound home in shackles. And, judging from the proposed fines and incarcerations provided by the Uniform Code for Military Justice for a General Courts Martial, let's consider the traditional 20 years at Leavenworth, where she might be recipient of what she herself dealt out so happily (judging from the pictures).

Robert Arnold, Editor
rcarnold@direcway.com