Horrors Of Abu Ghraib
NYT ed board finally gets it right:
Most Americans have long known that the horrors of Abu Ghraib were not the work of a few low-ranking sociopaths.
Yeah. It went straight to the top. A psychopath named Saddam Hussein was behind it all. The torture, the murder. People held in definitely for no good reason at all. Thank God the United States brought an end to that in 2003. Remarkable that the NYT ed board is finally getting around to recognizing that.
Hang on a sec.
All but President Bush’s most unquestioning supporters recognized the chain of unprincipled decisions that led to the abuse, torture and death in prisons run by the American military and intelligence services.
Oh. They’re beating that dead horse again. What torture and death are they talking about? A couple of terrorists got briefly dunked five years ago, true, something that has made reasonable people squeamish but is no longer practiced. I recall one man was beaten and died of a heart attack, and there was an investigation and prosecution. We’ll have to read on. Largely, I believe what NYT is refering to might be described as a high degree of unpleasantness. It fact, the methods described have been routinely used on American soldiers to give them a taste of the kind of treatment they might receive if captured by less ethical adversaries … actual torture of American soldiers or anyone by Americans being illegal and undesireable.
Some of those methods were torture by any rational definition and many of them violate laws and treaties against abusive and degrading treatment.
Not exactly, though people who would like interrogations to be a genteel chat between worthy adversaries over coffee, with cigarette case flipped open keep insisting that’s the case. How come NYT is being so vague about specifics, while tossing around words like “torture” and “death,” anyway?
On Dec. 2, 2002, Mr. Rumsfeld authorized the interrogators at Guantánamo to use a range of abusive techniques that were already widespread in Afghanistan, enshrining them as official policy. Instead of a painstaking legal review, Mr. Rumsfeld based that authorization on a one-page memo from Mr. Haynes. The Senate panel noted that senior military lawyers considered the memo “ ‘legally insufficient’ and ‘woefully inadequate.’ ”
Mr. Rumsfeld rescinded his order a month later, and narrowed the number of “aggressive techniques” that could be used at Guantánamo. But he did so only after the Navy’s chief lawyer threatened to formally protest the illegal treatment of prisoners. By then, at least one prisoner, Mohammed al-Qahtani, had been threatened with military dogs, deprived of sleep for weeks, stripped naked and made to wear a leash and perform dog tricks. This year, a military tribunal at Guantánamo dismissed the charges against Mr. Qahtani.
OK, there are some specifics. Rumsfeld pushed the matter, there was push back, he dropped it. Only after some guy in Guantanamo was treated in a humiliating fashion. NYT does not report any bamboo shoots under the fingernails, electric shock to the genitals, the kinds of things Iraqi, Iranian, Japanese torturers have subjected people to over the years. Nor is there any mention of anyone getting his head sawn off.
The abuse and torture of prisoners continued at prisons run by the C.I.A. and specialists from the torture-resistance program remained involved in the military detention system until 2004. Some of the practices Mr. Rumsfeld left in place seem illegal, like prolonged sleep deprivation.
“Seem illegal” sounds like a bit of a fudge. If its torture, then there wouldn’t be any question about it, right?
These policies have deeply harmed America’s image as a nation of laws and may make it impossible to bring dangerous men to real justice.
Geez, we’re not talking about having OJ trials for them again, are we?
We can understand that Americans may be eager to put these dark chapters behind them, but it would be irresponsible for the nation and a new administration to ignore what has happened — and may still be happening in secret C.I.A. prisons that are not covered by the military’s current ban on activities like waterboarding.
At last report, Obama was being advised not to hold the CIA to the Boy Scout manual’s standard on interrogations.
A prosecutor should be appointed to consider criminal charges against top officials at the Pentagon and others involved in planning the abuse.
Great idea, midwar. Nuremburg trials … for our side. With soldiers and agents in the field, the vast majority behaving themselves but already operating with the knowledge they can be excoriated in the press, yanked out of action and subjected to prosecution for accidents of war, make it clear to them they better start reading al-Qaeda and Taliban detainees their Miradna rights.
But don’t worry. NYT ed board is just blowing smoke. They want to sound tough on “torture,” but they don’t actually mean it.
Given his other problems — and how far he has moved from the powerful stands he took on these issues early in the campaign — we do not hold out real hope that Barack Obama, as president, will take such a politically fraught step.
That’s right, give Obama the “politically fraught, other problems” out. Bush had other problems, too. Politically fraught ones. Gutless wonders.
At the least, Mr. Obama should, as the organization Human Rights First suggested, order his attorney general to review more than two dozen prisoner-abuse cases that reportedly were referred to the Justice Department by the Pentagon and the C.I.A. — and declined by Mr. Bush’s lawyers.
OK, NYT ed board knows Obama won’t go after any big fish, so he should at least go after the small ones who have already been let off the hook.
Hey, hold up there partner! I thought NYT ed board’s big problem with Bush was that he let the small fish get fried the fall for the crimes of Rumsfeld and other bigs. That’s what they were squawking about at the top of this screed. Now NYT ed board wants Obama to carry out an unfair Bushitler policy re abusive torturers? I’m confused.
He (Obama) said one of his first acts as president would be to order a review of all of Mr. Bush’s executive orders and reverse those that eroded civil liberties and the rule of law.
Good luck with that. None of them did. Yeah, yeah, OK … maybe the executive orders that called for Michael Moore, Cindy Sheehan and Sean Penn to be locked up in Guantanamo, the tapping of Alec Baldwin’s phone and seizure of all Code Pink library cards.
Treacher, of Treacher fame, proselytizes among the moonbats.
via Hot Air, MSNBC brain trust debates the issue.
Malkin on everyone’s favorite Jihadi,* American Taliban John Walker Lindh and his request that Bush give him something his pals never gave anyone. Mercy.
* (Australian Taliban David Hicks was actually a lot more fun, largely due to the factthat he’s an idiot, much like his supporters. If Lindh would lighten up a little, I’d say let him out, show how magnanimous we can be. But as long as he’s going to be mopey, let him stew.)
Welcome, Other McCain’s Instapundit and Greenwald aka Sockpuppet through-clickers. Always so good to see you, no matter how you get here. Some pointers on managing your Greenwald relationship, by the way.
In other business, peaceniks will want to check out A Combat Veteran’s Reading List. Warmongers, take a moment to remember the Bulge. Everyone, close your eyes. It’s the Scent of a Whopper. Eureka, Archimedes was right: Dense people sink! It’s a baby/Baath water issue.
Posted by Jules Crittenden at 9:53 pm on Thursday, December 18, 2008
3 Responses to “Horrors Of Abu Ghraib”
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December 19th, 2008 at 4:31 am
“Some of the practices Mr. Rumsfeld left in place seem illegal”
Shooting POWs at Biscari, Sicily and at Dachau during WWII didn’t “seem” legal either…but, our troops went ahead and did it anyway.
Amazingly, no officers or presidents were held responsible for those massacres, but, then again, the liberal Democrats were running the show in those days, and we had our image to consider, so maybe it isn’t all that amazing.
December 19th, 2008 at 9:23 am
If you want to see a great film, and get a historic view of torture, by the French no less, check out The Battle of Algiers….. one of the best films on the war on terror.
http://www.liketelevision.com/liketelevision/tuner.php?channel=955&format=movie&theme=guide
December 19th, 2008 at 11:03 am
When Obama investigates the hazing rituals of college fraternities, I’ll support investigations into the “torture” at Abu Ghraib.