The abandoned whistleblower of Abu Ghraib

[struggle4progress]

Darby leaves the Army but can't go home
Wire Services

In his farewell address at the Pentagon, Donald Rumsfeld said that the worst day of his nearly six years as secretary of defense was the disclosure to the world of the photographs of the abuses at Abu Ghraib. Those pictures might never have been known were it not for Joseph Darby, then a specialist with the Army's 372nd Military Police Company at Guantanamo Bay. Because his moral code told him "it had to stop," Darby may never be able to return home to Maryland ...

While still at Guantanamo, Darby, in fear of retaliation, slept with a gun under his pillow. The Army decided to bring him back to the United States, ahead of his unit. Back home in Cumberland, Md., the whistleblower was a pariah. The commander of the local Veterans of Foreign Wars post, Colin Engelbach, told "60 Minutes" Darby "was a rat. He was a traitor. He let his unit down, he let his fellow soldiers down" ...

Darby, who left the Army recently, misses his home, as does his wife. Their current residence is secret. "It's not fair," Bernadette Darby told the New York Daily News (Dec. 8). "We're being punished for (him) doing the right thing" ...

In a series of memos - a story first broken by Jess Bravin on the front page of the June 7, 2003, Wall Street Journal - he disclosed: "Bush administration lawyers contended last year that the president wasn't bounded by laws prohibiting torture and that government agents who might torture prisoners at his direction couldn't be prosecuted by the Justice Department" ...

http://www.saukvalley.com/articles/2006/12/31/opinion/columnists/23127583201503.txt

[tanyev]

1. I wonder if Rumsfeld's disclosure of Darby's name in open testimony

was simply for revenge.

[BonnieJW]

2. Of course it was.

He wanted to be sure no one else pulled a "Darby." Is there some way we can show support for these patriots? If real Americans band together to support this man and his wife and welcome them to a new town, it would show that there are only a few stupid people in this country.

[Hoping4Change]

9. Darby in an interview last year suggested that he believed

Rumsfeld did it for revenge. I also recall him pointing out that the soldiers he incriminated and their friends were walking around with loaded weapons and that he feared what might happen. Rumsfeld definitely put him in harm's way and Rumsfeld would have known full well that this "slip" might have cost Darby his life.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

3. What I don't get is a veteran

thinking this guy is a rat because he outed people violating US and international laws! No one I know in the military wants scum doing the wrong thing. What Darby did was honorable; those who are treating him badly are showing dishonor to the uniforms they once wore.

[w4rma]

4. His particular unit might have been built specifically for a lack of morals to work at Abu Ghraib.nt

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

5. I didn't make myself clear, sorry

I was commenting on the actions of the local VFW.

[w4rma]

6. I see. He's just some right-wing nut who got into a position of "power" in the local VFW, imho. (nt)

[Gregorian]

7. He let the oil companies and war profiteers down.

Not much else to say. Except maybe they should blame the judge who decided we needed to see the photos. I guess he's a rat too.

[quiet.american]

8. What is going on with the VFW? Every time I read of them lately, they're swiggin' kool-aid. n/t