NYT editorial: Abu Ghraib Swept Under the Carpet

[DeepModem Mom]

Abu Ghraib Swept Under the Carpet
Published: August 30, 2007

We would have been hard pressed to think of a more sadly suitable coda to the Bush administration’s mishandling of the Abu Ghraib nightmare than Tuesday’s verdict in the court-martial of the only officer to be tried for the abuse, sexual assault and torture of prisoners that occurred there in 2003.

The verdict was a remix of the denial of reality and avoidance of accountability that the government has used all along to avoid the bitter truth behind Abu Ghraib: The abuses grew out of President Bush’s decision to ignore the Geneva Conventions and American law in handling prisoners after Sept. 11, 2001.

The man on trial, Lt. Col. Steven L. Jordan, was not a career officer. He was one of a multitude of reservists pressed into Iraq duty, many of them for jobs beyond their experience or abilities. A military jury of nine colonels and a brigadier general decided that he was not to blame for the failure to train or supervise the Abu Ghraib jailers and acquitted him on all charges related to the abuse. He was convicted only of disobeying an order to keep silent about Abu Ghraib. Even that drew only a reprimand, from an organization that Colonel Jordan presumably has no further interest in serving....

***

The need to be honest about Abu Ghraib and correct the abuses at military and C.I.A. prisons is not only about upholding the law and American values. It is about the safety of American soldiers. Every right the United States denies to its detainees may one day be denied to Americans captured in wartime. Every abuse the United States visits on detainees increases the risk of American soldiers being abused in foreign prisons.

If humanity and law are not reasons enough to end the detainee abuse, then it should be done for the cause that Mr. Bush invokes daily: supporting the troops.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/30/opinion/30thu1.html

[defendandprotect]

1. Do we think that Bushco is doing business with honest military leaders -- ????

They're not about to have any of this come out --
But I'm sure they're all pleased with the what's been a four-day circus re Craig???

[Selatius]

2. People much bigger than Lt. Col. Jordan should've gone to prison for Abu Ghraib

Of course, they got away, but I bet they wouldn't if an international criminal court, say, in the Hague had investigated and prosecuted the case.