Recently in Abu Ghraib Category

I'd like to think this will lead to this. So, I guess I've got some hope.

CNN

"I don't think it. I know it," Carter told CNN's Wolf Blitzer.

"Our country for the first time in my life time has abandoned the basic principle of human rights," Carter said. "We've said that the Geneva Conventions do not apply to those people in Abu Ghraib prison and Guantanamo, and we've said we can torture prisoners and deprive them of an accusation of a crime to which they are accused."

Carter also said President Bush creates his own definition of human rights.

Carter's comments come on the heels of an October 4 article in The New York Times disclosing the existence of secret Justice Department memorandums supporting the use of "harsh interrogation techniques." These include "head-slapping, simulated drowning and frigid temperatures," according to the Times.

Oh boy! The wing nut banshees are going to be out in full force on this one. Cries of "treason," "traitor," and all other sorts of mind numbing shrillness will commence forth with. I think they should be careful, though, because Carter seems to be a pretty spry old man. He's not some youngster of 12, you know. He's still out there building houses. Which seems a lot more constructive than mindlessly clearing away more brush.

This is why there needs to be a special prosecutor for the torturing of inmates at Abu Ghraib.

Watching Act I of the faux-trial of Lt. Col. Steven Jordan last week at Fort Meade, Md., confirmed my worst suspicions. I know Jordan; I was in place for his entire tenure at Abu Ghraib, including when prisoners were being tortured. He was an immediate boss.

Enter from the wings reserve Maj. Gen. George Fay. MG Fay was handpicked to run interference for then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld by conducting the same kind of “full and thorough investigation” that former President Richard Nixon ordered for Watergate.

With Fay, too, I speak from personal experience. Shortly after photos of the torture at Abu Ghraib were published, I found myself being interviewed by Fay on May 1, 2004. It was a surreal performance, with Fay seeming to take his cue at times from Peter Seller’s Inspector Clouseau.

Except it wasn’t funny then, and it is not funny now. To me, Fay showed himself singularly uninterested in what really was going on at Abu Ghraib. I had to ask him repeatedly to listen to my account. Whereupon he said he would recommend action against me for not reporting what I knew sooner for, if I had done that, I could have prevented the scandal. Right.

In my view, it was clear that Fay’s job was to quiet any discordant notes from noncommissioned officers like me and help Rumsfeld push the responsibility down to “bad apples” at the bottom of the chain of command.

When Maj. Gen. Taguba’s Abu Ghraib investigation report was leaked to the press on May 4, 2004, I was very surprised to find myself listed as the only military intelligence soldier to witness to the truth. And for my conscientiousness, the Army imposed an exclusive gag order on me 10 days later; a week after that my top-secret clearance was suspended and eventually I was reduced in rank.

The horrors of Abu Ghraib are certainly not what Jesus would do.

This is a cover-up of enormous proportion, and of behavior more wretched and corrupt then anything Nixon ever committed. If there is no accounting for this atrocity, then we as a nation have failed to live up to our own values and beliefs.