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05/03/2004 Entry: "Slap on the wrist"
Can you say 'sweep it under the Persian rug?' I knew you could.
The U.S. military has reprimanded six senior commissioned and non-commissioned officers in connection with the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, a senior U.S. military official said on Monday.The announcement followed an administrative investigation ordered by Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, the commander of U.S. forces in Iraq, into abuse of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib.
Six other soldiers are already being criminally investigated for their involvement in the alleged abuse at a prison notorious in the Saddam Hussein era for its torture chambers where thousands of people are believed to have died.
The reprimands -- the most serious written punishment the U.S. army hands down -- are private and no details would be released on the names or ranks of those punished, the U.S. official said. A seventh person received a lesser letter of admonishment in connection with the same incident.
Replies: somebody speaks up.
The world is justly horrified by the torture pictures coming out of Iraq. Bush is dismayed; Blair is appalled. An odd case, rogue elements, they say. But an occupying army is a blunt instrument and what better way to intimidate the people you're fighting against than strafing their large cities with c-150 gunships and torturing those who step in your path. We now know that two civilian contractors-- CACI International of Arlington, Va., and Titan of San Diego--were involved in the torture. In other words the Pentagon outsourced this criminal behavior. It wasn't an odd case and it wasn't done by rogues, someone high up in the chain of command ordered it and now the last fig leaf of the US occupation has fallen off: we're not there for humane and democratic purposes. And no, there were never any WMD's and no, there was no link to terrorism. So we're left with the truth that everyone is afraid to speak its name: Oil and control of the Middle East.
Posted by Dr. K @ 05/03/2004 11:10 AM NY
