Philip Gourevitch of The New Yorker writes…
"When one of the prisoners resisted, (Corporal Charles) Graner later told Army investigators, “I bashed him against the wall.” Running hooded prisoners into walls was also standard practice at Abu Ghraib, but this prisoner fell to the floor, and blood ran out from under his hood, and a medic was summoned. In the logbook, Graner wrote that the prisoner required eight stitches on his chin. He helped sew the stitches himself, and he had one of his soldiers photograph the bloodstained scene."
"Walling" was one of the ten torture techniques made legal by Bush's boys at the Office of Legal Counsel. Bybee, Bradbury and Yoo, all obedient lawyers for the worst American president in history, declared that slamming a detainee up against a wall was not torture. In Guantanomo, walling was done 20 to 30 times on one detainee. To this point, not one torturer interrogator from Guantanomo has ever been prosecuted.
"…to date the only Americans who have been prosecuted and sentenced to imprisonment for the criminal policies that emanated from the highest levels are ten low-ranking servicemen and women—those who took and appeared in the Abu Ghraib photographs, and embarrassed the nation by showing us what we were doing there. Charles Graner is the only one remaining in prison, serving ten years. His superior officers enjoy their freedom, and C.I.A. interrogators, who spent years committing far worse acts against prisoners than Graner did even in the darkest days at Abu Ghraib, have been assured immunity."
Why is Charles Graner in prison when those who wrote the briefs legalizing torture and those who ordered the ten torture techniques to be carried out will never even be challenged in court for the part they played in Graner's crime? Like Khalid Sheik Mohammed, you know, the mastermind of 9-11…..Bush, Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Bybee, Bradbury, Yoo and others are the masterminds of American torture…..yet none of them will ever be held responsible. Corporal Graner remains in prison for following orders.
Some readers may not care for what I'm going to type next……such is the blogosphere.
Foreign fighters, we have learned, came to Iraq specifically to kill American soldiers because of the torture at Abu Ghraib. As I blogged the other day, because Americans tortured detainees, many American soldiers are now dead. Torture did not save lives, just the contrary.
Now the world is reading about how we're not going to prosecute or hold anyone accountable for designing America's torture regime. Now the world is reading about how we're not going to prosecute or hold anyone accountable for ordering America's torture regime to be implemented.
From Obama to Fox News to the increasingly lawless Congress….the die has already been cast…..we must look "forward" and turn away from thoughts of "retribution". Those who made torture legitimate on paper, those who approved the 'memos' and those who ordered torture to be carried out will never stand before a judge or jury. Corporal Charles Graner is still in prison.
My question is…..how many Americans will now die as a consequence of our inability to maintain a nation of law and order? How many Americans, just like in Iraq, will be killed because of illegal decisions by our obviously, criminal leaders?
Even out of office, the Bush/Cheney regime of lawlessness, of legalized torture, will live on motivating foreigners to keep on killing Americans.
That's the legacy of the worst presidential administration in American history.
4200 American soldiers have died so far in Iraq, many directly because of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld/Rice approved and ordered torture. How many more Americans will have to die because of our unconscionable unwillingness to hold privileged leaders to account?
By turning away from prosecuting those who justified and ordered torture, all we are doing is declaring to the world that America is a rogue nation.
Update: The Bush administration, out of office, thankfully, for 4 months now, still controls the country. I wonder how many Americans will die because of this….
"Former Bush administration officials are lobbying behind the scenes to push Justice Department leaders to water down an ethics report criticizing lawyers who blessed harsh detainee interrogation tactics, according to two sources familiar with the efforts.
In recent days, attorneys for the subjects of the ethics probe have encouraged senior Bush administration appointees to write and phone Justice Department officials, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the process is not complete."
Even questioning the "ethics" of these criminals is out of bounds.
