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Saturday, August 07, 2004

Bush torture policies: Silence speaks volumes 

Remember how the Republicans and the MWs always genuflect before Inerrant Boy's "moral clarity"?

Well, the Abu Ghraib torture wing offers plenty of examples to exibit this characteristic:

Sgt. Joseph M. Darby, the young Army reservist who has been hailed and condemned for blowing the whistle about detainee abuse at Abu Ghraib prison, testified yesterday that he deliberated for more than a month about whether to go to Army investigators but finally decided it was a "moral call."

Testifying for the first time publicly about the international scandal that his initially anonymous tip touched off, Darby said he was stunned when he discovered the now-notorious photos showing hooded and naked detainees piled in a pyramid and forced to simulate sex acts as grinning U.S. soldiers stood by.

"It violated everything that I personally believed in and everything that I had been taught about the rules of war," Darby, 24, testified by telephone at a pretrial hearing for Pfc. Lynndie R. England, one of seven of Darby's fellow soldiers from the Western Maryland-based 372nd Military Police Company who has been charged in the scandal.

He said he copied the photos onto a computer disk, typed an anonymous letter and delivered the package to investigators. Darby said that the only person he talked to about the decision was his roommate and that he never confronted Graner or any of the other soldiers seen in the pictures.

The investigator who received the plain manila envelope testified this week that he soon determined that Darby was the tipster and began a broad investigation that later erupted into the public scandal that damaged the image of the United States and led to the arrests of seven reservists.
(via Baltimore Sun)

So. There's clarity here, right? Torturing people is wrong (the Constitution calls it "cruel and unusual punishment"). Torturing people is against the "rules of war" that the Army teaches.

So Darby made a moral call. He blew the whistle.

What do we hear from the Army about Darby's moral clarity? Silence.

What do we hear from Rummy about Darby's moral clarity? Silence.

What do we hear from Bush about Darby's moral clarity? Silence.

There's really only one conclusion possible: The Administration, from the top down believes that the Abu Ghraib torture was right, and right for America. In fact, they want to more torture. That's why they've given CACI, who was in charge of the civilian interrogators in the Abu Ghraib torture wing, more contracts (thanks, Xan), and that's why they've promoted the extremely clean-nosed General Barbara Fast, who was in charge of the Abu Ghraib torture wing, to the head of training for military intelligence (here).

Oh, and you think that only evil-doers, and evil-doers abroad will be tortured?




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