corrente

Good editorial in the WaPo I missed entirely a week ago pointing out a subject that has been mysteriously missing from the campaigns--Abu Ghraib, and the larger issue of trashing the Geneva Conventions, and accountability. As they note:

Mr. Bush is obviously eager to avoid the subject of prisoner detentions. Maybe that's because his public stance on what happened at Abu Ghraib, and what caused it, is entirely at odds with the facts brought out by official investigations. When he last spoke of the matter, months ago, the president maintained that the abuse was the responsibility of a few low-ranking soldiers working the night shift. He has not acknowledged that scores of soldiers have now been implicated for crimes including homicide, or that a Pentagon-appointed panel has found responsibility at senior levels of the Pentagon, the Justice Department and the White House. Nor has he held anyone in his administration accountable.

Why bring this up now? Well, aside from "why the hell NOT?" there's the minor matter that this whole filthy story isn't at all over and done with yet:

(via Boston Globe)

Government documents made public Thursday provide fresh details about allegations of abuse by guards at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq and other detention facilities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The latest documents were released after a federal court directed the Defense Department and other government agencies to comply with the ACLU's request under the Freedom of Information Act for more details about alleged prisoner torture and abuse.

''After more than a year of stonewalling, the government has finally released some documents, though many are heavily redacted," said Amrit Singh, an ACLU staff lawyer. ''Unfortunately, the government continues to withhold records that would show who was ultimately responsible for the systemic abuse of detainees."

A preliminary review of some of the newly released material showed one case in which three US soldiers were each ordered detained for a month, fined up to $750, and reduced in rank for an incident in October 2003 in which a female Iraqi prisoner was partially stripped, abused, and threatened with more physical harm.

I'd like to see flyers handed out in the street, full-page newspaper ads, a TV bliz, flyers tacked up to power poles and pasted to buildings, hell even biplanes towing banners asking about this. They could use the picture of the hooded guy on the box with the wires, with the message "A Vote For Bush Means You Approve of This."