May. 11, 2004 - 19:46 MST

THE WONDERING JEW

High Praise

Why do I think about an ant pile with the top kicked off ? Maybe it resembles the scurrying throng who are trying to cover up the sordid, morbid mess in Iraq at Abu Ghraib prison.

Private contractors in the interrogation and guarding of prisoners ? With no real accountability, giving the military an excuse to shift the blame. Intelligence by torture ? Now just how reliable is that ?

Now policy comes from the top I have always understood and Brer Bush seems to be setting policy, or allowing policy to be set by others without too much attention being paid to the ethics or humanity of the policies wiggled in.

According to an article in May 10 from the Associated Press -- Policy shift cited in prison abuse -- in part -- "The magazine says (The New Yorker) that on November 19, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez, the top operational commander in Iraq, issued an order taking tactical control of Abu Ghraib prison away from the MPs and turning it over to the 205th Military Intelligence Brigade."

"That policy went into effect over the objections of Maj. Gen. Antonio Taguba, another military prison expert, who said the change was "not doctrinally sound" due to the different missions and agendas assigned to each of these respective specialties," the story says."

In February, Taguba submitted a scathing report on widespread and shocking abuses in the prisons that some officials stemmed in part from that change of policy. The report said certain military-intelligence officers and civilian contractors were directly or indirectly responsible for the mistreatment."

"Extensive details of inmate abuse in U.S.-run military prisons (S) in Iraq were first reported by The Associated Press as early as last October, but the U.S. military command in Baghdad would not then answer questions on the subject."

"Similarly, The New Yorker said, the International Committee of the Red Cross and human rights groups had "little success" with repeated complaints to U.S. Commanders about the treatment of Iraqi prisoners."

"Photos of physical abuse and sexual humiliation of Iraqi detainees by military police were obtained by U.S. officials in February leading to Taguba's report. The photos were made public only last week, by the magazine and CBS' 60 minutes II."

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Molly Ivins of Creator's Syndicate on May 9 has more on Taguba's report. "Between October and December 2003, at the Abu Ghraib Confinement Facility, numerous acts of sadistic, blatant and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees. This sytematic and illegal abuse of detainees was intentionally prepetrated by several members of the Military Police guard force. . . . The allegations of abuse were substantiated by detailed witness statements and the discovery of extremely graphic photographic evidence . . . . including the following acts:

Punching, slapping and kicking detainees; jumping on their naked feet:

Videotaping and photographing naked male and female detainees:

Forcibly arranging detainees in various sexually explicit positions for photographing:

Forcing detainees to remove their clothing and keeping them naked for several days at a time:

Forcing naked male detainees to wear women's underwear:

Forcing groups of male detainees to masturbate themselves while being photographed and videotaped:

Arranging naked male detainees in a pile and jumping on them:

A male MP guard having sex with a female detainee:

Using military working dogs to intimidate and frighten detainees, and in at least one case biting and severely injuring a detainee:

Taking photographs of dead Iraqi detainees:

Breaking chemical lights and pouring phosphoric liquid on detainees:

Beating detainees with a broom handle and chair:

Threatening male detainees with rape:

Sodomizing a detainee with a chemical light and perhaps with a broomstick."

+++++++++++++++

Indicates to me that the abuses started in this particular instance after November 19, 2003. There is a question in my mind, has this sort of thing been reported in Afghanistan ? Guantanamo ? Our country ? How long ?

Is it coming to light to the public just now, with accompanying admissions of shame that those abuses happened, because the New Yorker and 60 Minutes II published first ? Would it have stayed under wraps until smothered and obfuscated by our government ?

Now they are going to try several MPs. Oh boy, that will clear things up won't it ?

It must have been an extremely lax officer group that allowed video-taping and taking photographs. Lax supervision on up the ranks. Surely they must have seen at least some of them . . . . and yet allowed it to go on.

That Typical phrase from the brass, "It has just come to my attention," or "I haven't read that report yet."

Seems to me that house-cleaning should start way higher up the line, starting with Bush and Rumsfeld on down and then re-establishing morals, truthfulness and ethics along with a pledge to observe the Geneva Convention by everyone representing our government. Won't happen will it ?

It is by those acts that some of our countrymen make our country as bad in the world's eyes as people like Saddam Hussein. So much more danger for our fighting men to face and suffer. We are bringing ourselves down to the lowest level.

I read a quote in Mike Littwin's column in today's paper: "There was, after all, the providential goal, of bringing democracy to the Middle East. And all I can think of is something Sharif Elmusa, a professor at the American University in Cairo, asked me as the war began, "How do you impose democracy ?"

And then on the front page of the Rocky Mountain News is a big picture of the Pres and Rumsfeld -- Rumsfeld with an isht eating smile on his face and the Pres -- to my mind, trying to figure out what to say officially. Printing above the picture, "Bush praises embattled defense chief." Inside the paper, "Superb job," Bush says of Rumsfeld. From this administration which is pushing to make the Patriot Act more restrictive, seems to me it is false, this High Praise . . . . . . . .

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