Why Abu Ghraib was worse than useless

[dreamer_easy]

I read a little of Mark Danner's Torture and Truth: America, Abu Ghraib, and the War on Terror - the articles Danner had written for the New York Review of Books. It only underlined the fact that the torture at Abu Ghraib (and elsewhere) was no aberration, but firmly based on post-9/11 US policy; and that it was worse than useless. Abu Ghraib was stuffed with thousands of Iraqi civilians, including the old, the sick, and the disabled, almost none of whom had any connection to or information about the insurgency - making it incredibly difficult to get any real intelligence out of the place, and only stoking the fires of the insurgency and hatred of the US around the world. Military commentators are concerned about what US abandonment of the Geneva Conventions will mean for captured US soldiers.

I talked about the individuals in Iraq who bravely refused to participate in torture and tried to stop it. Danner mentions "a veritable flood" of leaks from military and Justice Department lawyers in the face of the cover-up of Abu Ghraib. This is also a form of heroism.

Comments

[elbales]

Abu Ghraib made me ashamed to be American.

That man in the White House wipes himself with our Constitution on a daily basis. He does not represent me and my values in any way, shape, or form. But all Americans get tarred with the same brush because of what our Administration has done. It makes me angry.

[kateorman.livejournal.com]

A remark by Seymour Hersh has stayed with me, about his sources, people who opposed the torture policy and wanted to expose it - he said they were from different parts of the political spectrum, but they were all "constitutionalists". Those, IMHO, are real Americans.