The sickening abuse of Iraqi prisoners will do incalculable damage to
\nAmerican foreign policy no matter how the administration responds. But if President Bush and his
\nsenior officials would acknowledge their complicity in playing fast and loose with international
\nlaw and would pledge to change course, they might begin to find a way out of the mess. Instead,
\nthey hope to escape from this scandal without altering or even admitting the improper and illegal
\npolicies that lie at its core. It is a vain hope, and Congress should insist on a different
\nresponse.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\nBoth editorials tell the truth. But the Times editorial, which is stronger, tells more of the
\nunvarnished truth not only because it is better written but because it uses, as the French say, le
\nmot juste:<\/I> “torture.”<\/P>
\n
Postscript:<\/B> From a faithful reader who has had justifiable doubts about the Times’s
\ncoverage of the presidential campaign (he believes it skews against John Kerry) and, in my view,
\nless justifiable doubts about its reporting on the Abu Ghraib scandal: <\/P>
\n
“The Times is still doing a good job on this abuse thing. I can’t quite figure out what is going
\non. It doesn’t fit, somehow. I think the catch is yet to come. Anyway, your comments on reality
\nTV<\/FONT><\/STRONG><\/I><\/A> answered this, as quoted from the Times”:<\/P>
\nAt an open meeting with Pentagon civilian and military personnel, Mr.
\nRumsfeld said Tuesday that abuse at Abu Ghraib was “a body blow” to America delivered by “a
\nfew who have betrayed our values.” He said that acts of violent abuse and sexual humiliation
\ncaptured in photos and video images at Abu Ghraib “ought not to be allowed to define us either in
\nthe eyes of the world or our own eyes, adding, “We know who we are.”<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n“The lies will continue, though, and we will never know the truth,” my friend continues, citing
\nthis:<\/P>
\n
A separate Army inquiry is under way into what role military intelligence
\nofficers played in the abuses. In afternoon testimony, senior Army intelligence officers told
\nsenators that none of their people were implicated despite conclusions to the contrary in General
\nTaguba’s report.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n“Nothing will come of that inquiry,” he adds. “The U.S. military has not really been under
\ndemocratic control for at least half a century.” He offers another citation referring to yesterday’s
\nSenate hearing on Abu Ghraib:<\/P>
\n
Mr. Cambone, [undersecretary of defense for intelligence], and other military
\nofficials said the interrogation techniques approved for use in Iraq were straight out of the Army
\nmanual and followed the Geneva Conventions. In that respect, he said, they differed from harsher
\ntechniques, like sleep deprivation and forcing prisoners to disrobe entirely for interrogations, that
\nare authorized for use at the American prison at Guant\u00e1namo Bay, Cuba.<\/BLOCKQUOTE>
\n“And what does that bring to mind, making all those people stand there naked?” my friend
\nasks, and answers: “Randomly shooting prisoners from guard towers was another Nazi technique
\nthat has been used in Iraq. … It is all coming home. The U.S.A. will be like an Argentina.
\nThe reality has already been written and sung into existence. A house of cards will sooner or later
\nalways fall.”<\/P><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
This morning’s lead editorial in The New York Times, “The Abu Ghraib Spin,” begins: The administration and its Republican allies appear to have settled on a way to deflect attention from the torture of prisoners at Abu Ghraib: accuse Democrats and the news media of overreacting, then pile all of the remaining responsibility onto officers […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-684","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pbvgEs-b2","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=684"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/684\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/herman\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}