By William Norman Grigg
ICH
June 01, 2009 “Pro Libertate”
The eyewitness account provided by Abu Ghraib inmate Kasim Mehaddi Hilas, describing one of numerous episodes of sexual abuse by U.S. interrogators, including rape, homosexual rape, sexual assaults with objects including a truncheon and a phosphorescent tube, and other forms of sexual abuse and humiliation of detainees.
We need to dispense immediately with the idea that releasing the second batch of photos depicting torture and other abuse at Abu Ghraib and six other installations would create an unacceptable danger to U.S. troops in the region.
Though it seem callous of me to point out as much, we should recognize that people who enlist in the military are paid, trained, and equipped to confront danger. We should also recognize that we do the cause of liberty no favors if we make it easier to invade and occupy foreign countries; indeed, we ought to do everything we can to accentuate the difficulty of carrying out criminal enterprises of that sort.
While we should focus most of our hostile attention on the policymakers responsible for sending the military on imperial errands of that sort, we shouldn’t ignore the moral responsibility of every individual who enlists in the military and carries out the killing business such immoral policies entail.
Given the pervasive stench of imperial corruption exuded by all of our public institutions, I cannot understand how anybody possessing the moral equivalent of the sense of smell could enlist in the military, or remain therein – as if that particular organization enjoys some peculiar immunity from the decadence that afflicts the rest of the Regime.
[…]
see
Countdown: General Sanchez Torture Investigation Needed! Abu Ghraib Orders Came From The Very Top!
Obama’s support for the new Graham-Lieberman secrecy law by Glenn Greenwald
Court Rules In Favor Of Transparency In Guantánamo Cases + Why’d Obama switch on detainee photos?
Dandelion Salad 