since the u.s. response to 9/11 began, there has been a very clear emphasis, clearly coming from the very top, on pure executive power over "detainees", without the usual rights of the geneva convention or habeus corpus (latin for "we got'em", meaning if you got'em, you have an obligation to say so). the very public policy has been "if we think they are terrorists, or can provide useful information on terrorists, then they are members of an enemy army, but since they are an undeclared army we can do whatever the fuck we want with them without even admitting we have them". and it's been pretty blatant that the policy of prisoner treatment has been: we won't really torture them, but we'll do anything short of inducement of acute physical pain or injury. the official government line has all but bragged about sleep deprivation as a "humane torture" that america is willingly and wittingly using. ignore for the moment the simple fact, known by any motherfucker who knows the earth isn't flat, that torture of any sort - the "soft" sort currently in vogue, or the cattle prods and fingernail pulling variety - produces very little in the way of valuable information and much verbiage meaning "whatever shit will stop you from torturing me".
now given the abuses at Abu Ghraib documented by the perpetrators, and given that the perpetrators have blamed their actions on orders given by intelligence personnel, independent contractors or otherwise, isn't it absurdly obvious that the perps are telling the truth? that they are, as their own families claim, being railroaded? that rummy's minions and consultant spooks have spooked the rank and file into following orders from very dubious sources of dubious authority, excepting the connection to the whitehouse itself? that the abusers were only doing what everyone knew was going on? and that the only thing changed is that now we have ugly pictures?
it's really hard for a rational mind to believe this is the action of a few "rogue" guardsmen under command of a conveniently female commander. which is why this "scandal" is going to turn out to be more than just a little spat with the press, as the Cabinet is surely thinking. for one thing, the entire arab world thinks these orders came from the top, so it's a political fuckup of enormous proportions. for another, the "CEO president" is going to have a hard time explaining such a management disaster, particularly since he is unwilling to let any heads roll, unless they are very far down on the org chart (which belies the Republican image of good business and good managment as the brown-nosing credo it is).
just when it looked like john kerry couldn't do anything right to win the presidency, it appears that the bushies are doing everything possible to lose it.
