Seymour Hersh of the New Yorker has published another extensive investigation into the developments over the Abu Ghraib affair, the abuse of Iraqi prisoners while in American custody.
It’s a disturbing case of abuse, cover up and manipulation. Complete with a handy scape goat or two to go along.
The article which we first discovered through a link from the Tyee, centres on the efforts of Army Major General Antonio M. Taguba, the unfortunate Army officer tasked with investigating the then out of control situation in Iraq at the time.
As Taguba uncovers more abuse, more military compliance and apparent indifference from senior levels of both the military and the government, his own career skids off the rails. Whatever he thought he was supposed to do in his investigation, uncovering and reporting back on the truth apparently wasn’t to be job one. Requested to resign by January 2007, he finished his time in military exiled to a Pentagon office, under suspicion of higher ups over his over indulgence in seeking out the truth.
Hersh’s article is not the first one he has work on over the handling of the Abu Ghraib situation. His early efforts broke open the story of the mistreatment of prisoners, many of whom were mere civilians caught up in the spiral of violence and confusion of war time Iraq. Many seemingly left to suffer just as much at the hands of their liberators as they did at the dictator that was toppled.
It was through his previous works that the subject finally came to public attention, with much venom spewed at Hersh at the time. And while he shone the flashlight into those areas that Americans might not want to go, as things went on it seems that little in the end has been done to get the whole story and prosecute those that have truly done wrong.
Even worse, the tone of the latest piece is one of complete moral failure at high levels of both the military and the government. People more concerned about insulating themselves from the truth than seeking to investigate it and bring an end to a horrific chapter of American involvement in Iraq. It brings to mind the closing scenes of the movie A few good men and the suggestion that “you can’t handle the truth”. If Hersh’s accounts of the events of Abu Ghraib and the subsequent handling of it are even partially correct (and subsequent tales seem to suggest he’s on the mark completely), then there could be some truth after all to that theory, as proclaimed by Nicholson in the movie.
Recent polls of the American public show that the support for George Bush and the current war in Iraq continue to drop. If those that are polled read the New Yorker, from which Hersh’s article appear, those numbers will drop further. Of pressing concern to the US government however should be the realization that whatever they may try to do in Iraq from here on in, whatever exit strategy that they may develop, they are stained by an unseemly chapter of what in the case of the prisons of Iraq can only be called a brutal period of that country’s history. Scars that will no doubt breed problems for many years long after the last US soldier eventually exits Iraq for home.
It’s a disturbing case of abuse, cover up and manipulation. Complete with a handy scape goat or two to go along.
The article which we first discovered through a link from the Tyee, centres on the efforts of Army Major General Antonio M. Taguba, the unfortunate Army officer tasked with investigating the then out of control situation in Iraq at the time.
As Taguba uncovers more abuse, more military compliance and apparent indifference from senior levels of both the military and the government, his own career skids off the rails. Whatever he thought he was supposed to do in his investigation, uncovering and reporting back on the truth apparently wasn’t to be job one. Requested to resign by January 2007, he finished his time in military exiled to a Pentagon office, under suspicion of higher ups over his over indulgence in seeking out the truth.
Hersh’s article is not the first one he has work on over the handling of the Abu Ghraib situation. His early efforts broke open the story of the mistreatment of prisoners, many of whom were mere civilians caught up in the spiral of violence and confusion of war time Iraq. Many seemingly left to suffer just as much at the hands of their liberators as they did at the dictator that was toppled.
It was through his previous works that the subject finally came to public attention, with much venom spewed at Hersh at the time. And while he shone the flashlight into those areas that Americans might not want to go, as things went on it seems that little in the end has been done to get the whole story and prosecute those that have truly done wrong.
Even worse, the tone of the latest piece is one of complete moral failure at high levels of both the military and the government. People more concerned about insulating themselves from the truth than seeking to investigate it and bring an end to a horrific chapter of American involvement in Iraq. It brings to mind the closing scenes of the movie A few good men and the suggestion that “you can’t handle the truth”. If Hersh’s accounts of the events of Abu Ghraib and the subsequent handling of it are even partially correct (and subsequent tales seem to suggest he’s on the mark completely), then there could be some truth after all to that theory, as proclaimed by Nicholson in the movie.
Recent polls of the American public show that the support for George Bush and the current war in Iraq continue to drop. If those that are polled read the New Yorker, from which Hersh’s article appear, those numbers will drop further. Of pressing concern to the US government however should be the realization that whatever they may try to do in Iraq from here on in, whatever exit strategy that they may develop, they are stained by an unseemly chapter of what in the case of the prisons of Iraq can only be called a brutal period of that country’s history. Scars that will no doubt breed problems for many years long after the last US soldier eventually exits Iraq for home.
The average American soldier in Iraq is putting his life on the line at the behest of his country. Some have gone beyond the mission in a very violent and obscene way and need to be held accountable. For those that are diligently doing their jobs under the belief that they are there to help, the silence and indeed deflection of the wrongs is to undercut their work. They deserved better from their leaders both military and civilian.
The article is a lengthy one, nine pages in total, but well worth the read. It’s a contemporary history lesson that needs to be told, even if those that should hear it tend to close their eyes and ears.
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