Wednesday, December 22, 2004
Unfurling the Prisoner Abuse Story
Not a lot going on in the blogosphere - almost everyone's on vacation, it seems. But not your intrepid Nino.
Seems the military tried to cover up prisoner abuse (including murder) and side-step prosecution by abusers:
Aside from a handful of rightards hiding out in momma's closet proudly serving the 101st Warblogger keyboard division, most Americans believe the US needs to be held to a higher standard. Setting a precedent of abusing prisoners opens the door for the abuse of US P.O.W.s by enemy forces.
We need to set this right.
Seems the military tried to cover up prisoner abuse (including murder) and side-step prosecution by abusers:
Army documents released Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) offered new details about the deaths of Iraqis in U.S. custody and suggested that prosecution in several cases was pre-empted by military commanders.
The case was one of dozens included in the latest release of government documents relating to the detention and interrogation of U.S.-held detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and the detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The documents were turned over to the ACLU and other human rights groups that filed a joint lawsuit to force compliance with a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request earlier this year.
The ACLU and its fellow petitioners won a major court victory late Monday when a federal judge ordered the Central Intelligence Agency--which had failed to respond to the FOIA petition--to disclose files that are currently under internal review for evidence of possible wrongdoing by its agents in Iraq.
Aside from a handful of rightards hiding out in momma's closet proudly serving the 101st Warblogger keyboard division, most Americans believe the US needs to be held to a higher standard. Setting a precedent of abusing prisoners opens the door for the abuse of US P.O.W.s by enemy forces.
We need to set this right.
