Truthout
by Paul Craig Roberts

10/01/05

The news that yet another Army private, Lynndie England, 22, of Fort Ashby, West Virginia, has been convicted and sentenced for posing for the infamous photos of torture at Abu Ghraib, while her superiors duck responsibility, is a sad commentary on the extent to which the Bush administration has corrupted the US Army. The reminder of the photos of those inexcusable activities was sickening enough, and England deserves to be punished. But I am of the old-Army school where officers took responsibility for the actions of those under their command. For anyone who cares to look, there is abundant documentary evidence that the Army brass and its civilian leadership are responsible for the torture. They continue to dance away from taking responsibility. They choose, instead, to stone the woman, like the hypocrites of Bible fame, contending that the photos inflamed the insurgency in Iraq. It is the torture, not the photos, that inflames the insurgency. And responsibility for the torture reaches directly up the chain of command to the commander-in-chief himself...

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/100105Y.shtml


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp