FINANCIAL TIMES!: "Abu Ghraib Again-Jihadi Fanatics MUST Feel Lucky"

When the Financial Times, news source of choice for all capitalists, is the voice of outrage, you know there's something very wrong.


Abu Ghraib again
Published: February 17 2006 02:00 | Last updated: February 17 2006 02:00

The images are chilling and depraved: Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib subjected to torture and sexual humiliation and, in some cases and circumstances that are not explained, death. These may be old pictures dating from 2003 and the first Abu Ghraib scandal. But they are a crippling new blow to the reputation of the US and its allies in Iraq.

They remind us of the shame of that episode. They are worse than the indelible images that so shocked us then. Furthermore, in the interim, the Pentagon has for all practical purposes tried to suppress them. The jihadi fanatics trying to trigger a clash of civilisations between Islam and the west must feel they are lucky in their enemies.

This second Abu Ghraib episode comes days after an appalling video, apparently shot by a gloating soldier, of British troops beating senseless rioting teenagers in southern Iraq. If that were not enough, a United Nations report has called on the US to close its extraterritorial and extralegal detention centre in Guantánamo Bay, and refrain from "any practice amounting to torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment".


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Abu Ghraib should never have happened. But when it did, it should have been dealt with rigorously. But there was no independent investigation and no real accountability: the two most visible privates in the photos were jailed and a junior general was demoted. But responsibility lay - and lies - further up the chain of command, as far as Donald Rumsfeld, defence secretary, and officials such as Alberto Gonzales, now attorney-general, who devised a framework for circumventing the Geneva Conventions. It is they who should be held to account.

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/1375056a-9f5a-11da-ba48-0000779e2340.html

and their people killed. Just so they can fight! :wtf:

Stupid bush administration. Instead of arranging the beheading of Nick Berg (:tinfoilhat:) as a distraction when these photos first came out, they should have dealt with it immediately. But of course that would mean taking responsibility, which would have entailed a political price. They would rather keep the people in fear of terrorism and they would rather our soldiers pay with their lives in Iraq for the arrogance of their "leaders."