[Mb-civic] EDITORIAL Disgraced by Silence

[Michael Butler]

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/editorials/la-ed-abuse19dec19.story

EDITORIAL

Disgraced by Silence

When will the president respond to the cascading allegations of prisoner
abuse by the military?

 December 19, 2004

 A Marine guard in Iraq sprayed an alcohol-based liquid on a detainee,
struck a match and ignited the prisoner, burning and blistering the man's
hands. Another Marine held wires from an electric transformer to a
detainee's shoulders, so that the man "danced as he was shocked," according
to military documents made public this month.

 In photographs now under investigation, Navy SEALs appeared to sit on a
hooded and handcuffed Iraqi prisoner and to point a gun at another, bleeding
detainee. Army troops repeatedly beat Afghan prisoners in their custody,
ripped off their toenails, shocked them and dunked them in cold water,
according to recent reports from a U.N. group. Most incidents occurred in
2002 and 2003.

 The cascading allegations of prisoner abuse, of which these are but a few
examples, long ago demolished the president's claim that only a few bad
apples were responsible. So did reports that soldiers and officers who
complained to their superiors about this mistreatment were threatened with
reprisals and even physical harm. Yet as reports of unexplained deaths,
humiliations and depravity across the services multiply, President Bush has
recently remained silent.

 Soldiers on the battlefield deserve a fair amount of leeway for their
conduct under the heat of fire, when adrenaline and the need to kill or be
killed prompt people to do things they'd never consider under normal
conditions. But many pictures continuing to come to light look a lot more
like coldblooded sadism than acceptable combat actions. It's impossible to
know what other abuse, past or present, might await discovery.

 In May, soon after photographs from Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad became
public, Bush said he was "sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi
detainees Š and their families." But "the cruelty of a few," he said a week
later, "cannot diminish the honor and achievement" of the thousands who have
served honorably in Iraq.

 It is now clear that "the few" are in fact many. So many that either U.S.
troops are not under their commanding officers' control or they are beating,
burning and sodomizing suspects with the blessing ‹ or worse, at the
direction ‹ of their commanders and Washington policymakers.

 Either explanation is inexcusable, and as commander in chief, Bush has an
obligation to say so.

 The president should directly and forthrightly state what he neglected to
say last spring: Torture and humiliation of prisoners disgraces every
American; such conduct is always unacceptable; and any officer who learns of
such behavior and, instead of stopping it, encourages or ignores it, will be
court-martialed.


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