Around the halls of the Pentagon, a term of caustic derision has emerged
for the enlisted soldiers at the heart of the furor over the Abu Ghraib
prison scandal: the six morons who lost the war.
Indeed, the damage done to the U.S. military and the nation as a whole
by the horrifying photographs of U.S. soldiers abusing Iraqi detainees
at the notorious prison is incalculable.
But the folks in the Pentagon are talking about the wrong morons.
There is no excuse for the behavior displayed by soldiers in the
now-infamous pictures and an even more damning report by Army Maj. Gen.
Antonio Taguba. Every soldier involved should be ashamed.
But while responsibility begins with the six soldiers facing criminal
charges, it extends all the way up the chain of command to the highest
reaches of the military hierarchy and its civilian leadership.
The entire affair is a failure of leadership from start to finish. From
the moment they are captured, prisoners are hooded, shackled and
isolated. The message to the troops: Anything goes.
In addition to the scores of prisoners who were humiliated and demeaned,
at least 14 have died in custody in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Army has
ruled at least two of those homicides. This is not the way a free people
keeps its captives or wins the hearts and minds of a suspicious world"
-Gel
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