Pentagon Not Held Responsible for Torture

The Pentagon’s broadest investigation into the treatment of detainees by the U.S. military, particularly in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo, has cleared all top military officials of responsibility. It said authorized interrogation policies did not cause the abuses, but how else can anyone explain how the torture and other abuse took place? These things don’t happen spontaneously in multiple locations. No detainees or former detainees were interviewed by Navy Inspector General, Vice Admiral Albert Church. The report also said U.S. service members “may have at times permitted the enemy’s treacherous tactics and disregard for the laws of war … to erode their own standards of conduct.”

Sounds like blaming the victims to me.

“If our guys want to poke somebody in the chest to get the name of a bomb maker so they can save the lives of Americans, I’m for it,” said Sen. Jim Talent, R-Mo. “I don’t need an investigation to tell me that there was no comprehensive or systematic use of inhumane tactics by the American military, because those guys and gals just wouldn’t do it.” They wouldn’t, eh? Can we say D-E-N-I-A-L??? All those photographs the public has already seen don’t lie, and there was a lot of photographic and video evidence the public still hasn’t seen, but presumably members of Congress have. From what I’ve read about it, that evidence is worse than what we did see. And it wasn’t just at Abu Ghraib either.

Carl Levin, the Armed Services Committee’s top Democrat, said the report failed to explain the role of the Central Intelligence Agency, which hid detainees from the International Committee of the Red Cross, or the policy of “rendition”, in which the US hands terrorism suspects over to countries with records of torturing prisoners, such as Egypt and Jordan. Other members of the committee questioned whether a senior military official in the chain of command could objectively investigate any culpability of top defense leaders for the abuse of prisoners. No shit, Sherlock. You can’t have an objective investigation if the investigator is part of the entity being investigated. This is why there is no accountability in government today. This is why no one will be held responsible except a few low-ranking military personnel. They will always be the “fall guys” because the brass will always protect their own ass.

Next step on the agenda will most likely be to dismantle the International Criminal Court so that no one in the upper echelon of U.S. policy will ever be held accountable. And of course, leave it to the Bush Administration to find someone with an on-the-record history of bashing the UN to be their new nominee for UN Ambassador… John Bolton in 2003 even said: ‘There is no such thing as the United Nations. There is only the international community, which can only be led by the only remaining superpower, which is the United States.’ Another source reports: At a 1994 panel discussion sponsored by the World Federalist Association Bolton claimed “there’s no such thing as the United Nations,” and stated “if the UN secretary building in New York lost 10 stories, it wouldn’t make a bit of difference.” Interesting choice of words and years before the WTC attack. Regarding the International Criminal Court, Bolton also said: “Support for the International Criminal Court concept is based largely on emotional appeals to an abstract ideal of an international judicial system.” [House International Relations Committee, 07/07/00] Truly the man does not respect the UN nor the ICC and is not fit to be a representative of the U.S. as the UN Ambassador. Bolton also has a history of refusing to cooperate with Congress when he was in the Justice Department in his refusal to provide congressional committees with documents on Supreme Court nominees William Renquist, Antonin Scalia, and Anthony Kennedy.

And now, we have no means of protecting our citizens overseas because we just withdrew from the Optional Protocol to the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations. We are fucked.

The insanity gets worse by the day. All I can say is, “I didn’t vote for this.“