Yes, hello. Excuse me for a moment. I thought you said there were only a few bad apples. Well, I just had a look and I’m pretty sure the whole lot of them is rotten to the core.
NEW YORK — New Army documents released by the American Civil Liberties Union today reveal that Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez ordered interrogators to “go to the outer limits” to get information from detainees. The documents also show that senior government officials were aware of abuse in Iraq and Afghanistan before the Abu Ghraib scandal broke.
“When our leaders allow and even encourage abuse at the ‘outer limits’, America suffers,” said Anthony D. Romero, ACLU Executive Director. “A nation that works to bring freedom and liberty to other parts of the world shouldn’t stomach brutality and inhumanity within its ranks. This abuse of power was engineered and accepted at the highest levels of our government.”
Among the documents released today by the ACLU is a May 19, 2004 Defense Intelligence Agency document implicating Sanchez in potentially abusive interrogation techniques. In the document, an officer in charge of a team of interrogators stated that there was a 35-page order spelling out the rules of engagement that interrogators were supposed to follow, and that they were encouraged to “go to the outer limits to get information from the detainees by people who wanted the information.” When asked to whom the officer was referring, the officer answered “LTG Sanchez.” The officer stated that the expectation coming from “Headquarters” was to break the detainees.
The fact that none of this fails to surprise me really makes me want to puke. An amazing America this administration is building for us, isn’t it? One with the morality of a sociopath. If you’ll excuse me, I have to run to the bathroom now.
Update: I’m a silly guy, and not the sort of person to bring weight to a serious issue. Nevertheless, this document release is one of those “oh my fucking god” moments that seem to come so fast and furious these days. This one is likely to be ignored. It’s easy to lose sight of one scandal in a forest of scandals. If you write or speak well, and have an audience of one person other than yourself, raise a little hell about this. This one cuts to the core, so make a little noise.
