THEY KNEW

I’m in the middle of reading all the gruesome documents related to the Abu Ghraib fiasco for a book review. Now we read this:

Until now, U.S. military officials have characterized the problem as one largely confined to the military prison at Abu Ghraib — a situation they first learned about in January 2004. But Herrington’s report shows that U.S. military leaders in Iraq were told of such allegations even before then, and that problems were not restricted to Abu Ghraib. Herrington, a veteran of the U.S. counterinsurgency effort in Vietnam, warned that such harsh tactics could imperil U.S. efforts to quell the Iraqi insurgency — a prediction echoed months later by a military report and other reviews of the war effort.

Brutality and torture were unofficial policy, as they also have been at Guantanamo. “Everyone knows about it,” an intelligence officer told Herrington. And Herrington was no hand-wringer. Herrington also noticed counter-productive sweeps of the general Iraqi population, over-crowding in detainee centers, the “disappearing” of prisoners and taking female relatives hostage to get suspects turned in. Do the Bush people really expect us to believe, after all we now know, that Abu Ghraib was a one-off event caused by a handful of underlings? The terrible truth is that it was anything but. And no one in this administration will ever be called to account for it. Because they never are.

WOMEN IN EGYPT: I’m sorry but something is terribly wrong with a society in which women expect regular beatings if they don’t obey their husband’s every whim.

AMERICA: FUCK YEAH! A music video of the new Jacksonianism, with apologies to Trey Parker. Yep, it’s vulgar. But so is America at times. And if you didn’t get to see “Team America: World Police,” get it on DVD when it comes out. It was the best film of the year. (Hat tip: Steve Clemons.)

CIVIL WAR? It hasn’t happened yet in Iraq, argues Greg Djerejian. And maybe it never will. A case for measured optimism.