A blog-plug for two recent columns first posted over the weekend. The first is a review of Steven Miles’ harrowing book, "Oath Betrayed." It’s his redaction of 35,000 pages of FOIAed government documents that show how the Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld torture policy has inevitably entangled medical personnel in the military. Doctors were used to prep torture sessions, to revive tortured prisoners to keep them alive for further torture, and to cover up the consequences of the Bush administration’s policy of prisoner torture and abuse. Money quote:
Of the 136 documented deaths of prisoners in detention, Miles found, medical death certificates were often not issued until months or even years after the actual deaths. One prisoner’s corpse at Camp Cropper was kept for two weeks before his family or criminal investigators were notified. The body was then left at a local hospital with a certificate attributing death to "sudden brainstem compression." The hospital’s own autopsy found that the man had died of a massive blow to the head. Another certificate claimed a 63-year-old prisoner had died of "cardiovascular disease and a buildup of fluid around his heart." According to Miles, no mention was made that the old man had been stripped naked, doused in cold water and kept outside in 40¬∞ cold for three days before cardiac arrest.
Hey, this is Bush’s America. What did you expect? My column on the Democrats and the war can be read here.
The Dish 