1115.org

Seymour Hersh has a story in The New Yorker about how Army Major General Antonio M. Taguba was shafted by the Pentagon in the time of Rumsfeld. For doing exactly what the U.S. military has always called on its high-ranking officers to do — upholding the honor and proud traditions of the U.S. military, instead of kissing the unwashed backsides of the political masters of the Pentagon.

It’s a good thing the following people are not Japanese: Rumsfeld, “Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld’s deputy; Stephen Cambone, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (J.C.S.); and General Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff” along with “Lieutenant General Bantz J. Craddock, who was Rumsfeld’s senior military assistant”.

If they were, Monday’s newspapers would be reporting the death by ritual suicide of every last one of these traitors to their uniform and/or their country.

Since they’re not, they will continue to lie, cheat and weasel their way through life, some more in the public eye and some less. They may even be shameless enough to continue to look people in the eye. But there’s no way that every single time they do, they will not ask themselves: I wonder if she too knows the truth about me? About who I am, and what I did.

No matter what our faith and religious beliefs, charity becomes us all. So do these guys a favor. If you ever meet one of them, and he looks you in the eye, please put him out of his misery. Eliminate all doubt. Spit in his face, or introduce your knee sharply to his soft body parts. And remember that forgiveness is a fine thing too. So, if you can find it in your heart, go ahead and tell him: “Now I forgive you.”

Backing up, here’s how Hersh starts his article:

On the afternoon of May 6, 2004, Army Major General Antonio M. Taguba was summoned to meet, for the first time, with Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld in his Pentagon conference room. Rumsfeld and his senior staff were to testify the next day, in televised hearings before the Senate and the House Armed Services Committees, about abuses at Abu Ghraib prison, in Iraq. The previous week, revelations about Abu Ghraib, including photographs showing prisoners stripped, abused, and sexually humiliated, had appeared on CBS and in The New Yorker. In response, Administration officials had insisted that only a few low-ranking soldiers were involved and that America did not torture prisoners. They emphasized that the Army itself had uncovered the scandal.

If there was a redeeming aspect to the affair, it was in the thoroughness and the passion of the Army’s initial investigation. The inquiry had begun in January, and was led by General Taguba, who was stationed in Kuwait at the time. Taguba filed his report in March. In it he found:
Numerous incidents of sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses were inflicted on several detainees . . . systemic and illegal abuse.

Taguba was met at the door of the conference room by an old friend, Lieutenant General Bantz J. Craddock, who was Rumsfeld’s senior military assistant. Craddock’s daughter had been a babysitter for Taguba’s two children when the officers served together years earlier at Fort Stewart, Georgia. But that afternoon, Taguba recalled, “Craddock just said, very coldly, ‘Wait here.’ ” In a series of interviews early this year, the first he has given, Taguba told me that he understood when he began the inquiry that it could damage his career; early on, a senior general in Iraq had pointed out to him that the abused detainees were “only Iraqis.” Even so, he was not prepared for the greeting he received when he was finally ushered in.

“Here . . . comes . . . that famous General Taguba—of the Taguba report!” Rumsfeld declared, in a mocking voice. The meeting was attended by Paul Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld’s deputy; Stephen Cambone, the Under-Secretary of Defense for Intelligence; General Richard Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (J.C.S.); and General Peter Schoomaker, the Army chief of staff, along with Craddock and other officials. Taguba, describing the moment nearly three years later, said, sadly, “I thought they wanted to know. I assumed they wanted to know. I was ignorant of the setting.”

In the meeting, the officials professed ignorance about Abu Ghraib. “Could you tell us what happened?” Wolfowitz asked. Someone else asked, “Is it abuse or torture?” At that point, Taguba recalled, “I described a naked detainee lying on the wet floor, handcuffed, with an interrogator shoving things up his rectum, and said, ‘That’s not abuse. That’s torture.’ There was quiet.”

Rumsfeld was particularly concerned about how the classified report had become public. “General,” he asked, “who do you think leaked the report?” Taguba responded that perhaps a senior military leader who knew about the investigation had done so. “It was just my speculation,” he recalled. “Rumsfeld didn’t say anything.” (I did not meet Taguba until mid-2006 and obtained his report elsewhere.) Rumsfeld also complained about not being given the information he needed. “Here I am,” Taguba recalled Rumsfeld saying, “just a Secretary of Defense, and we have not seen a copy of your report. I have not seen the photographs, and I have to testify to Congress tomorrow and talk about this.” As Rumsfeld spoke, Taguba said, “He’s looking at me. It was a statement.”

At best, Taguba said, “Rumsfeld was in denial.” Taguba had submitted more than a dozen copies of his report through several channels at the Pentagon and to the Central Command headquarters, in Tampa, Florida, which ran the war in Iraq. By the time he walked into Rumsfeld’s conference room, he had spent weeks briefing senior military leaders on the report, but he received no indication that any of them, with the exception of General Schoomaker, had actually read it. (Schoomaker later sent Taguba a note praising his honesty and leadership.) When Taguba urged one lieutenant general to look at the photographs, he rebuffed him, saying, “I don’t want to get involved by looking, because what do you do with that information, once you know what they show?”

Please read every last word of Hersh’s story. It gets a lot worse. Highlights include:
• Rumsfeld flat out lied to the Senate and the House Armed Services Committees on May 7, 2004
• Rumsfeld was accompanied both times by senior military officers who concurred with his lies.
• “A few weeks after his report became public”, Taguba was told by General John Abizaid: “You and your report will be investigated.” … “I wasn’t angry about what he said but disappointed that he would say that to me,” Taguba said. “I’d been in the Army thirty-two years by then, and it was the first time that I thought I was in the Mafia.”
• Rumsfeld comes across as a practiced consummate liar, with the ability to summon up Oscar-winning lying performances at will.

Please read the entire story. By the end, you’ll be so sick, you’ll be able to take the rest of the day off.

The last word goes to Gen. Taguba. He’s certainly earned it:

…the fact is that we violated the laws of land warfare in Abu Ghraib. We violated the tenets of the Geneva Convention. We violated our own principles and we violated the core of our military values. The stress of combat is not an excuse, and I believe, even today, that those civilian and military leaders responsible should be held accountable.

(That would include that entire honor roll of people who are, fortunately for them, not Japanese.)