One Big Point from Hersh Today

Sy Hersh is clear when he says that some of what we've learned about the abuse of Iraqis - and he's clear, too, that most of the prisoners cited here are people picked up from the streets rather than known insurgents or fighters - indicates that these young soldiers didn't dream up some of the abuses themselves. Some of them, as reader CK pointed out in an earlier comment, speak to a knowledge of what would be particularly degrading to Iraqis.

Hersh raises another point: why does the chairman of the Joints Chief of Staff say he has still not read a report that Hersh through the New Yorker published in summary on Friday? This "hey, we don't see it so it can't be true" mind set among the Bush Administration and those they promote, like Myers, is just unacceptable.

Hersh's article indicates problems were discovered as early as last summer, nearly one year ago, and that he's largely citing the THIRD such study of such abuse, at least two had come before and perhaps some after. So this isn't new (yes, of course, abuse and torture is not new to war... but we also have a history of passing off as "rogue troop actions" those actions at least silently promoted by the higher-ups, as in "get results at any cost).

The more I consider it - and I slapped myself when I realized it had not occurred to me how particularly and specifically degrading being tortured by a woman would be to Muslim men - the less it seems likely that all or perhaps even most of these abuses are just frustrated or rogue soldiers. This is not just because the studies indicate the phenomenon is widespread, because the frustration and screwiness of this war is widespread.