War Crimes and American Soldiers

From the Reuters news service:

The United Nations (news - web sites)' top human rights official said on Friday abuses by U.S. soldiers of Iraqi prisoners at Baghdad's Abu Ghraib prison could amount to war crimes.

Acting High Commissioner for Human Rights Bertrand Ramcharan said U.S.-led occupation forces had committed "serious violations" of international humanitarian law in Iraq (news - web sites) and had ill-treated ordinary Iraqis.

I don't have a problem with valid charges for war crimes. Certainly, some of what we saw on images - and one can only imagine what was not documented in photos and video - seems to constitute such.

However, what we owe to the Iraqis, to our soldiers, and to our own selves is knowing how far up the chain of command the spirit with which we treated Iraqis goes. There seems to be every indication that Rumsfeld (and perhaps higher up and lower down) was wiling to allow this to happen to get the "desired" results.

Of course, we can't fool ourselves into the notion that war is neat. It's not. But hoods and leashes and elecrical torture? As Janice Karpinski had said, our troops were not issued such materials as standard equipment nor did she know of any place around Abu Ghraib (or other sites) where these could be purchased. So someone - someones - brought them to our troops and perhaps instructed them how to use them. The ordering of such behavior is every bit as horrific - if not more so - than the actual administration.