ALTERMAN: ABU GHRAIB IS NO SURPRISE

[dArKeR]

This is the kind of thing that happens in every war, particularly one as incompetently planned as this one was.  While the details are always unknowable, something like this scandal was entirely predictable.

The dream is over:  Sy Hersh’s second installment on the torture at Abu Ghraib is here.  I find the pictures and accompanying story no less shocking than anyone else —save Rush Limbaugh who apparently enjoyed them and would have liked to play along— but I can’t say I find them surprising.  This is the kind of thing that happens in every war, particularly one as incompetently planned as this one was.  While the details are always unknowable, something like this scandal was entirely predictable.  Add to the natural inhuman pressures of war, the lack of concern this administration has demonstrated for the niceties of civil liberties and human rights since 9/11, and the signal that sends down the chain of command, revelations of this type become only a matter of time. 

Hello, Messrs. Friedman, Wolfowitz. et al, war is not a civilizing instrument.  Perhaps our historical memory is so faulty that nobody in the media—save the great Sy Hersh himself—remembers My Lai, but for goodness’ sakes, the Toledo Blade won its Pulitzer for its coverage of a U.S. owned-and-operated massacre in Vietnam this year!  Maybe ignoring that story just because they kicked your collective butts was, for the rest of the media, not such a good idea after all.  And all the hawks, liberal and otherwise, who find themselves “shocked, shocked” by the actions of our own soldiers should have read a little military history before embarking on this catastrophic adventure under the leadership of dishonest and incompetent ideological fanatics.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3449870/