Technically, this is a "Camp White Horse," not an "Abu Ghraib" story, but read this story from ABC News. One interesting note about this is that the prisoner, "allegedly subjected to beatings and karate kicks to the chest and left to die naked in his own feces" by Marine reservists, was "suspected of involvement in the ambush" of Jessica Lynch's unit. This at least suggests that he was a member of the Iraqi Army and hence a POW, so there would be no question of whether or not the full panoply of Geneva Convention rights accrued to him (Iraq being a signatory nation).

 
Effete East Coast elitists: The NYT profiled some of the MPs involved in Abu Ghraib, noting the backgrounds of, inter alia, these two:

Pfc. Lynndie R. England was married and divorced before she was 21, worked at a chicken-processing plant in West Virginia and wanted to attend college to become a storm-chasing meteorologist.

And Staff Sgt. Ivan Frederick, another prison guard, planned to quit the Army Reserve this year to spend more time fishing near his rural home in central Virginia.

And what does the conservative op-ed of record say? James "Lucky Duckies" Taranto of the Wall Street Journal opines, "to be honest, they sound like a bunch of losers." This from the man who regularly suggests that liberals are the Chardonnay-swilling, red-state-hating enemies of Midwest America.

As they might say over at Eschaton, "Why does the Wall Street Journal hate our troops?"

 
Unless new facts come to light, I promise that to be my last post on Abu Ghraib. For a while. Well, at least until Monday.

 
FINAL FRIENDS:LAUGHS, LOVE, AND RECOGNITION OF "SEVERE ABUSES"

(Los Angeles) It was a night for hugs and tears for the final fantastic fling of Friends as Ross and Rachel reunited, Monica and Chandler found an unexpected surprise, and the entire cast took collective responsibility for the abuse of Iraqi detainees in Abu Ghraib prison.

"We accept total and complete responsibility for the heinous abuses suffered by prisoners in Abu Ghraib," Chandler Bing told Hisham Melham of al'Arabiya. "I mean, could I be more sorry?" In addition to recognizing and apologizing for the utter breakdown of command under General Janis Karpinski, the Reserve officer tasked to head the Iraqi prison system, Chandler announced that he and wife Monica were expecting twins and would shortly move to the suburbs.

"How you doin'?" asked soap-opera actor Joey Tribbiani of a studio audience on Al-Jazeera's controversial talk show Al-Ittijah Al-Mu'akiss. "Terrible, I know, and we recognize our culpability for the inexcusable behavior of American soldiers in Abu Ghraib. The American system is built on civilian control of the military, and we abdicated our responsibility for oversight of the behavior of soldiers in a theatre of war." Joey, who will soon be starring in a spinoff series placing him and his wacky sister on the West Coast, continued, "There is more than enough blame to be apportioned amongst the abusers and their command structure, but we recognize that 'the buck stops here,' and we are ultimately responsible for these terrible acts of violence."

Ross Geller's tearful (and final) reconciliation with on-again, off-again love interest Rachel Green was interrupted by an extended interview with Ismail Zayer, the Iraqi newspaper editor who, citing censorship, recently quit his post at the American-funded newspaper Al-Sabah. "As much as I'd like to just say 'We were on a break,' the fact is that inattention is no excuse for ignorance, especially in the case of what was obviously a systemic and systematized form of brutality permeating what was essentially a rogue command. I would like to take this opportunity to assure the Arab world that this is not indicative of the American military or their heroic actions in freeing the Iraqi people from Saddam Hussein, and we will punish all persons involved in this heinous crime to the maximum possible extent."

"When I was informed of the existence of not only these terrible abuses, but also that some members of the military had actually photographed them, all I could say was, 'Noooo!'," Rachel added, forsaking her dream job in Paris to reunite with the hapless but lovable Ross. "To ensure that this can never again happen, we are undertaking a top-to-bottom review of all procedures and policies used to run prisons in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay, as well as investigating the status of the approximately 8,000 detainees in Iraq to ensure that the innocent are freed in a timely manner. We are also revising our procedures to require that so-called 'ghost prisoners' held by non-military agencies such as the CIA are properly registered with the military authorities so they can be visited by the Red Cross and Red Crescent on a regular basis to confirm our conformance with the spirit of the Geneva Convention."

When asked about American commentators who have downplayed the actions of the military prison guards, Rachel was quick to condemn "those who would minimize the suffering" of the Abu Ghraib prisoners. "There can be no excuse for forsaking American standards of justice towards those who do not pose an immediate and grave threat to innocent lives."

Wanna-be folk singer Phoebe Buffay also had harsh words for the military offenders in Thursday's Le Monde. "There is nothing I can say, or sing, that conveys how deeply shocked all Americans are by the abuses detailed in General Taguba's report. We are acting quickly to ensure that this can never happen again; chief amongst our goals is to ensure that the investigation is conducted in an open and transparent manner. It is important to us that the Iraqis and people across the world see that America and its leaders take responsibility for their mistakes, correct their errors, and punish those who violate the American ethic of freedom and liberty."

Monica Bing summed up the cast's position in a prepared statement delivered to the Iraqi and international press from the secured "Green Zone" in Baghdad. "The world, disturbed by these images, has come to question whether America has lost its moral way. I can tell you today that the American ideal remains alive, a determination to bring freedom and liberty to all the peoples of the world. We on this stage today take full responsibility for the actions of a rogue command and its soldiers; we apologize to those who have been abused and their families; we will mete out swift justice to those who have brought shame upon America, and prove to you that we are worthy of the trust you have placed in us. Right? I know!"

White House officials and network executives downplayed any suggestions that the acceptance of responsibility was linked with the end of the popular series' run. "Friends is an American institution, and Americans own up to their responsibilities," one senior administration figure, who asked not to be named, said Thursday. The official suggested that today's announcement was in a long line of televised blame-taking, such as WKRP in Cincinnati's 1980 apology for missing intelligence clues prior to the Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution in Iran, or Dobie Gillis' courageous acceptance of responsibility for the Soviet shootdown of U-2 pilot Gary Powers.

If you're already missing our old Friends, don't worry. Ten years of episodes is a hundred years in syndication time, and we can expect entire cable networks to revolve around our favorite Friends' hijinks. As for the abuses in Abu Ghraib, we can only hope that we don't see those popping up in reruns.

 
A meaningful moment on the campaign trail here. This shows Bush at his best, even as the past month has shown him at his worst; no matter how strongly one disagrees with his policies, there's no doubt that his intentions are to ensure the safety of Americans like this. Whether he's successful or not -- history has yet to judge.

 
The non-apologetica: "BUSH APOLOGIZES FOR TREATMENT OF IRAQI PRISONERS," reads the WaPo headline. But the text of Bush's

I told him I was sorry for the humiliation suffered by the Iraqi prisoners and the humiliation suffered by their families. I told him I was equally sorry that people who've been seeing those pictures didn't understand the true nature and heart of America. I assured him that Americans like me didn't appreciate what we saw and that it made us sick to our stomachs.

This, of course, is not an apology, this is an expression of benign disinterest. I am "sorry" for a lot of things -- the fact that I haven't won the lottery, the support Western liberals gave to Stalin for so many years, the horrible taste of most sugar substitutes, the career of Titus Flavius Domitianus -- but to passively wring one's hands is not to take an active stand against something, let alone to take responsibility for it. At best, Bush's words were what the Washington Post, in another time and under another President, called a non-apology apology.

All of this would be a minor contretemps at best if the stakes weren't so high. The acceptance of responsibility is a serious act. The soldiers involved had direct responsibility due to their exercise of moral autonomy; their superiors had responsibility for encouraging or allowing an environment to exist in which such acts were tolerated or ordered; the civilian leadership has responsibility for not properly overseeing the actions of soldiers in-theatre; and the President, as Commander-in-Chief, has ultimate responsibility for the conduct of soldiers fighting in a war he launched.

If the President does not take responsibility, if he does not display the moral clarity he has claimed so often, then America will take the blame. And where, we should ask then, is the outrage?

 
An MI SSG's perspective on Abu Ghraib: here.

 
The Los Angeles Times has a must-read about an Abu Ghraib prisoner. Amongst other crucials: at least some of the torture was inflicted on members of the "common criminal" population and was not related to interrogation; prison officials favored certain prisoners (other stories have referred to prisoners being made "mayors" of their cellblocks), which enabled the favored ones -- such as the Baathist described in the story -- to pursue personal and tribal vendettas; and the torturers ("the night crew") seemed to be acting in a separate chain of command from soldiers who were handling the prison population during the day.

Also, check out the transcript from Sy Hersh on O'Reilly. Hersh promises, "[I]t's going to get much worse. This kind of stuff was much more widespread. ... [T] here are other photos out there. ... There are videotapes of stuff that you wouldn't want to mention on national television that was done. There was a lot of problems."

 
From a 2002 WaPo article on interrogations in Afghanistan:

After apprehending suspects, U.S. take-down teams -- a mix of military special forces, FBI agents, CIA case officers and local allies -- aim to disorient and intimidate them on the way to detention facilities.

According to Americans with direct knowledge and others who have witnessed the treatment, captives are often "softened up" by MPs and U.S. Army Special Forces troops who beat them up and confine them in tiny rooms. The alleged terrorists are commonly blindfolded and thrown into walls, bound in painful positions, subjected to loud noises and deprived of sleep. The tone of intimidation and fear is the beginning, they said, of a process of piercing a prisoner's resistance.

The take-down teams often "package" prisoners for transport, fitting them with hoods and gags, and binding them to stretchers with duct tape.

Bush administration appointees and career national security officials acknowledged that, as one of them put it, "our guys may kick them around a little bit in the adrenaline of the immediate aftermath." Another said U.S. personnel are scrupulous in providing medical care to captives, adding in a deadpan voice, that "pain control [in wounded patients] is a very subjective thing."

 
Rush Limbaugh makes Ted Rall look like a measured voice of reason:

LIMBAUGH (May 3): And these American prisoners of war -- have you people noticed who the torturers are? Women! The babes! The babes are meting out the torture. ... You know, if you look at -- if you, really, if you look at these pictures, I mean, I don't know if it's just me, but it looks just like anything you'd see Madonna, or Britney Spears do on stage. Maybe I'm -- yeah. And get an NEA grant for something like this. I mean, this is something that you can see on stage at Lincoln Center from an NEA grant, maybe on Sex in the City -- the movie. I mean, I don't -- it's just me.

Of course, "torture" is in the eye of the abuser -- and abused; for Limbaugh, the Florida prosecutors' request for his medical records was "wanton abuse." Perhaps they should have simply stripped him naked and set police dogs on him, or sodomized him with a broomstick, since that rises to the level of a "college fraternity prank:"

CALLER (May 4): It was like a college fraternity prank that stacked up naked men --

LIMBAUGH: Exactly. Exactly my point! This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation and we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time. You know, these people are being fired at every day. I'm talking about people having a good time, these people, you ever heard of emotional release? You of heard of need to blow some steam off?

We have become an indecent people.

Update: Is he trying to marginalize himself? Is the ditto chamber that loud?

LIMBAUGH (May 5): I think a lot of the American culture is being feminized. I think the reaction to the stupid torture is an example of the feminization of this country.

LIMBAUGH (May 6): The thing though that continually amazes -- here we have these pictures of homoeroticism that look like standard good old American pornography, the Britney Spears or Madonna concerts or whatever....

Conservatives need to stand up to this idiot. The GOP is better than this, and conservatism certainly is.

 
Dear God, it just gets worse every day.

 
Challenge yourself: "It is easy in the world to live after the world's opinions; it is easy in solitude to live after our own; but the great man is he who in the midst of the crowd keeps with perfect sweetness the independence of solitude.'' Pat Tillman read the Bible, the Koran, Emerson and Thoreau; soldier, scholar and athlete, he was far more complex than we have known.

 
More liberals behaving badly. Very badly: MSNBC is taking some heat for showing (then pulling) a a particularly ugly cartoon by Ted Rall. Rall's explanation for his work:

[T]he media's decision to genuflect to a cult of death is terrifyingly similar to the cult of Palestinian suicide bombers in the Middle East and the glorious coverage given by the Japanese during World War II to fallen kamikaze fighters. Nowhere has this excessive praise for the act of voluntary death been more extreme than in Mr. Tillman's case. ... Mr. Tillman served an evil president and an evil cause. ... [W]hile Tillman's decision to sacrifice millions of dollars for his beliefs is admirable, his belief that killing the citizens of Iraq and Afghanistan had something to do with defending America was not.

Rall's work was never particularly good, but it's gone from tendentious to foam-flecked. Typical is his take on Christianity: "In this town [New York], people who think they talk to God mutter, dribbling spittle as they ambulate through subway cars asking for money, and they're best avoided."