The Ghosts of Abu Ghraib

Seymore Hersh has a new article in the New Yorker with an interview with Anthony Taguba, famous for the Taguba report, the report on torture at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. It's a fascinating read about how his investigation became about him, and what happened to him after he told the truth as far as he was allowed. See, he wasn't allowed, by law, to investigate anyone higher up than those that have already been investigated (and some convicted).

But,

Taguba came to believe that Lieutenant General Sanchez, the Army commander in Iraq, and some of the generals assigned to the military headquarters in Baghdad had extensive knowledge of the abuse of prisoners in Abu Ghraib even before Joseph Darby came forward with the CD. Taguba was aware that in the fall of 2003—when much of the abuse took place—Sanchez routinely visited the prison, and witnessed at least one interrogation. According to Taguba, “Sanchez knew exactly what was going on.”

If Sanchez knew, Rumsfeld knew. Why does this matter? Because, in the years since Abu Ghraib was discovered to be happening, the images (and the video of a military personnel sodomizing a woman detainee) have not been viewed by the American public, outside of the few pyramid pictures that have come out. The pictures of the sexual torture of a detainee and his son have not come out. Does anyone truly still believe that the Iraqi people haven't seen these pictures, or at the very least, know of their existence? The Republican base can say all they want that we're there to promote democracy, or whatever this week's reason is to be in Iraq, but the citizens of Iraq know about this torture. They know, and are still fighting about it. It's the American people who don't know about it, because it would sicken them, turn them into torchbearers. As long as they're allowed to NOT know about those images, videos, horrors, they blithely support this insanity. The cognitive dissonance is appalling. Read the article and weep for our country.