The Broken Constitution (Hentoff / Village Voice)

[struggle4progress]

More eyewitnesses to U.S. torture of detainees pierce the Bush administration's cover-up

by Nat Hentoff
October 7th, 2005 5:13 PM

The outlook of Richard Nixon was that he was above the law. Watergate disabused him of the notion. The position of George W. Bush is that he is a law unto himself. - Lincoln Caplan, editor of Legal Affairs
(associated with Yale Law School), September 2005 <snip>

The torture of detainees was so widespread and accepted that it became a means of stress relief for soldiers. Soldiers said they felt welcome to come to the PUC tent on their off hours to 'Fuck a PUC' or 'Smoke a PUC.' 'Fucking a PUC' referred to beating a detainee, while 'Smoking a PUC' referred to forced physical exertion sometimes to the point of unconsciousness. - "Leadership Failure: Firsthand Accounts of Torture of Iraqi Detainees by the U.S. Army's 82nd Airborne Division," Human Rights Watch, September 2005 <snip>

As National Public Radio's excellent national security correspondent Jackie Northam said during her September 25 report on this Human Rights Watch exposé: "There's just too many reports like this from captains, sergeants, officers, non-commissioned officers, that we can't keep ignoring it." <snip>

http://www.villagevoice.com/news/0541,hentoff,68709,6.html

[SongOfTheRayne]

1. ok.....disturbing.....

i'm not sleeping for the next two weeks....

[SongOfTheRayne]

2. Hey! Somebody answer already!

This is important! Come on, people!