[Mb-civic] The buck stops with Lynndie - Derrick Z. Jackson - Boston Globe

[William Swiggard]

The buck stops with Lynndie

By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist  |  September 28, 2005

LYNNDIE ENGLAND is convicted. Donald Rumsfeld cackles. England, the 
22-year-old private, was found guilty as prosecutors convinced an 
all-male Army jury that she bore full responsibility for ''her own sick 
humor" in the infamous photographs of her at Abu Ghraib holding a naked 
prisoner on a leash and smiling as she pointed at a prisoner's genitals.

Defense lawyers depicted England as a depressed reservist, a mere file 
clerk who was compliant to authority and easy to manipulate. The defense 
failed as a prosecuting lawyer stained England for life with, ''What 
soldier wouldn't know that's illegal?"

Off in much higher, more stainproof places, Rumsfeld behaved as if he 
were carving President Bush into Mt. Rushmore. Last week, he serenaded 
the press about how some of America's greatest moments were originally 
considered failure or folly.

''Today, history records the brilliance of Lincoln's Gettysburg 
Address," Rumsfeld said. ''The Marshall Plan helped Europe recover. And 
Ronald Reagan's tough line at Reykjavik -- according to the Soviets, 
anyway -- was the beginning of the end of the Cold War. In thinking 
about Afghanistan and Iraq, we should ask what history will say. . . . 
it will show . . . that America was on freedom's side, and it will 
remember the millions of people who have been freed and the hundreds of 
thousands of coalition forces who helped achieve that freedom."

You would never know this was the Rumsfeld who said last year about Abu 
Ghraib, ''These events occurred on my watch. As secretary of defense, I 
am accountable for them, and I take full responsibility."

The truth lay in the reaction to England's conviction by Richard Myers, 
the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He called it ''one 
more example of holding people accountable, because that's who did it." 
He said, ''We had a problem, and we dealt with the problem and dealt 
with it in an appropriate way."

A problem? When Abu Ghraib exploded into worldwide view last year, Bush 
said the prison practices ''represent the actions of a few people. . . . 
it's important for people to understand that in a democracy that there 
will be a full investigation." Since then, the number of punishments 
handed out to lower-rung soldiers in prisoner abuses in Iraq and 
Afghanistan has reached 230. The number of inquiries has passed 400. 
Bush has blocked any calls for a full, independent investigation.

Just last week came the news that Army Captain Ian Fishback and two 
sergeants from the 82d Airborne Division wrote ranking members of the 
Senate Armed Services Committee and told Human Rights Watch that they 
witnessed torture of prisoners near Fallujah, Iraq, in 2003 and early 
2004, with some of the same tactics depicted in the Abu Ghraib photos.

In a letter to Senator John McCain, Fishback said he repeatedly asked 
superior officers for guidance on handling detainees but ''despite my 
efforts, I have been unable to get clear, consistent answers from my 
leadership. . . . I am certain that this confusion contributed to a wide 
range of abuses including death threats, beatings, broken bones, murder, 
exposure to elements, extreme forced physical exertion, hostage-taking, 
stripping, sleep deprivation, and degrading treatment."

The ''confusion" started at the top, where then-White House counsel and 
now-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales wrote the torture memo suggesting 
that the United States need not follow international prisoner treatment 
laws. It continued with Rumsfeld, who approved overly aggressive tactics 
at Guantanamo Bay that were quickly adopted in Afghanistan and Iraq. It 
continued with Major General Geoffrey Miller, who imported abusive 
tactics at Guantanamo Bay over to Abu Ghraib. It continued with former 
Iraq commander Ricardo Sanchez, who moved too slow on reports of abuse.

http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/09/28/the_buck_stops_with_lynndie/
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