Does This Make You Feel Proud?

Remember when Rush Limbaugh claimed that the abuses at Abu Ghraib were nothing more than the equivalent of fraternity hazings? I defy that fat, lying, morally bankrupt, anal-cyst-picking, drug addicted fuckwad to read this and claim that it's just the equivalent of fraternity hazing. And tell the Hillbilly Heroin Homeboy that it's not leftie propaganda; it's extracted from a 2000-page Army report, dig? Here's a sample that makes me, as a veteran, physically ill.

One captain nicknamed members of the Third Platoon "the Testosterone Gang." Several were devout bodybuilders. Upon arriving in Afghanistan, a group of the soldiers decorated their tent with a Confederate flag, one soldier said.

Some of the same M.P.'s took a particular interest in an emotionally disturbed Afghan detainee who was known to eat his feces and mutilate himself with concertina wire. The soldiers kneed the man repeatedly in the legs and, at one point, chained him with his arms straight up in the air, Specialist Callaway told investigators. They also nicknamed him "Timmy," after a disabled child in the animated television series "South Park." One of the guards who beat the prisoner also taught him to screech like the cartoon character, Specialist Callaway said.

Eventually, the man was sent home.

And I don't buy the Pentagon's bullshit that these are rogue warriors. This shit has official sanction, heavily implied when not explicitly ordered. That's how criminal regimes operate. One of the legacies of the Stalin regime is that Old Joe never actually signed a death warrant or any order explicitly calling for the death or imprisonment of enemies. His subordinates understood what they'd better do . . . or else. Since the Bushits are known for their extreme adherence to loyalty above everything else, what might be the likely outcome from El Presidente's utterances about prisoner treatment?

The platoon had the standard interrogations guide, Army Field Manual 34-52, and an order from the secretary of defense, Donald H. Rumsfeld, to treat prisoners "humanely," and when possible, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions. But with President Bush's final determination in February 2002 that the Conventions did not apply to the conflict with Al Qaeda and that Taliban fighters would not be accorded the rights of prisoners of war, the interrogators believed they "could deviate slightly from the rules," said one of the Utah reservists, Sgt. James A. Leahy.

"There was the Geneva Conventions for enemy prisoners of war, but nothing for terrorists," Sergeant Leahy told Army investigators. And the detainees, senior intelligence officers said, were to be considered terrorists until proved otherwise.

Voila! Bush is responsible for what happens under his watch, especially if his personal determination empowers his subordinates to commit war crimes.

He's bought himself and his cronies a ticket to the Hague as far as I am concerned.