In the modern American lexion Abu Ghraib has come to denote Pandora’s box. Each day a new set of revelations come out to turn your stomach.

Seymour Hersh’s new salvo from the New Yorker this week seems to imply that Mr.Rumsfield lied to Congress and that in fact he not only knew about the goings on in Abu Ghraib but he actually authorized them.
But. And there is a definite but here – there is a rationale for his decision. Apparently everytime an American soldier/operative has a “bad guy” in his sights – he has to call in to ask for permission to take him out. By the time permission came through the target had obviously vanished.

“…as many as ten times since early October, Air Force pilots believed they’d had senior Al Qaeda and Taliban members in their sights but had been unable to act in time because of legalistic hurdles. There were similar problems throughout the world, as American Special Forces units seeking to move quickly against suspected terrorist cells were compelled to get prior approval from local American ambassadors and brief their superiors in the chain of command.”

An incredibly bizzare custom for a nation at war – but then each country is entitled to its own idiosynchracies.

This propelled Rummy to set up his own version of a concentration camp – where intelligence agents could pretty well do what they wanted to get at the “truth”. Secret interrogation camps sprouted across Afghanistan. This worked well, because the US had already declared that Al Qaeda as terrorists were not covered by the Geneva Convention. However, with the occupation in Iraq going badly the system was transplanted to Abu Gharib. The rules here were different. The Geneva convention applies.

It seems that the US administration has lost its marbles since 9-11. Torture Camps and Death Squads that hitherto were a part of its Latin American Policy has now got transplanted to the Middle East.

I guess this is what the War for getting Democracy to Iraq means.