Torture and Accountability

Again, I’ve been out of the loop. But let me add a small flag to yesterday’s NYT report, “ARMY DETAILS SCALE OF ABUSE IN AFGHAN JAILS.” In my limited RSS surfing, I’ve noticed that some people have flagged the gory details in the story:

 Two Afghan prisoners who died in American custody in Afghanistan in December 2002 were chained to the ceiling, kicked and beaten by American soldiers in sustained assaults that caused their deaths, according to Army criminal investigative reports that have not yet been made public.

One soldier, Pfc. Willie V. Brand, was charged with manslaughter in a closed hearing last month in Texas in connection with one of the deaths, another Army document shows. ;

The attacks on Mr. Dilawar were so severe that "even if he had survived, both legs would have had to be amputated," the Army report said, citing a medical examiner.

But here’s the part that really gets me--buried in the Times' report:

The reports, from the Army Criminal Investigation Command, also make clear that the abuse at Bagram went far beyond the two killings.

Last fall, Army investigators implicated 28 soldiers and reservists and recommended that they face criminal charges, including negligent homicide.

But so far only Private Brand, a military policeman from the 377th Military Police Company, an Army Reserve unit based in

Cincinnati, and Sgt. James P. Boland, from the same unit, have been charged.

Twenty-eight soldiers implicated...two charged. The bigger bummer, it's par for the course. As the Washington Post headlined a few months ago: ARMY CLOSED MANY ABUSE CASES EARLY; Few Detainee-Treatment Inquiries Led to Penalties, Documents Show.”

BTW: The NYT story is based on some great digging—by Human Rights Watch.

P.S. Those last abuses cited, for which  at least investigators said merited prosecution--"forcing the detainee to maintain painful, contorted body positions during interview and forcing water into his mouth until he could not breathe" --sound pretty familiar don't they?