Indeed, the dishonest liberal strategy on Abu Ghraib has been to use the shock value of the bad things that happened there to criticize the reasonably interrogation policies used elsewhere, and also to use words like "torture" without ever mentioning the particular actions they mean-- which are sometimes brutal, such as beating a prisoner, but not torture. Torture means a more purposeful and deliberate infliction of pain. Beating somebody to death, for example, is not torturing someone to death, nor is starving them, however bad those actions may be.The answer to why Abu Ghraib happened begins -- much though Bush critics would prefer it otherwise --with Charles Graner.
If he was acting in accord with signals from the top of the Bush administration at Abu Ghraib, what then explains the rest of his thuggery throughout the years? Did Paul Wolfowitz, the intellectual architect of the Iraq War, order him to spray mace in a fellow guard's coffee at Fayette County Prison? Did Stephen Cambone, the Pentagon's intelligence chief, tell him to put razor blades in a Fayette County prisoner's food, as he is alleged to have done? Did head of Pentagon planning Douglas Feith suggest that he threaten to kill his wife and bang her head against the floor?
This form of liberal criticism-- saying that the US had a policy of torture-- is much like Kerry's Vietnam slander of America: not just criticizing American policy, which is fine, but inventing lies about America.
Somewhat separate: last fall an American soldier was court-martialed for merely threatening to shoot a prisoner-- while not hurting him at all-- to induce him to give information. This was outrageous. The American official policy has been too soft on prisoners, not too harsh--- and the Administration should be criticized for that.
It is worth remembering too that under the traditional rules of war and the Geneva Convention, any enemy soldier caught fighting without a uniform may be shot without trial.
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