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• Sunday, October 5, 2008 07:20 PM

  “They’ll just write it off as part of war,”

  There is a very sad article in the San Antonio News yesterday that describes a family's reaction to finding out that their son was likely tortured by his Iraqi captors after being kidnapped in an ambush in retaliation for the rape of a "14-year-old Iraqi girl" in a case in which "U.S. soldiers... have testified they took turns raping the girl." The soldier's father is then quoted regarding his view of the possibility of the Iraqi government trying the suspects in his son's death:

  "While Army officials have vowed to work with the Iraqi government to prosecute the suspects, Charles Meunier said “that’s BS in my book” if they plan to let the Iraqis try them for political reasons. “They’ll just write it off as part of war,” he said. “Well, that’s not a part of war. You don’t do the atrocities that they did to other human beings.”"

  The article goes on to say that the father is "also bitter over a 6 1/2-hour delay in communications surveillance that occurred three days into the search [for his son in Iraq.]. While some Republicans have blamed the holdup on federal rules on eavesdropping, Democrats blame the delay on inept wrangling by legal experts in the Bush administration and difficulty reaching then-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, to give oral consent to begin surveillance."

  So "some Republicans" blame the soldier's capture not on the events pictured in the photos Glenn showed, or on the rape of a 14 year old girl by U.S. soldiers but on "federal rules on eavesdropping."

  They no longer even need to "round up the usual suspects;" they just blame those pesky federal eavesdropping rules.

  The article gets even more absurd when it quotes "a retired Army officer and director of the Center for Terrorism Law at St. Mary’s University" saying that "if the suspects are linked to al-Qaida, they fit the definition Congress set in 2006 of “enemy combatants,” and could be taken to the U.S. base at Guantanamo Bay... which disposes of cases much faster than a federal court."

  Apparently there is a "rocket docket" in Gitmo as they aren't encumbered by those pesky federal rules, that NYT article today that says "none of the scores of cases brought by detainees have been resolved by any judge" notwithstanding.

  http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local_news/Family_fears_son_knew_real_horror_of_war.html

  —David Tarrell Read David Tarrell's other letters
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