WARNING: Graphic violent images, much blood, and some nudity —–
Click here to see a Flash Video presentation of the new Abu Ghraib prisoner abuse material.

Opinion leaders Limbaugh, Hannity, O’Reilly, Coulter, etc, have incessantly downplayed the prisoner abuse horrors of Abu Ghraib as being aking to college hazing.

New pictures have been released finally, and some actual video. The commentary is from the ACLU, whose Freedom of Information lawsuits have resulted in the release of the pictures. The ACLU points out that it was on the case in the early days of the Abu Ghraib abuse, filing Freedom of Information requests about alleged prisoner abuse.

The commentary in the video suggests that the photographed abuse actually occurred AFTER the ACLU began looking into prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib.

After the photographed abuse at Abu Ghraib became public, the Adminstration pretended that the abuse had always been solo action by renegades.

This was part of the cover up —- it wasn’t hardly possible that the Administration was ignorant that abuse was going on, because even the ACLU knew about it. If the government had truly been unaware, then the ACLU’s actions would have then alerted ignorant government officials that something was going on. And so, if abuse continued after the ACLU’s inquiries, it was because the government condoned it or ordered it.

It’s shameful that our opinion leaders and our government refused (and still refuse) to take the high moral ground and oppose the systematic torture and abuse of prisoners.

No one has put forth a good argument as to why systematic torture and abuse are good things.

We hear the extreme argument: “What if there were a nuclear bomb set to go off, wouldn’t you allow torture to learn where the bomb is?” Well, yes we would allow torture in that circumstance. So, if that circumstance arises, please toture the person holding the secret to the location of the bomb.

But this extreme circumstance is not a justification for systematic torture. We can’t torture everyone just because at some point in the future we might learn something useful from someone. [Just like we can’t justify wiretapping everyone, reading everyone’s mail, etc, just because we might learn something useful once in a while]