Lynn C. Woolsey: “American troops are being court-martialed daily for their role in the heinous crimes that took place in Abu Ghraib, the…”

“American troops are being court-martialed daily for their role in the heinous crimes that took place in Abu Ghraib, the prison in Iraq. For sure, their role in these incidents is embarrassing and shameful. But if we are searching for the true culprits for these abuses, which include the sexual assault, forced sodomy, and death of Iraqi prisoners, we need look no further than August 1, 2002. That is the day the Justice Department advised the White House in a memo to Alberto Gonzalez, President Bush's top counsel, that torturing al Qaeda terrorists in captivity 'may be justified.' The memo also stated that 'necessity and self-defense could provide justifications that would eliminate any criminal liability' for the use of torture. It is not just the physical abuses that took place in Iraqi prisons that is appalling. The thing that is just as appalling is that legal abuses took place here at home too within our own government, when high-ranking officials in the Department of Defense and the Department of Justice affirmed the use of torture as a war tactic. The White House and the Pentagon approval of torture is not only shameful, it also flies in the face of America's human rights standards. And what happened to the United States setting a positive example for the rest of the world? That is not what Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld would have us believe.”