Saturday, May 01, 2004

The real investigation

Here I am, a humble blogger, linking to something someone else wrote again. Secondhand, even - I saw Glenn Reynolds' link to it at the bottom of a long updated post. But at least I'm not spinning the truth, and I'm not taking credit for something someone else did.

It's too bad that CBS News doesn't uphold such standards. As Greyhawk notes here, it was US military personnel who identified the problems with the Abu Ghraib prison, and it was an Army legal team that pursued it. And the investigation was conducted before 60 Minutes II showed the pictures.

I'm sure the 60 Minutes II folks would like to present themselves as crusading journalists exposing iniquity to the world to see it corrected. By dumping on the guys who make their beloved First Amendment possible.

Sorry guys, you're late to the party. That US troops break the rules from time to time is not news - just ask John Kerry. That they and other institutions don't choose to air their dirty laundry is not news either - just ask the news networks themselves.

Don't misunderstand me - this is legitimate news and should be covered. It should also be covered when the perps get what they have coming. But in particular, it should be noted that the military itself identified and started disciplinary and corrective actions long before some self-important overgroomed talking head with a teleprompter started mugging for a cameras. Was that acknowledged?

As for the perps, I don't want to hear any of the "didn't know the Geneva Convention" crap - we have any number of military bloggers over there so there must be some way to access the Web. Get on it and find the answer right here. (I gave myself two minutes to find this and I beat it - Google geneva convention prisoner of war and hit "I Feel Lucky".)

And these creeps wonder why their numbers are going down. Hey, if I want al-Jazeera I'll tune it in.

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