A pair of articles that came out this weekend underscored newly emerging documentation which
firms up the case that US policy advocating the torture of prisoners - both in Afghanistan, Iraq, Guantanamo Bay, and elsewhere stemmed from orders that came from the top, and that - as the ACLU asks Atty General Gonzalez to press perjury charges against General William Sanchez
- the case against Gen. Sanchez will not be the end of the unravelling scandal.
"Green light for Iraqi prison abuse came right from the top" declared the UK Independent, while Brig. Gen. Janis Karpinski's interview for the San Franscico Chronicle, which hit the newsstands Saturday only reinforces the case : Many shared role in Abu Ghraib : Ex prisoner overseer accepts her role but says others involved
But actual media notice of Sanchez' apparent perjury came not from the mainstream media but from a blogger or - if you will - a citizen journalist, and it was only after the issue and scandal picked up steam on the Internet that the ACLU decided to press charges against Sanchez
Please recommend this diary. This scandal has legs.
UPDATE :
profmarcus has done a very helpful DailyKos diary relevant to this post :
Transcript of Sanchez Memo on Interrogation Techniques "Because of the import of these documents, because the contents of the documents clearly describe techniques for interrogation that circumvent the Geneva Convention, because of the fact that the documents indicate perjury under oath by General Sanchez during the Senate hearings, because the subject of prisoner and detainee torture has not received the full investigation and public attention it warrants, and because those up the chain of command have consistently shifted blame to the lowest ranking members of the Armed Services, I have taken the time to transcribe verbatim the text from the Sanchez memorandum that outline interrogation techniques. Every citizen of the United States has the duty to make themselves aware of precisely what guidance we have given our troops in Iraq, Guantanamo, Diego Garcia, and wherever else prisoners and detainees may be held."
UPDATE : a legal background, as of March 30 - Here is citizen-journalist Mark Kraft's summation of the import of the previous ACLU position, as of that March 29th ACLU release :
"The American Civil Liberties Union sent a letter to Attorney General Alberto Gonzales today, asking him to open a criminal investigation into possible perjury by Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez. ...and if Gonzales refuses, they can appeal to the Supreme Court for a writ of mandamus and force an investigation.
Now, many of you might think that Gonzales might refuse this request and be done with it. However, the ACLU has the right to request a writ of mandamus, which would compel Gonzales to initiate an investigation. If Sanchez is investigated, will he be pressured to reveal the identity of those in the Pentagon / Bush administration (Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Feith, Cheney, Cambone?!) who knew about and possibly ordered these policies?"
IS THIS DIARY NEWS ? : YES - Notice how the ACLU position has shifted since last Wednesday, March 30th, when I posted my first diary on this topic : The ACLU was asserting possible ( even likely ) perjury on Sanchez' part. NOW, the ACLU says that Rumsfeld is directly implicated.
The ACLU seems to be going for blood.