I am listening to George W. Bush's last press conference. He is asked, "What do you see as some of the mistakes you made?" He replies in part by saying words to the effect that the situation at Abu Graib prison was a mistake, one of the mistakes he was most disappointed in.
Allowing him to spin this as a mistake is, in my mind, the stongest argument possible for pushing ahead with indictment of Bush and his buddies for war crimes.
I am outraged beyond belief by his statement that the Abu Graib prison tortures were a mistake. The very idea that what happened at Abu Graib was a mistake is a tortured mis-use of the English language. A mistake as defined by Webster's is
Main Entry: 1mis·take
Function: verb
transitive verb
- to blunder in the choice of <mistook her way in the dark>
2 a: to misunderstand the meaning or intention of : misinterpret b: to make a wrong judgment of the character or ability of
- to identify wrongly : confuse with another intransitive verb
: to be wrong <you mistook when you thought I laughed at you — Thomas Hardy>
Note that none of the definitions state or imply anything about having intent. All of these meanings are clear that the outcome is unintentional and passive, with no active intent. To allow Bush to outrageously characterize what happened at Abu Graib as a mistake, as if it was an unintended accidental consequence that could not be forseen, simply adds another intolerable insult and lie to the burden of those who suffered and died as a result of his criminal activities. It is also a great insult to those soldiers who carried out these activities and were jailed as a result.
Low ranking soldiers were tried and convicted and punished for the activities at Abu Graib. The film Taxi to the Dark Side documents the intent and the involvement of Bush's administration in producing exactly the kinds of outcomes that occurred at Abu Graib (and at other prisons including Guantanamo Bay and Bagrain Air Base).
As a country, as citizens of the United States, we owe it to ourselves and to the world to disabuse the claim that what happened in the torture and violation of human beings in our name was a "mistake". Previous war crimes tribunals are clear: Leaders must be accountable for the behaviors of those under their command in the case of criminal activities. There must be investigations, and if criminal activity is verified it must go to trial.
We cannot pretend that these events were something that "happened" with no one being held accountable or brought to justice for actions that were clearly intentional. To do so violates the possibility of ever being trusted.