BBC NEWS | Middle East | US troops on Iraqi murder charge
Two American soldiers have been charged with the murder of an Iraqi prisoner, US military officials have said.
Staff Sgt Hal Warner and 1st Lt Michael Behenna are accused of the premeditated murder of Ali Mansour Mohammed.
They have also been charged with assault, making a false official statement and obstructing justice.
In other prison abuse news, further revelations on renditions and the prison at Diego Garcia continue to spin British politics:
Once upon a time, the United States of America was a nation of laws.Just three days after David Miliband's last attempt to draw a line under the story, the British Foreign Affairs Select Committee published its latest report on the British Overseas Territories (PDF), and was scathing about Diego Garcia, declaring that "it is deplorable that previous U.S. assurances about rendition flights have turned out to be false. The failure of the United States Administration to tell the truth resulted in the UK Government inadvertently misleading our Select Committee and the House of Commons. We intend to examine further the extent of UK supervision of U.S. activities on Diego Garcia, including all flights and ships serviced from Diego Garcia."
These new revelations, of course, leave the U.S. administration looking like bald-faced liars and the British government looking like myopic dupes. Whether Michael Hayden was also duped is not known, but his strenuous denial, just five months ago, that a secret prison existed, which was manned by his own employees, will do nothing for the credibility of the U.S. administration, which likes to pretend that it does not torture and has nothing to conceal, but is persistently discovered not only being economical with the truth, but also behaving exactly as though it has guilty secrets to hide.
Whether this scandal will awaken much indignation in the American public remains to be seen, but it is hugely damaging to the British government, which is legally responsible for the activities that take place on its territory, however much it likes to hide behind "assurances" from its leaseholders that they have done nothing wrong.
It scarcely seems possible, but Diego Garcia's dark history has suddenly grown even darker.
2 comments:
Whether this scandal will awaken much indignation in the American public remains to be seen...
I'm not holding my breath. With everything else that has gone on before the American public, in general, has shown no inclination of caring about such trivial things about liberty or human rights. And that was when the economy was good, now that all the soccer moms and dads can't afford to fill up the old SUV and the 401k is in the toilet I doubt any renewed interest will come about. I wonder if Romans acted like this at the death of their republic?
Good question about the Roman empire. I am guessing the only people that noticed were labeled the radicals of their time.
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