// April 26th, 2005 // Comments Off // On the Radar
>”A year ago this week, the release of shocking photographs of naked and hooded Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib prison alerted the world to serious human rights abuses by U.S. forces. Those images, it turned out, were the tip of an iceberg: Subsequent investigations by the media, human rights groups and the military itself revealed hundreds of cases of torture and abuse of detainees in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Guantanamo Bay prison, including scores of suspicious deaths. A trail of documents showed that abusive interrogation techniques, such as the use of dogs and painful shackling, had been approved by senior military commanders and the secretary of defense. Even more extreme practices, such as simulated drowning and the withholding of pain medication, were authorized for the CIA at White House meetings presided over by President Bush’s counsel. ([Washington Post](http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/25/AR2005042501352.html))
It seems like with this presidancy time and time again water rolls off the ducks back. All we have to show for how we investigated Abu Ghraib is a handful of lessor soldiers who have obviously taken the wrap for an affair that required orchestration and clearance. Yet a year after it began we have no brass that took heat. How can we teach responsability, accountability for ones actions, when time and time again we see it escaped, eluded, finger pointed, childish—infantile behavior?
I expect more from myself, and my peers.
-a
