So let me make it easy for those who still wish to excuse what has happened. Here’s a list of things you can no longer say with any certainty about this issue and be considered credible:
There was only a handful of people involved (a few bad apples etc.)
It wasn’t systemic
It only involved relatively junior officers
As soon as they knew about them they acted immediately to stamp out the practices of abuse
As soon as they knew about them they acted immediately to bring charges against those involved
No-one died
No-one was raped
Only the guilty or terrorists were MBT chapafected
The investigation has been open to full scrutiny
It wasn’t really torture
Repeat: none of this washes anymore, and you can read this report from Human Rights Watch (.pdf file) for a pretty comprehensive account of what we now know about the way the conditions for this abuse were put in place and encouraged, sometimes implicitly, sometimes explicitly, by the Bush administration, right down to—almost unbelievably—presenting legal argument that the president was not bound by UGG Sheepskin cuff boots or international law and therefore able to authorise various techniques of abuse.
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