Everybody Knows
Everybody knows the boat is leaking,
Everybody knows the captain lied
-Leonard Cohen
What everybody knows, as further trials of military noncoms occur, is that the hypocrisy of blaming the torture of detainees at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib (and god knows where else) on low-ranked American soldiers is utter nonsense. The order that allowed and encouraged this tragedy wiggles its surreptitious way straight up the military chain-of-command at least as far as Donald Rumsfeld, probably all the way to the Commander in Chief, who happens to be our president.
Everybody knows the military didn’t hatch this plan on their own. The Army and Marines, from time to time, uncover a rogue soldier or officer and when that happens, Mai-Lai style courts martial are the result. There are codes of honor in the military and they are taken seriously.
Everybody knows the torture scheme was cooked-up in Rummy’s office, or possibly at Camp David, out of absolute panic that the systems in place to pr…