Unaccountable

In his Moscow Times column, Chris Floyd applauds Army Captain Ian Fishback for blowing the whistle on the continued use of torture by the US in Iraq and Afghanistan, as noted in a recent HRW report on the subject.

After getting nowhere by trying to address the issue through "proper channels," Fishback finally concluded that the military was more interested in covering up the abuse than rectifying or stopping it. He then took his concerns elsewhere.

"What will come of the good captain's moral courage?" Floyd asks.

Nothing much. A Pentagon investigation has been belatedly launched; no doubt a few more bad eggs will be fried, just as the hapless Lynndie England, poster girl for Abu Ghraib, was convicted this week for "aberrations" that, as Fishback confirms, were countenanced and encouraged throughout Iraq. Fishback himself will be certainly slimed in one of Karl Rove's patented smear campaigns. By next week, the upright, Bible-believing West Point grad -- a veteran of both the Afghan and Iraqi wars -- will be transformed by Fox News and the war-porn bloggers into a cowardly, anti-American terrorist sympathizer under the hypnotic control of Michael Moore.

Meanwhile, one of the Republican senators Fishback approached, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, has already put the kibosh on legislation setting clear legal guidelines for prisoner treatment. Frist, a goonish errand boy now under investigation for insider trading, killed the bill after hearing Fishback's evidence. His White House masters don't want any legal clarity for their dark deeds; they can only thrive in the murk of moral chaos.

One thing is certain: The true architects of these atrocities will never face justice. They'll go on to peaceful, prosperous retirements, heedless of the broken bodies and broken nations -- including their own -- left behind in their foul wake.

Unfortunately, he's damn right. Despite the copious documentation of White House and Pentagon malfeasance (just read Mark Danner's three NYRB exposes), there seems to be no accountability for anyone at or near the top of the pyramid. War criminals run the show, and most everyone's too polite or cowardly to say so.