Tuesday, June 19, 2007

Sy Hersh, Defender of Innocent Little Torturers

I had to stop listening to Seymour Hersh on Democracy Now! today (a radio show hosted by Amy Goodman and carried by Pacifica radio network and others) on the topic of the Abu Ghraib prison torture scandal, after he started doing that SHIT of calling ADULT WAR CRIMINALS "kids." "These kids" he said twice (before I turned it off) referring to Army Reserve MPs. These are ADULTS, fully responsible for their actions. As reservists, they are AT LEAST in their twenties, and have already done full tours of military duty prior to joining the reserves. And saying that MPs are only trained to be traffic cops is bullshit. MPs receive full law enforcement training. Anyway, who has to be "trained" to know torture, abuse, rape, and murder are wrong? Didn't they have parents? Didn't they go to church? Aren't they humans with an innate sense of morality, of compassion and empathy for others?
Hersh has a bad habit of defending the torturers by portraying them as hapless, innocent children, calling them "kids." He's been doing it since the scandal became news over a year ago. They are adults. I actually saw him on TV once arguing that the torturers shouldn't be prosecuted for violating the Uniform Military Code of Justice. An officer actually had to take the position that they shouldn't be exempt or immune!
It's not as if you ever hear Hersh calling for prosecutions of Bush, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, and their Nazi-type generals. And insisting it's unfair to hold lower ranks accountable because they were just following orders is the essence of the Nazi defense. I wonder if Hersh were German if he'd be calling concentration camp guards "innocent kids."