New Prison Abuse Stories, Again of Children

And again the Bush Administration has left us open to be seen as monsters. I was alerted to this on Patriotboys' Blog. He points to a lengthy investigative piece in "The Sunday Herald" in London. There's some pretty nasty stuff in the report, and, you know, I am cynical enough not to believe it all, but this paragraph is very telling:

Alistair Hodgett, media director of Amnesty International USA, said the coalition forces needed to be “transparent” about their policy of child detentions, adding: “Secrecy is one thing that rings alarm bells.” Amnesty was given brief access to one jail in Mosul, he said, but has been repeatedly turned away from all others. He pointed out that even countries “which don’t have good records”, such as Libya, gave Amnesty access to prisons. “Denying access just fuels the rumour mill,” he said.

Our lack of transparency causes these reports, and we are left not knowing whether they are true or not because we refuse to allow the ICRC and Amnesty International full and complete access. Yeah, even if this is all a lie, it will damage our reputation around the world still further, and we could have prevented it.

The Bushco propensity for secrecy is behind this.

Rinse. Spit. Rinse again.