Many moons ago, Seymour Hersh broke (for all intents and purposes) the story of Abu Ghraib in the New Yorker magazine. My outrage at the abuses still simmers just below the surface - and even more so, knowing that the complete saga did not get a full airing, and may very well never get one.
When my daughter and I marched in New York on the eve of the GOP convention, the sign I made (and carried in the march) had a picture of the person that the dittoheads affectionately call "Sparky", along with the words, "Not In My Name". Of all the ways my fellow countrymen could have let me down in the past year, letting the abuses of Abu Ghraib pass without holding the truly guilty parties accountable is probably the most vexing to me.
In the past couple of days, two more stories of abuse and torture of fellow homo sapiens have come to light. We've kind of known all along that Guantanamo Bay hasn't been exactly a "fat camp" for displaced terrorists. It's been as much of a den of torture as was Abu Ghraib and other remote "detention facilities" not even on the radar screen of our national consciousness. Earlier this week, a confidential report from the International Red Cross (ICRC) was leaked by the NY Times, and unsurprisingly, it detailed concerns of abuse and torture of detainees at Gitmo.
A bit earlier today, the U.S. government actually conceded that it's using statements obtained from detainees during torture sessions at Guantanamo Bay to keep those detainees imprisoned.
And in the last few hours, a story has broken that U.S. Navy Seals took some interesting photos during torture sessions in Iraq. This revelation was met with the standard "we'll investigate and get back to you" response from the Pentagon. The few posted photos are very reminiscent of the earlier University of Abu Ghraib frat hazing incident conducted by sorority dominatrix Lynndie England and her friends from Psi Theta Lightstickuptheass.
I said it before and I'll say it again - this is not the benevolent America I signed up for at birth.
Apparently, we've become completely desensitized to this kind of crap, as long as it's happening offshore. I guess because America sees it on the tube, it's no more real in the national consciousness than last night's "Return to Gilligan's Island". The abuses and evidence are right there on the nightly news, but it's so far removed from our reality that I think the vast majority of Americans are in complete denial. Sure, there's a few folks who think that plugging electrodes into someone's gonads is quite all right, as long as that person isn't from Kentucky.
Look at the Navy Seal's face in the picture. Want an enlargement? Here you go. 
I hope - I sincerely hope - that my characterization of most Americans being in abject denial about this situation is close to right. Because if I'm wrong, we're in a hell of a lot worse shape than we're even thinking about admitting. I'm left wondering what's happened to Sy Hersh? We've heard snippets of university presentations; he's intimated that there's more (and that it's worse than what we've seen to date).
What the heck are you waiting for, Seymour? Karl Rove to green-light the project? Hell, Rove doesn't care anymore. He's good to go; his work is done. So, Sy, let it fly. It's time for America to confront the ugliness that we've let pass for humanity. It's way past time to see the real deal on the frat hazing incidents. Hersh said it best himself:
"How could eight or nine neoconservatives come and take charge of this government?" he asked. "They overran the bureaucracy, they overran the Congress, they overran the press, and they overran the military! So you say to yourself, How fragile is this democracy?"
How fragile indeed, Sy, when a voice that America so desperately needed to hear didn't produce the smoking gun when we needed it the most. And, gentle reader? Ask yourself, "why didn't he?".
